A Review of
BusinessWorks
By J. Carlton Collins, CPA

What Makes Best Software's BusinessWorks Different?

When reviewing any accounting software solution, I think that it is important to understand how the product is different from its’ competitors. All products are developed with different tools, different philosophies, and with different objectives in mind. All products are targeted towards different sized customers, and different industries. When evaluating products, it is easy to get bogged down in the overwhelming complexity of the systems. The reality is that all accounting systems have a general ledger with account numbers and financial reports; they all have an average accounts payable module that works fine; they all have a bevy of standard features. Studying these common elements of an accounting system will get you nowhere. It is the key differences that provide keen insights that will allow you to effectively identify and select the right product for your needs. With this spirit in mind, presented below are the key characteristics that set BusinessWorks apart from its competitors:    

Focus on CPAs - 

Backed by Large Accounting Software Company - BusinessWorks is backed by one of the largest accounting software publishers in the world - Sage Software / Best Software US Operations. Unlike other accounting software companies such as Computer Associates, Oracle, and Microsoft, Best Software is dedicated solely to the accounting software market. This is an important note because other larger companies may be distracted or more focused on other product divisions such as databases for example. Because Best Software's success is solely dependent on it's accounting software solutions, I think that this forces the company to keep their focus on those solutions - which makes Best Software's accounting software products a better bet over the long haul. 

Strong BOMP - 

Wide Breadth of Modules -  

Customize User Screens - 

Fixed Assets -  between these two products.

ACT! 2000 & Sales Logix - Best Software also owns ACT! and Sales Logix, perhaps the best value in contact management and CRM solutions on the planet today. Once again, because BusinessWorks, ACT! 2000 and Sales Logix are owned by the same company, this virtually assures tight integration between these products.

Abra Human Resources - Best Software also owns Abra Human Resources, perhaps the best value in HR solutions in the mid-market arena. Yet again, because MAS 90 and Abra are owned by the same company, this virtually assures tight integration between these two products.

Business Alerts & Business Insight Modules – MAS 90’s Business Alerts allows you to create event triggered reports, which are then e-mailed to the appropriate persons in the event that a preset parameter is exceeded. These automatic, user-defined e-mail notifications can inform you, your sales representatives, your customers, employees, and vendors of date and time-sensitive events. Along similar lines, MAS 90's Business Intelligence module offers an executive dashboard for at-a-glance monitoring of key company information, ratios, and data.

Visual Integrator Module – MAS 90’s Visual Integrator module allows you to build-in integration to other applications. To accomplish this feat, MAS 90 uses the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) standard. Using ODBC, Visual Integrator allows you to schedule imports or exports of data directly to or from any ODBC-compliant application such as a custom or vertical software application. At the same time, MAS 90 applies business logic to maintain data integrity.

Crystal Reports, FRx, F9, & Excel – When it comes to financial reporting, there are no better tools than Crystal Reports, FRx, F9, & Excel. MAS 90 is well integrated with all four of these products. Crystal Reports is an industry standard report writing tool that enables the user to extract virtually any data out of the MAS 90 system and produce presentation-quality output. Further, all of the reports in MAS 90, including check forms, invoices, packing slips, etc are written in Crystal Reports, which makes it easy to edit these reports. FRx is the industry standard when it comes to financial statement reporting – nobody does it better. With FRx, financial statements can be scheduled and e-mailed to users, or groups of users, complete with password protection both at the report level and drill down level. And of course Microsoft Excel is the ultimate power users tool. Because the ODBC drivers are automatically installed with MAS 90, all MAS 90 systems are ready to export, import or hot-link to Excel. With F9, this process is even easier.

Custom Office - the Custom Office feature within MAS 90 allows you to send a personalized letter or e-mail with just one click of the mouse. This is a great productivity tool which allows users to easily communicate. For example, assume a user has toggled to the customer screen and is viewing the customer data for a particular customer. The user clicks the Custom Office button at the bottom of the screen which launches a menu of Word documents, Excel Templates, and e-mails. The user clicks on the e-mail entitled good customer discount, and immediately, an e-mail is sent to the customer notifying them that an additional .5% discount has been extended.  It is a great feature, and you should take a look at it if you get the chance. 

Weaknesses - MAS 90 is certainly not without problems – as with any top product, MAS 90 contains weaknesses, missing features, missing modules and shortcomings. MAS 90 is not targeted towards businesses of every size, nor is it ideally suited for every industry. We have compiled a detailed list of these weaknesses, including screen-by-screen evidence of some of the key weaknesses. You can view these weaknesses here.

______________

Read our Mission Statement
Read our Disclosure Statement
Read our Disclaimer Statement