Outgrown your finance system? The cost of staying small

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The short version

• Staying with a finance system you’ve outgrown can cost more than switching
• Finance leaders are often held back because they fear the cost and disruption of moving
• Mid-market systems now fill the gap between entry-level software and corporate ERP systems
• The hidden costs of staying put can include wasted time, errors, higher audit fees and loss of good staff.  

Hundreds of thousands of organisations run their finances on entry-level systems such as Xero, QuickBooks or Sage 50. Many are pushing those systems well past what they were built to handle.

The usual reason is cost. NetSuite, Sage Intacct and Microsoft Dynamics have a reputation for six-figure implementations and lengthy rollouts, so staying put can seem like the safer, cheaper option. But staying has its own costs, and they tend to be less visible. Those costs can include the many hours lost to manual processes, the errors that come from rekeying data, the higher audit fees – and the cost of replacing staff who start looking elsewhere.

This article sets out what those costs look like and how moving systems can be a more viable option than you might have thought.

What does it cost to stay on an entry-level system too long?

Sticking with an entry-level or on-premises system can cost more than the software itself because of the impact in time, accuracy and staff retention.

• The time taken to carry out manual processes every month can eat up the available hours.
• The likelihood of error is increased by the need to rekey data.
• Audits take longer and cost more to complete – and compliance risks are raised
• Decisions are made on data nobody fully trusts
• It becomes harder to retain finance talent because people are stuck doing unnecessarily manual work.

A survey published in 2024 by BlackLine found 68% of respondents said that manual finance work left their organisation vulnerable to errors that could undermine business decision making. Almost two thirds said the overwhelming volume of manual day-to-day work left little or no time for proper financial planning and analysis.

PwC's UK Finance Effectiveness Benchmarking Report found that 30-40% of a typical finance team's processing time could be eliminated through automation and process change – often the equivalent of 10 or more working days a month.

Why do organisations stay on entry-level systems past the point they've outgrown them?

Most organisations stay on entry-level systems past the point they've outgrown them because the alternative looks unaffordable and disruptive. Systems like NetSuite, Sage Intacct and Microsoft Dynamics carry a reputation for six-figure implementation costs and rollouts that can run the best part of a year, so staying put feels like the lower-risk option even once the cracks are showing.

Is there a mid-market alternative between entry-level software and enterprise ERP?

Yes. Mid-market finance systems now sit between entry-level software and full enterprise ERP, offering comparable core functionality without the enterprise price tag or year-long rollout.

iplicit is one of them, built specifically to give growing organisations enterprise-level financial tooling at a cost and implementation timeline that a mid-market business or charity can commit to.

The charity ellenor ended its reliance on error-prone interlinked spreadsheets by moving from Sage 50 to iplicit. RRC International saved time and improved accuracy by automating bank reconciliation and other general ledger reconciliations.  

Since the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering switched to iplicit from Exchequer, staff no longer have to put in days of extra work to get the year-end accounts ready for audit.  At Excalibur Academies Trust, the move to iplicit from Sage 200 and Civica Financials saved 2-3 weeks of work for the finance team at audit time.

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Staying small has a cost. So does moving – but it’s lower than it used to be

If the problems outlined above seem familiar, you’ve already outgrown your existing system. The question is whether the cost of staying (in time, accuracy and the people you can't retain) is still smaller than the cost of moving. For a long time, for a lot of organisations, it was. That gap has narrowed considerably.

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See for yourself

See how iplicit fits between entry-level and enterprise in our quick tour – or book a demo to see it against your own data.