Being engaged for almost 10 years with the 1C: Enterprise system, I have seen many examples when the program, sometimes quite expensive, was useless for the final customer. Such an impressive discrepancy between reality and advertising booklets generates a shaft of criticism, and everyone has probably heard about the “bad 1C”.

But are the problems really caused by the program itself? Yes, any programs are imperfect. Yes, not everything is as good as they say in advertising. But most of the difficulties (and, perhaps, the absolute majority) of difficulties are not caused by the program. They are the result of the wrong choice of the program, its settings and use, and from both the customers and, alas, from the “1C specialists”.

Why it happens? In order to understand this, it is necessary to consider a typical unsuccessful customer novel and program, based on personal experience and real events. Immediately state two important points.
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1. My experience relates to a small, tiny and microscopic business. In larger projects, everything is possible, otherwise (but not the fact that it is better).
2. Everything described above relates primarily to solving any complex tasks of internal (managerial) accounting.

Typical automation script

Starting position: customer records are kept on paper and in Excel. Everything is happening slowly, inconveniently, data is lost, it is impossible to make a complete and clear picture on basic questions: “Who should owe us how much?”, “How many goods are there in stock?” - in general, a complete mess. The customer decides to switch to keeping all records in 1C - after all, this is the most well-known and popular program.

1. The entire leadership of the transition process "to 1C" is transferred to a senior manager, accountant or any other free employee, because the manager has a lot of things to do.
2. The program is selected and purchased according to the following principles:
   
   • under the name: "we trade - means, Management of trade";
   • “Like colleagues in the next office”;
   • “As an accountant will say” - accounting solutions from 1C are primarily associated with “1C: Accounting”.
   In the best case, the customer independently reads information on the Internet on the topic of automation, for half an hour.
3. The program is purchased and installed. The customer is trying to get started. Nothing is clear, nothing works.
4. The customer refers to the first available firm to "1C specialists". There, having listened to him for 10 minutes, they immediately offered to buy another program. It is perfect, and their experienced specialists will set up everything turnkey.
5. A boy arrives, installs a new program, for a couple of hours under the record shows which buttons and in what order to press. All the questions: “We would like something else” and “We are uncomfortable with this” are answered: “This is impossible, work like everyone else.” At parting, the boy offers to read books, or further pay for additional work at an hourly rate with an indefinite duration.

Result achieved: After several attempts to read a book and work “at random”, the customer returns to Excel and paper. Wasted a lot of money and time. Boxes from 1C are sent to gather dust in the closet, programs are used at best for printing documents. The customer tells everyone that 1C is bad and stupid.

... and his full exposure

Let us analyze the errors from the scenario described above, also by points.

1. Customer's participation in the automation process is as important as the contractor.

The process must be supervised by the customer or someone competent enough to understand all the internal processes of the company. In other words, it should be the one who is fully aware of all the tasks for which the transition to 1C is being undertaken. This person must have the authority to make any necessary decisions. Naturally, the customer representative should have enough free time and be interested in the successful outcome of the transition.

The approach to the task in the style of “do us everything as you see fit, and then we'll see” is a priori doomed to failure.

2. Choosing the right program is a critical thing.

Incorrectly chosen solution will inevitably lead to problems - up to the complete impossibility to solve the tasks. Program selection cannot be made by name. You can’t rely on acquaintances, colleagues or competitors - they may have (and in fact - surely there are) different specifics and priorities, and it’s not at all the fact that they themselves did not make the mistakes described above. You can not delegate this task to an accountant - accounting has its own accounting and its tasks. A little better solution is to carefully study a large amount of information: what configurations exist, what they can, where they are used. However, this does not guarantee anything at all. Without being an expert and having no relevant experience, it is impossible to distinguish advertising junk from really important information, determine the sufficiency of the stated possibilities for solving specific tasks, separate real feedback from the complaints of victims of the “typical automation scenario”.

Unfortunately, the customer who does not have the relevant experience will most likely not be able to choose the right solution on his own, except for guessing. This task should be solved together with a qualified specialist. And yes, it also means that you need to contact the specialists at the very beginning, strictly before buying any programs. I will tell you how to find a qualified specialist (hereinafter referred to as an “implementer”) a little later.

3. Out-of-box solution does not work.

Since the management accounting tasks of each customer, despite their external similarity, are different, the solutions are different. It is not enough to install the program - this is the simplest, although there are some nuances here. It is necessary to set up the program as precisely as possible and adapt it to the requirements of a specific customer, taking full advantage of the flexibility of 1C solutions. This process of customization and adaptation is called “implementation”, and the introduction of acquired programs is the most important and difficult part of the work in solving automation problems. If you minimize the implementation, it will inevitably lead to the fact that instead of automation, the work will only be complicated. A very small part of the program’s capabilities will be used, or the customer will refuse it altogether.

