Our customers are moving quickly from perpetual software licenses to cloud subscriptions. This post explains why subscriptions are on the rise and how to choose the right Serenic package for your needs.
In the past, the dominant software licensing model was to purchase perpetual licenses for software which would run on hardware owned by the customer and located either at the customer location or a data center. Maintenance of the software was under the customer’s direction and control – for example, scheduling and applying upgrades patches and security fixes.
For many nonprofits, especially smaller organizations, the IT burden of maintaining software and servers is greater than the benefit. For them, cloud computing offers the opportunity to receive the same (or greater) quality of software product, but without the upfront capital expense and responsibility for the infrastructure.
Security Benefits
Security is the primary concern when you consider moving sensitive information to the cloud. There have been some pretty big news stories of data being compromised, and that can be cause a great deal of apprehension.
Serenic installs and maintains their software programs on the Microsoft cloud platform, which complies with the latest security standards such as ISO/IEC 27001:2005 (i.e., ISO 27001). Your data is stored on redundant servers in different locations, secured at multiple levels, including locks, video cameras, biometrics, and guards. Microsoft is proactively monitoring the system for problems, with anti-virus technology, backup and disaster recovery, and data privacy protocols in place. Microsoft guarantees uptime with a service level agreement (SLA).
Calculating the Impact from a Subscription Investment
Subscription pricing makes it easier to calculate the return on your investment because it does not involve high startup costs which were needed for perpetual licensing. The return is largely based on productivity improvements. We understand that every dollar you have was given to you with the expectation that it be used to support your mission. Customers tell us that they spend hours, days, and weeks working with their financial data to show how spend their funds. Serenic’s products were designed to relieve pain points like these:
Compiling my year-end reports takes 4-5 days.
I have to manage my funds in a spreadsheet. – Sometimes this means monies from separate funding sources, and sometimes it means tracking unrestricted, temporarily restricted, and permanently restricted funds.
It takes several days each month to allocate salaries across projects.
We were dinged on our last audit because our current software did not include a strict enough audit trail.
Time is money, so all the time that you spend on inefficient, manual processes is costing your organization money, the same money that we know you would rather spend on the programs and projects that serve your mission.
So, start thinking about the hours spent working around your software as costs to your organization:
How many hours a month do you spend working in Excel because you can’t get what you need from your software?
How many hours a month do you spend entering data into multiple systems (e.g., a constituent management program and your financial program)?
How much time did you lose in the last 1-3 years as you upgraded your software?
How much does your IT cost you? Do you have an IT staff, or do you have to outsource?
Now, to be conservative, assume that going to an online accounting product will reduce those costs by 75 percent. Now, multiply that number by your personnel costs.
I’m going to bet that you’ll be surprised by the number, and you’re going to want to find a solution. For example, one of our prospects spends 20-24 hours a month re-allocating their payroll. With this function in Serenic Navigator alone, they could save at least $8,000 annually. Serenic Subscription Offerings
Serenic offers all our products in the cloud as well as Microsoft products as a Cloud Solution Provider. Here are the subscriptions for Serenic Navigator:
Essential User: includes full read/write access to all core financial applications – GL, Allocations, Cash Mgmt, Budget Mgmt, Cash Mgmt, AR, Sales Orders, AP, Purchase Orders, Requisitions, Basic Inventory, Fixed Assets and Payroll for up to 50 employees
Note: additional Payroll licensing options are available as needed for 51 or more employees;
Premium User: includes all of the above as described for an Essential Users + Service Management and Manufacturing functionality as provided by Microsoft for Dynamics 365 Business Central’
Team User: provides full read and limited write capability for key functions such as Requisition entry, Approvals and Time & Expense entry;
Subscriptions are assigned to each user. You can optimize the subscription costs by choosing the mix of subscription types to suit your requirements.
