How to test software in a free trial

Most trials are wasted. People log in, look at the dashboard, create one invoice and let the trial lapse. The product looks fine, because the dashboard always looks fine. What matters is whether it copes with your bank, your VAT, your payslips and your leaving. Those can be tested in an afternoon, if you prepare.

Before you start the trial

A trial clock starts the day you sign up, so do not sign up until you have what you need to hand. Pull together a test pack from the last month of your real business.

• Three or four real customer invoices, including one with VAT and one without.
• Your last bank statement as a file, and a note of which account type it is.
• Last month's payslips, if you are testing payroll or HR.
• Your last VAT201 or EMP201 figures, for comparison.
• A short list of questions you want the vendor's support to answer.

Test 1: raise a real tax invoice

Create one of your real invoices and look at it as a SARS officer or your customer's accounts clerk would. Does it say tax invoice, carry your VAT number and your customer's details, and show the VAT amount? Does it number invoices in an unbroken sequence? Check it against what a valid tax invoice needs. Then issue a credit note against it and see whether the product links the two.

Test 2: connect your own bank

Connect the account you actually use, not a demo account. If there is a feed for your bank, check that it connects and that yesterday's transactions arrive. If there is no feed, import the statement file and see how many lines you have to fix by hand. Then reconcile a full month. Fifteen minutes of this tells you more than any feature list. See bank feeds, bank by bank.

Test 3: run a VAT or payroll return from the numbers

For accounting software, enter a past VAT period and produce the VAT201 figures. Do they match the return you submitted? For payroll, run last month's payroll and compare each payslip to the cent. A difference is information. Either your old process had an error, or the new product handles something differently, and you want to know which before you pay.

Test 4: ask support a real question

Send support a question you do not know the answer to, during South African office hours, and note when you wrote and when the reply came. Ask something specific, such as how the product handles a zero rated sale or a leave cycle. You are buying the product's answers as much as its screens, and a slow reply in the trial is a slow reply when you have a deadline.

Test 5: get your data out

Before the trial ends, export what you entered. Download an invoice as a PDF. Export your customers, your ledger and your stock. Open the files. If you cannot take your data out cleanly while you are a trial user, you will not be able to when you are a customer who is leaving.

A scorecard you can copy

If the trial is too short

Many trials run for a few weeks, and a month end can fall outside them. Ask the vendor for an extension, and say what you are testing and why. A vendor that wants your business will usually agree, and one that will not is telling you how it treats customers who need help.

After the trial

1. Write down what failed, not what impressed you. Failures are what you will live with.
2. Price the plan you actually tested, for your real users and companies, not the plan that was on the front page.
3. Check the VAT basis of that price before you compare it with another, using including and excluding VAT.
4. If two products pass, choose on the support experience and the price, and read both reviews on the register.