Assessing the benefits of an ERP implementation in SMEs. An approach from the accountant´s perspective

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to investigate by first-hand the level of satisfaction of the CEOs with the ERP system testing the benefits of its implementation on the company in four aspects, accounting, organizational, external or internal, that the adoption of an ERP system may entail to small and medium sized enterprises. A survey was designed to measure the accountants’ perception of the level of implementation of ERP in their companies. The sample consisted on 175 accountants from Spanish companies. To identify the best explanatory variables in order to test the hypothesis, a discriminant analysis for dimensionality reduction was used, choosing the factorial analysis. Finally, a post hoc analysis to investigate which factors affect the user satisfaction of ERP in business was carried out using multiple regression method (backward stepwise). The empirical evidence from a web-based survey with 175 Spanish SMEs confirms that an ERP system brings a variety of benefits including organizational, external and internal to an SME, and focusing on accounting there are a number of accounting benefits derived from ERP systems particularly for accounting process. The findings will be valuable to any business that wants to implement an ERP deeper in small businesses. This work significantly contributes to the existing body of ERP benefits knowledge to the SMEs in the light of the resource-based view, strengthens the literature about the topic because the use of theories in ERP literature in SMEs is still very limited.