Numerous gym owners and managers still utilize various standalone applications to deal with billing and invoicing, not realizing that solutions featuring an integrated club invoicing software provide much more in terms of functionality and benefits to the business as a whole.
First of all, there is the constant threat of incompatibility issues caused by the fact that software developers around the world are still unable to gel their applications to work flawlessly on different software platforms and in combination with countless selections of third-party software. IT experts agree that the lower the number of applications used by business customers, the better. Not that limiting the number of actively used business applications will prevent all possible hardware and software crashes, but the implementation of an integrated software system usually lowers the number of unexpected software errors, while helps decrease the number of human errors, which are usual when more than one software application is used for billing and accounting purposes.
Modern-day integrated solutions are designed to provide variety of functional capabilities aimed at dealing with numerous business processes, starting from accounting, to marketing, to invoicing, to sales, to post-sales. Therefore, by implementing a single integrated module by a reputable software vendor, a fitness center gets a solution that fits all its needs and requirements, lowering related software support and maintenance costs in the process.
Comparing the prices of standalone solutions and their integrated counterparts is not an easy task, for those two categories of club invoicing software are hardly comparable in terms of functionality, options, configurability, and compatibility with third-party software. A professionally designed integrated module, featuring invoicing functionality among others, would be priced higher than a single invoicing application, but the price is distributed among other functions like marketing functionality, or sales functionality, etc., which results in a far lower pricing compared to the purchase of single applications, which are able to deal with all those processes separately.
Although highly unlikely, there is still a chance that an invoicing application would be unable to export or import data to and from particular billing and accounting software, while the chance to experience incompatibility issues when using other sophisticated business software systems is proportionally higher. There is no common sense in purchasing a standalone solution featuring limited functionality, while a good number of integrated solutions in the market are offered under affordable monthly payment schemes thus allowing both single gyms and large chains of fitness centers to avoid large one-time investment in new software.
Intuitive interface and ease of use are crucial factors determining the worth of a business software application, while a popular fallacy tells that standalone applications are easier to learn compared to complex solutions. Interestingly, no one complains that a word processing application performs tasks like grammar and spell checking, page design, print layout design, etc. but a group of pundits insist that the same is not allowed for other types of software. In fact, the software industry is moving toward integrated solutions in the field of business software because such applications provide better value for money ratio help reduce overall costs of running a business.
To conclude, single invoicing applications are still popular among small business owners, but those managers who are looking for a valuable and economically beneficial solution in the long run would select club invoicing software that is incorporated into an integrated fitness management system.
