If your company has reached the point where you’re debating between an off the shelf product or custom software design, there are a few things you should consider.

For one thing, off-the-shelf software may not meet all your needs and may not have the ability to be altered to suit your needs. If the off the shelf product can be altered to suit your specific needs, there may be an additional expense anyway. Most of these pre-made packages also have regular licensing fees that can cost upwards of thousands of dollars each year. What seemed like an inexpensive alternative to custom software to begin with may not be such a great value after all. Another issue is that you have no control over the off the shelf product. Updates, fixes and new features are provided on the company’s time table, not yours.

In the end, the decision is yours to make as the business owner or officer; but keep in mind that not all such decisions are a simple matter of a price tag. The long-term benefits of custom designed software may far outweigh the money saved immediately by buying an off the shelf product.