Brief Discussion about
Customization Capabilities
In the 1980s, the most successful accounting software
developers allowed users to modify their products' source codes—the
underlying programming that could be altered only with the vendor's
permission—and even then only a programmer with knowledge of the
product could modify the source codes to add fields, calculations and
capabilities to the product.
Many users accepted vendors' invitations to modify the
software. But they soon discovered modification was a very expensive and
complicated job, involving months of programming. Worse, while such
efforts were successful for many customers, others were left in chaos
when the modifications didn't work properly, leaving their financial
recording and reporting tools inoperative or badly compromised.
Source code modification had an even graver drawback.
Once a code was changed—even slightly—the product no longer could be
upgraded without losing those modifications. So the product's users
faced a no-win choice: If they wanted to upgrade, they had to forgo all
the modifications that had made the product fit their specific needs.
The vendors also were unhappy: They couldn't generate new revenue
because, after spending a fortune modifying a product, users generally
opted to stick with the old version rather than risking—and
financing—a second source code modification.
A further complication was the fierce competition
among vendors to add as many features to their software as possible on
the theory that, if they didn't, their products wouldn't rate well
against the competition in the comparison reviews featured in many
professional magazines and trade journals. And as more features were
added, the software became more difficult to use.
Today, most of the leading accounting software
products offer a good alternative to source code modification. Instead
of changing the underlying codes, the developers now develop their
products with built-in customizing tools that are easy to use. For
example, many of today's products provide user-definable fields —
those that aren't earmarked for any particular function but that allow
customers to attach their own custom functions and labels to them. Thus,
users can create special fields to accommodate additional information
for customers, vendors, employees, inventory items and jobs.
User-definable fields now are found in accounting software packages of
all price ranges including the economy-priced Peachtree Complete
Accounting for Windows, the mid-priced TRAVERSE and the higher-priced
Great Plains eEnterprise.
There are many levels of customization as follows:
Financial reports. The most
commonplace customization capability is the ability to create new
financial statements or edit existing formats. Some products also allow
users to change fonts, add lines and even insert a company logo.
However, although such customization is widely available in today's top
packages, some products still can't produce custom-tailored financial
statement.
Forms. With this feature, a user can
tailor a program's forms formats, adding or rearranging information on
payroll checks, invoices and packing slips. For example, a user might
want to continue using old preprinted checks or invoices even though the
company has just upgraded to a different accounting system. This
customization feature allows the user to adjust the printing to fit the
old design.
Input screens. This lets the user
customize input screens—a feature that many leading vendors have added
in the last few years—so fields can be added to track additional data
about a customer, an inventory item or a job. Users typically can
rename, rearrange and even hide existing fields. More sophisticated
customization tools allow the user to validate data entered into the
system, force (override) data and even calculate data based on other
information entered elsewhere in the system. Other sophisticated
features include the ability to set the tab order of user fields, insert
drop-down boxes (menus) and embed third-party software applications that
will appear on the input screen.
Source code. In many cases, it's
possible to purchase the rights to modify the product's source code.
While this isn't as necessary today as it once was, some companies have
unique needs that require it.
Some accounting products allow users to implement
customizations for just one user, a specific group, or all users. Others
provide the customization tools as part of the standard product or they
sell special software tools for that purpose. Still others discourage
users from customizing their software, leaving that to their value-added
resellers (VARs). For example, Microsoft's Solomon IV provides extensive
customization tools for users while ACCPAC Professional Series provides its
VARs with a customization tool kit designed to help them implement
custom changes for their customers.
Click here to read our more in
depth article about customization
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