Even positive change can bring anxiety when a business moves past the familiar.
Concerns can crop up when government contractors (GovCon) are ready to transition from QuickBooks to Unanet project-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Your GovCon chose Unanet, so your team can have real-time access to the information you need to keep day-to-day operations running smoothly as you expand and plot a winning strategy to grow your market. But what about potential issues, such as your staff’s learning curve, data migration glitches, and potential disruptions to business operations?
Fortunately, there are steps you can take to ease the transition from QuickBooks to Unanet. By cleaning up loose ends and putting your financial processes in order now, you can help accelerate the process and have access to Unanet advantages ASAP:
5 Steps to Prepare for a Successful Changeover to Unanet
- Make sure that your financials and books are up-to-date and accurate.
Actions you can take include ensuring that bank accounts, credit cards, and other financial accounts are reconciled in QuickBooks, with all transactions correctly categorized and recorded. Review your financial statements, such as the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement, to make sure they accurately reflect the current financial position of your company. Remove duplicate or outdated entries. - Make sure that costs are allocated to your projects.
Confirm that all project-related expenses and transactions in QuickBooks are accurately categorized and attributed to their respective projects. This includes a review of invoices, bills, expense reports, labor costs, and direct and indirect project costs. Investigate and resolve discrepancies and inconsistencies in project-related expenses and transactions. - Have a proper project setup in QuickBooks prior to starting a transition.
A proper project setup in QuickBooks can ensure you meet Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) regulations now and set you up for a smoother transition to Unanet. Use QuickBooks’ customer hierarchy setups to record project information correctly. Start with a primary client as the overall customer, then add sub-customers under this parent customer for each contract to achieve the granularity needed. - Make sure your timekeeping system in QuickBooks has unique charge codes that can be easily mapped to your new system in Unanet.
The mapping should maintain consistency in naming conventions, formats, and hierarchies to avoid confusion and errors. Each charge code in QuickBooks should be mapped to a unique charge code in Unanet. Avoid mapping multiple QuickBooks charge codes to a single Unanet code to prevent inaccuracies and difficulties in tracking time. - Consider consulting an experienced GovCon financial/accounting expert.
CAVU is a Unanet Partner and has extensive client experience with QuickBooks. We can help you set up a customized Unanet system to meet your company’s specific business needs and align with your workflow. We can help you draw up a change management plan and support your staff as they transition from QuickBooks and begin to access the advanced functionality of Unanet ERP. Feel free to contact us for more information.