I recently had a conversation with a company that purchased software that wasn’t specific to their industry (the Fastener Industry).  They are two years into the implementation of the new software and they have paid 4 times the quoted price for the software. Worse than that, they are spending much more in support fees and labor to use the software than it cost to run their old software.

I wish that this was an isolated instance. It isn’t. Many of the additional fees that they paid were for “enhancements, modifications, consulting services and custom programming” all of which they assumed would be in a “big system” like the one that they bought.

They are still dealing with issues that are costing them money every day. They frequently have orders that are 100 lines long or longer, something that is very common in the Fastener Industry. Their old software allowed for the insertion of a line in the order. This is very important because the orders are often in size sequence or they need to be in the proper sequence so that the Packing Slip matches the Purchase Order.

The new software has no provision for this, so when they make a mistake, which is often, they have to delete the order and re-enter the whole thing.

Another issue is that the new software only allows 40 characters for the primary product description (the one that shows on the screen). That simply isn’t long enough to properly describe many Fasteners.  There are no easy solutions to these problems because they are part of the basic design of the new software.

The client has no recourse. The 21 page contract that they signed removes the software company from responsibility for this type of issue completely. Be sure that you do your homework Details are huge.