Financial Management - Price - Usability - Assessment Answer

Financial Management Assignment

Assignment Task

Introduction

There are a number of financial management software available in the market. Even there are android apps and iOS apps are available in the marker which works on Android phones and Apple phones respectively. However, our focus is restricted to commercially available financial management software.

3 commercially chosen financial management software for the purpose of assignment are as under:

1. XERO Financial Management Software
2. Workday Financial Management Software
3. MYOB Financial Management Software

Evaluation of financial management software

XERO Financial Management Software

XERO comes with attractive monthly billing plans. The plan price ranges from USD20 to USD40 per month depending upon the plan type(XERO 2016).

XERO is good for online accounting and financial analysis. As this software is available online, it is easy to use it by multiple users. However, this software is more suited to small business and may not cater to the needs of medium and big enterprises.

XERO provides automatic bank reconciliations, smart reports, dashboard etc. For financial analysis it provides, regular reports, budget manager and over 40 other types of reports.

XERO is highly compatible with other programs. The website of XERO claims that this product can be used along with 400 plus applications. One of the plus point of XERO is that it is available for almost any software platform. XERO has various modules which helps other specialist to interact with finance module.

The advantages of XERO software is ease of use, feature set, attractive GUI, automation of work such as automatic bank feeds. It also has excellent dashboard for viewing the reports. This is well supported by a high number of add-ons available for XERO. Some of the add-ons are Vend, Shopify, Workflow Max, Receipt Bank etc. However, XERO is not suitable for high number of business transaction and may not be suited for big enterprises.

Workday Financial management software

Price of Workday depends upon the implementation cost and workday can be tailored to the needs of the business and thus a sort of ERP software(Workday 2016). Hence to readymade price is available for workday software.

Workday software can be used in almost any aspect of the business. This is cloud based and also available for various other platforms including smartphone apps.

Workday has a dedicated module for financial management reporting. This software provides an in-depth financial reporting, which can help the business analysis the day to day transaction with the objective of cost reduction and performance improvement. Workday focuses on the various aspect of business such as revenue management, expense management, financial reporting, grants management etc. The focus is on improving the standard operating procedures. It can manage multi-contact revenue goals, automate the revenue process, it also helps in generating business forecasting. Workday also provides a variety of management reports and the facility to draft the report formats.

Workday has a large client base and suited for medium and big enterprises. User can export the reports in other formats such as MS Excel formats etc. Workday provides various modules which are integrated with each other, hence this software helps various specialist work simultaneously and improve company performance. The advantages of Workday software is that it provides deep level of analysis. The disadvantage is that it is a bit costly and not suitable for small enterprises.

MYOB Financial management software

MYOB is basically an accounting software which is widely used by small and medium enterprises in Australia. Though MYOB is basically an accounting software, it does have tools for financial management(Curtis 2007).

Price of MYOB differs for different versions. Basic online plans starts from $35 per month to $ 110 per month. MYOB tends to update their versions, and sometimes the new version is not compatible with the older version, and in such case users has to purchase the new version.

The best feature of MYOB is that it is widely used small and medium enterprises. MYOB has all the basic functions besides advanced functions. User can customize the reports and there is a feature to submit the online tax forms(MYOB 2013). The accounting data collected by the system is used for the purpose of financial management. MYOB provides facility to export the reports in various formats such as MS Excel. Besides that there are a number of great add-ins available which increases the utility of MYOB. This software uses relational database system and thus multiple users and specialist can work with this system. For example, inventory department can create the inventory order form and accounting department can convert this from in to invoice. Later on finance manager can use this fata for analysis purposes.

The advantage of MYOB software is that it is widely used and it is easy to find accountants who are expert in MYOB. Secondly it has various versions to cater the need of small as well as medium to large enterprises. The disadvantage is that MYOB may not be well suited for ERP requirements for big enterprises.

Recommendation

XERO accounting software has the least price and provides basic functionality. MYOB stands next in term of pricing and Workday is the most costly software. Hence, for a startup business it may be a suitable option to go for MYOB as it does not cost on the higher side and provides rich features. As soon as the number of transactions and business turnover increases, business can switch to Workday software.

Thus from the above discussion it is clear that each software has its advantages as well as disadvantages. Users has to match these advantages and disadvantages with their requirements and choose the accounting software accordingly. Though the pricing factor is important still users need not compromise on features and requirements due to higher price.

Having compared all the above software, it appears that Workday is most suitable software for financial management. However, it may be a bit costly as compared to other alternatives, but the in-depth analysis provided by Workday software is unmatched.