QuickBooks is a reliable accounting solution for small businesses, often serving as a launchpad for manufacturers just starting out. However, as your company grows, so do your needs, and the financial software begins to reveal its limitations.
Whether you’ve been using QuickBooks Online, Desktop, or Inventory Tracker, the multitude of spreadsheets, workarounds, and disconnected systems can only carry your business so far. If your manufacturing operation involves custom products, multi-step production, dealer orders, or multiple locations, it’s time to explore an ERP system designed specifically for manufacturers, like Frontier ERP.
8 Signs It’s Time to Kiss QuickBooks Goodbye
1. You’re Using Too Many Workarounds
QuickBooks handles general accounting well, but it was never meant to manage a full-scale manufacturing operation. If you’re relying on manual processes and spreadsheets for any of the following, you’re working harder than you need to.
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Track work-in-progress throughout the production cycle
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Inventory control, including monitoring levels and locations
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Manage order configurations, pricing, and quoting
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Kick the hassles to the curb! Don’t rely on QuickBooks for managing your manufacturing operations. Try a Frontier ERP demo today!
Schedule production across multiple work centers
These workarounds create data silos, increase the chance for data entry errors, and slow down decision-making. With Frontier ERP, all business functions, from quoting and order entry to inventory and financials, are integrated into one connected system. That means less rework, faster order turnaround, and real-time data you can trust.
2. Your Finance Team Is Constantly Chasing Data
Even though QuickBooks is accounting software, it falls short when it comes to advanced financial management for manufacturers. As your business becomes more complex, your finance team needs tools to:
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Track job-level profitability
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Analyze the cost of goods sold tied directly to production runs
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Manage intercompany transfers or cost allocations
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Create budget forecasts tied to production planning
Frontier ERP includes a comprehensive financial suite that integrates directly with inventory, purchasing, production, and sales. You gain real-time visibility into accounts receivable and payable, job costing, GL entries linked to actual production activity, and multi-level financial reporting. The result? Fewer surprises, cleaner audits, and smarter financial planning—all in one place.
3. Your Customers Expect Self-Service Options
Today’s B2B buyers want the same convenience they get from consumer eCommerce sites. If you’re still handling all sales orders, updates, and service requests by phone or email, you’re missing a major opportunity to save time and boost customer satisfaction.
Frontier ERP supports a range of self-service customer portals that allow your dealers, partners, or end customers to:
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View order history
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Track shipments and production status
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Submit new orders with product configuration tools
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Download invoices and documents
These portals connect directly to your ERP data and notify sales, scheduling, production, and finance team members of recent activity. This means that the information is always accurate and always up to date, without extra work for your internal teams.
4. Custom Orders Are Slowing You Down
If you manufacture to customer specifications—custom sizes, materials, finishes, or configurations—managing those variations manually in QuickBooks becomes time-consuming and error-prone.
Frontier ERP includes built-in CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) functionality, making quoting and order entry for configurable products fast and accurate. Users can:
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Select from a parametric product configurator with visual options
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Apply complex pricing rules automatically
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Generate professional, accurate quotes and bills of material instantly
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Send orders straight to production after inventory control verification with no rekeying
If your inventory control, production, scheduling, and shipping lack visibility and real-time data, you are missing out on the best way to optimize your operations.
This eliminates quote-to-order delays and improves customer satisfaction, especially when working with a dealer network or B2B buyers.
5. QuickBooks Lacks Visibility on the Shop Floor
Without visibility, you rely on tribal knowledge or constant check-ins with your shop floor team for production updates. That’s not scalable. QuickBooks doesn’t tell you:
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What’s currently being built
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Which jobs are late or behind schedule
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If your work centers are overloaded
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If your materials have been staged for production
Frontier ERP includes MES (Manufacturing Execution System) and production control tools that give manufacturers real-time visibility into their operations. Users can track job status as it progresses, view work center capacity and load, and plan production based on material availability. As jobs move through the shop, progress updates are captured automatically, helping teams stay on schedule and make informed decisions quickly.
When everyone, from finance teams to production managers to sales reps, can see what’s happening in real time, communication improves and orders flow more smoothly.
6. Inventory Control Isn’t Controlled At All
QuickBooks doesn’t give you warehouse-level visibility, and it can’t track inventory movements across multiple locations or subassemblies in production. If your inventory levels are off, you’re probably running into:
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Stockouts of key materials or components
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Overstocking of slow-moving items
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Delays caused by missing or miscounted parts
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Waste due to duplicate purchases or poor tracking
Frontier ERP offers robust inventory control with barcode scanning, lot/serial tracking, and automated updates tied directly to purchasing, production, and shipping. You’ll reduce carrying costs, avoid shortages, and make better purchasing decisions.
7. Reporting Is Manual and Limited
QuickBooks gives you basic financial reports—but when it comes to analyzing your operations, job profitability, or production efficiency, you’re on your own.
If you find yourself doing any of the following, it’s time for a change:
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Manually exporting data to Excel for analysis
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Struggling to get a clear picture of job performance
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Making decisions based on stale or incomplete data
A growing business needs an ERP system that grows with them. Frontier ERP is a scalable and flexible software solution for manufacturers of all kinds.
Frontier ERP includes real-time dashboards and business intelligence tools that make it easy to access key performance data with just a few clicks. You can quickly view gross margin by product or job, monitor on-time delivery performance, track inventory turnover rates, identify production bottlenecks, and analyze sales and supplier performance metrics. This level of visibility leads to faster, more informed decision-making across your organization.
8. Your Business Is Growing (and QuickBooks Isn’t Keeping Up)
Growth is exciting, but it also brings complexity. Adding new product lines, opening additional warehouses or plants, expanding your dealer network, or operating across multiple states or countries can quickly push QuickBooks beyond its capabilities. As your operations scale, so do your system requirements—and that’s when it’s time to consider a more robust ERP solution.
An ERP like Frontier is built for scale. It grows with you, supporting:
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Multi-plant operations
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Dealer and customer portals
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Complex product configurations
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Multi-currency and multi-language capabilities
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High-volume data processing
Make the Switch with Confidence
Moving from QuickBooks to a full ERP system might seem like a big leap, but the payoff is real: improved accuracy, optimized operations, better financial management, and more confidence in your decisions.
Frontier ERP is designed for manufacturers of all types and industries. Whether you make cabinets, doors, windows, furniture, or any custom product, our system helps you streamline every part of your business—from quote to cash.
Ready to Learn More?
Let’s talk about how Frontier ERP can eliminate your workarounds and power your growth. Schedule a demo or contact us for a personalized consultation, or stop by our booth at AWFS® Fair 2025 in July!