One should not think that the fact of buying a program cancels the need to use it correctly. High-quality implementation is a strictly necessary condition for the successful outcome of the automation process. Trying to work out of the box - most often, throw money into nowhere.

4. How to find a good implementer

Of course, it is impossible to give any precise and precise instructions here. Without being an expert yourself, it is impossible to determine someone else's qualifications. Obviously, it will not be possible to determine in advance the business and personal qualities of a person who seems to be a specialist. You can not just as well navigate the price list and the size of the sign. But one useful recommendation can still be given. Since the tasks are set unique, the approach to their solution must be individual. This means that any project starts with serious, very desirable - personal, negotiations. In the course of the negotiations, the implementer has to go into the tasks in detail, study the business processes to be automated, create a picture of the real needs of the customer, and only after that offer a solution.

If, after 5 minutes of conversation, you are offered to buy something, promising that it will ideally solve all the problems, and after the purchase, when you work, you should sort out the issues in detail - you should stay away from such “experts”.

5. How to understand that something went wrong

It so happens that the implementer made a good impression, and the work seems to have gone, but it seems that something is wrong. Here are some characteristic signs that the introduction of the program comes to a standstill.

• Mastering the work with the program is based on the principle “press the buttons in a strict order”. The implementer either does not try or directly refuses to explain in detail the meaning of the operations performed and the mechanisms used, since “everything is too complicated” and “you still don’t understand anything”.
  The implementer should explain in detail the actions performed, the settings to be set and the mechanisms used. The customer should know when working with the program, what he does and why. Mechanical learning of work methods instead of their conscious understanding will not lead to anything good.
• The rogue does not try to penetrate deep into the essence of the challenges, imposing a standard solution instead. All questions and suggestions about the inconvenience of the proposed order of work are immediately rejected with comments: "This is impossible," "1C does not know how," "It is not right, everyone works differently."
  As I have repeatedly written, the tasks of any customer are unique in their own way, and 1C solutions are very flexible. Any reasonable problem can be solved. If trying to replace real-world problems with template tools for an average company, this is a deliberately dead-end path.
• The implementer writes down in detail and literally fulfills any wishes on setting up and finalizing the program, without at all trying to figure out why this is needed, how the initial task is set, why such an outcome is needed, and suggest, guided by his experience, some optimal solution. This is the reverse of the previous point case, which is no better.
  It should be understood that the user's idea of ​​how to solve the problem is not always correct. An experienced implementer in the first place always looks at what task should be solved, and not by what means, according to the customer, this should be done. The use of obviously not optimal (and often even completely wrong) approaches will inevitably lead to serious problems in the future, even if everything seems perfect right now.
• The implementation process is delayed without visible results. An implementer does something, but there are no visible results, he cannot clearly explain what is happening. The questions may be followed by the answers “the task is difficult, it takes a lot of time”, “the computer is slow” and the like.
  The tasks of automating a small business, subject to the availability of all necessary from the customer, are solved quickly enough. There can be no really difficult tasks that require many months of work by qualified specialists (and if they can, the price will be appropriate). An implementer at any time should clearly explain what has already been done, what is being done and what is planned. If there are problems, the proposed solution should be reported and clearly indicated to the customer. If you leave this situation as it is, then almost guaranteed implementation will be delayed for an indefinite period with zero result.
• The implementer reports that the main part of the work has been done (in the worst case, the program is installed), and then offers to sort things out by himself (read a book, sign up for courses, etc.).
  Although detailed personnel training is usually not part of the implementer’s responsibilities, the implementation process must in any case be turnkey - from the first negotiations to the launch of the system. Quitting work halfway is completely unacceptable.

If there are any misunderstandings between the customer and the implementer, they should be immediately resolved. Do not hesitate to ask any questions you are interested in, to which clear answers should be given. Making it incomprehensible is the work of the implementer. If the contradictions could not be resolved, then such cooperation should be immediately terminated.

A small conclusion and, once again, the most important

Implementing software solutions to automate management accounting tasks is, in any case, a complex and demanding task that should be taken seriously. The effectiveness of further work with the program fully depends on the success of the implementation. The system that has been put into operation cannot be altered, you will not correct the fundamental mistakes, because this will be tantamount to a new implementation from the very beginning.

I hope my material will be useful for someone, they will begin to approach automation more responsibly, and less constructive criticism.

Successful implementations!