Operations
The real cost of running on four apps
Each one was cheap. Each one solved a real problem. The expensive part is the person who reconciles them, and the decisions made on stale numbers.
Nobody sets out to run a business on four disconnected systems. It happens one sensible decision at a time. Billing software because the old book was slow. A separate app for stock because the billing software did not do it well. A spreadsheet for credit because neither handled it. Something for payroll because the accountant asked.
Each decision was correct in isolation. The result is not.
Where the money actually goes
Not the subscriptions. Add them up and the total is usually modest — often less than a single employee's monthly cost.
The expense is in three places that never appear on an invoice:
- Re-entry. The same invoice typed into billing and again into accounts. Not slow, exactly — a couple of minutes. Multiplied by every transaction, every day.
- Reconciliation. Somebody has to decide which system is right when two disagree, and that person is usually the owner, doing it at night.
- Decisions on stale numbers. The stock figure you order against is the one from the last time somebody updated it. The gap between that moment and now is where over-ordering lives.
The test
Pick one number that matters — what you are owed, what is on the shelf, what a product line earned last month. Ask how many places it exists, and which one is authoritative.
If the answer takes more than a sentence, you have found the cost.
Consolidation is not automatically the answer
Replacing four systems with one only helps if the one does all four jobs adequately. A single system that handles billing brilliantly and stock badly can be worse than two systems that each do their job, because now the bad part is load-bearing.
Be specific about which of the four are actually connected in your head — where you personally carry a number from one place to another. Those are the joins worth closing. The rest may be fine where they are.