How long does it take to install a new accounting software system? Too long!

How long does it take to install a new accounting software system?

You can plan for an installation. Arrange times for staff to be available for training. Plan which parts of the system go live first. Do all the preparation work necessary to get the system ready to run. Make sure all the hardware is in working order. Configure every computer to run the software. Setup all the users and security access settings and then an unexpected problem arises. Despite all the preparaory work things just dont work they way the flowchart of the job said they would work.

A key person goes sick. The way the software is working does not suit the actual frontline situations when real clients appear at the counter, despite testing the software and showing it to everyone beforehand. A pricing structure that looked simple is now complicated and requires a system amendment to get it to work. A printer that worked up to yesterday decides to stop working. A network path disappears from everyones login. A printer that is required at the front desk is now also required in the back office, but there is only one printer as no one anticipated that the back office would need to use the front office printer. The stock take that was to be done but never took place and this means that the stock levels are incorrect and an out of stock messages keeps appearing. The Credit levels for clients are too low and an unexpected jump in business has taken people away from training and so you now have part trained people requiring further supervision to prevent them from causing havoc to the system by entering stock codes and prices incorrectly and sending a 1000 page print job to the wrong printer five times in sucession.

Did I metion that the cabling installed by another company is causing data corruption as the cables were not terminated properly or that there are not enough network points to connect everything to teh network and that cablers can't return for another week as they have moved on to another job.

The reality is, no matter how prepared you are and no matter how much your client says everything is there for you and the software does exactly what the other system did and even more, there is a facility that is critical to the running of the company's systems that your software does not have and may bring the entire project to a sudden stop unless a work around is discovered.

But it's the challenge. A perfect site everytime would be boring. You still need to prepare as much as possible otherwise you will get a surprise one day and it may cost someone a lot of time and money to fix.

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