Maintenance and support - good maintenance and support should include:

Full or multiple levels of software support and maintenance, which the user may subscribe to

A Service Level Agreement with escalation procedures

Support for your organisation, in your geographical location

Web based support portal eg with online fault / query submission, download fixes / product information

Help desk telephone support

Responding to queries / faults within the quoted time scales

Providing fixes to repair faults

Regularly (annually) releasing functional / legislative software upgrade(s)

Easy upgrade path

Provision for Software Escrow

Implementation assistance - good implementation assistance should include:

Initial user / familiarisation training

Software / system installation

Project management services

Business / system analysis

System tailoring and testing

Report development

Data take-on / conversion

Consultancy services

User training - good user training should include:

Flexible training courses such as:

• open courses
• bespoke / configurable user training, either on or off-site

Training courses via the internet, DVD, CBT, or training manuals

User documentation that is:

• clear and easy to read
• indexed and cross referenced
• and contains details of output screens, reports, system commands, error messages and corrective actions

Documentation that explains how the software should be:

• implemented
• used and controlled

Vendor / support organisation expertise and reputation - good vendor support organisation should have:

Accredited products eg ISO 9001: 2000

A financially sound and stable business, with clean audits of annual accounts

Good status and reputation with the software they are providing

A number of staff with the required expertise, to assist with implementation, provide maintenance and support and to develop future enhancements / new versions

A number of current users / customers who find the software satisfactory for their purposes

A number of users / customers who offer potential client reference site visits / enquiries

An ongoing / continual software improvement and development programme

Future software development plans that are in-line with your future needs

For additional ‘key software criteria’ visit: software efficiency criteria or

For other software criteria, click: Accounting software criteria / CRM software criteria / HR software criteria / Payroll software criteria