Here at Accounting Software Advisor, the most frequent question we receive is "which accounting system should we select to meet our present and anticipated future needs?" Over the years we answered this question hundreds of times, providing quick & dirty recommendations based on the bare minimum amount of information such as size of company, industry, and business situations. Summarized below are a few insights into the "thought process" we currently follow in providing our quick & dirty responses.

LOW-END SOLUTIONS:

For companies with revenue less than $5 million, we believe that the best solutions are Peachtree for Windows, QuickBooks Pro 2000, BusinessWorks, M.Y.O.B, NetLedger and One Write Plus.

In general, if you only want to get cash in and out of the door, it's hard to beat QuickBooks Pro. The electronic banking capabilities, checkbook interface, and drill down financial statements are well suited for this task. Both One Write Plus and Peachtree for Windows are also good choices for simple cash-in/cash-out situations.

If you sell inventory, then Peachtree for Windows or BusinessWorks are definitely good options. Both of these products offer strong a sales order module with multiple pricing structures for inventory items, bill of materials processing capabilities, support for billing labor, and strong import/export capabilities. However these two products are easily differentiated based on several key features. BusinessWorks maintains multiple warehouses, serial numbers, item pictures, piece rate and billing. It also offers the strongest payroll module and a nice assortment of advanced add-on applications. However Peachtree for Windows offers a fixed assets module, strong account number structure, a proven e-commerce solution, customizable user fields, and financial alert capabilities. At $199, Peachtree for Windows is also priced more attractively than BusinessWorks which lists for $495 per module.

If you have a need to make GST (Goods & Services Taxes) or VAT (Value-Added Taxes) calculations, then M.Y.O.B. may be the best option. Primarily based on this capability, M.Y.O.B. is widely deployed outside the United States.

For those companies who have multiple locations or work from home employees, NetLedger offers a very good solution. NetLedger is a web-based accounting solution in which users simply log onto the web site and start processing their data. There is no need to purchase a file server or the software application. The cost is less than $5.00 per month in rental fees with no contract required.

MID-RANGE SOLUTIONS:

For companies with revenue ranging from $2 million to $50 million, we generally prefer to recommend Sage's MAS 90 for Windows, Great Plains Dynamics, Navision Financials, SBT ProSeries, ACCPAC for Windows, Solomon Software, Open Systems TRAVERSE, Visual Accountmate, Macola Progression or Platinum for Windows. All of these products are highly customizable and are well proven with thousands of customers. Of course  these products provide overlapping capabilities, however there are many  key modules and features that differentiate these products.

MAS 90 for Windows, Open Systems TRAVERSE and Great Plains Dynamics offer the best all-around solutions for companies in the $2 million to $25 million range, and are certainly candidates for the larger companies as well. Both products provide a wide range of modules, strong financial reporting, superior support, a good solid company backing the product. SBT ProSeries, Visual AccountMate, and ACCPAC for Windows are also good all-around candidates, but tend rely on more third party add-on modules to fill in key solutions. Platinum for Windows, Navision Financials, and Solomon Software are targeted more towards the higher end of this market.

SELECTED COMMENTS ABOUT EACH OF THESE PRODUCTS:

Open Systems TRAVERSE offers a very user friendly interface, a highly customizable database (Microsoft Access), support for multiple languages, and advanced inventory features such as multiple bins, the ability to freeze inventory, and the ability to print physical inventory count tags. Because it is written in Access, the product automatically inherits some great features such as strong interface to Microsoft Office, good support for e-mailing reports and posting data to the company Intranet. TRAVERSE fits best in the smaller companies under $25 million with needs for inventory, distribution, foreign language, and integration to other Access-based systems. The product's manufacturing solution looks good, but is still too new to be well proven. The tendency for the Access database to slow down with large volumes of transactions is the product's biggest drawback.

Macola Progression. Macola offers an extensive manufacturing solution with 13 manufacturing related modules. Macola has a rich history of meeting the distribution and manufacturing needs of small to large companies. Macola also includes good customization capabilities which include fully customizable user screens and blank user-definable data fields. Macola also offers integration with many third-party add-on applications designed to meet very specific needs such as EDI and bar coding. Macola’s 32-bit code runs atop the Microsoft SQL Server database. Macola’s primary drawback is its chart of account number which is limited to just 15 digits and 3 segments.

Both SBT ProSeries and Visual AccountMate share similar roots and were developed in Visual FoxPro and FoxPro respectively. Both products are widely deployed and offer source code in addition to strong customization capabilities. SBT ProSeries offers good core financial accounting, and relies on third party developers to fill in the missing add-on solutions. This strategy has helped worked well as the company has cultivated a wide range of add-on solutions ranging from radio beacons, bar coding, and point of sale cash drawers to advanced manufacturing and job costing. SBT ProSeries was the first product to offer the WebTrader module that enables businesses to link web-based catalogs to the accounting system. Visual Accountmate is the number one financial solution recommended by IBM to run on the A/S400. The product is particularly well-suited for the manufacturing, property management, governmental, route management, and oil & gas industries. The primary drawback of these two applications is their dependence on third party add-on applications.

Navision Financials is a Denmark-based product that is gaining popularity in the United States. The company now has more than 1,000 customers in the U. S., and more than 30,000 customers world-wide. The product features a very fast and stable database, great customization capabilities, and terrific drill around audit trails. In recent years the company has incorporated fixed assets, Human resources, contact management, manufacturing, and web shop modules to meet advance needs in addition to the general financial and inventory modules. This product seems to fit a wide variety of industry situations, but is best suited for larger companies with manufacturing, distribution, and general business needs. A key problem with Navision it is often difficult to locate a available reseller in your area - there are only 120 solution centers in the United States and many of them are booked solid.

Platinum for Windows is a higher-end solution that offers a strong general ledger with a 32-digit/30-segment account number, support for multiple languages, multiple currencies, and consolidating capabilities with eliminating entries. The product has developed rather impressive niches in the distribution and manufacturing arenas, as well as global enterprise organizations. The company's recent downsizing efforts have made some of their higher-end customers and prospects just a little worried.

Great Plains Dynamics continues to offer a solid solution with a good user-friendly design, excellent customization capabilities, solid end-user support, and a good offering of third-party add-on applications. Several years ago the company initiated efforts to migrate this product to the more powerful Microsoft SQL Server database to attract larger corporate customers. This strategy has worked great but for a short time it appeared that the lower-end Dynamics product line was receiving less attention as the higher-end version enjoyed the lion's share of new modules and continued improvements. However the company's recent announcements left no doubts that Dynamics is a viable part of the overall product offering. A special purchase price of four modules, two users for just $1,995 makes this a potential attractive alternative for the small business market as well. The product fits well in a wide variety of industries with no particular niche for a given market. When evaluating this product, be careful not to confuse the capabilities of Dynamics with the capabilities of the higher-end eEnterprise product line.

MAS 90 for Windows has been a long time favorite package of the CPA community - and for good reason. The product features a long list of modules designed to meet a very wide range of business needs. For example, bill of materials processing, work order processing, point of sale, EDI, and bar coding. MAS 90 for Windows provides perhaps the cleanest user screens with sharp tabbed dialog boxes and easy to follow screen design. The product's custom office module integrates Microsoft Office and MAS 90 for Windows together seamlessly for some of the most impressive merging of accounting tools and user tools we've seen. MAS 90 fits into a wide variety of business situations with naturally good solutions for general business, retail, order entry and distribution, and financial reporting. The only tight spot for this product is its' rather limited 9-digit/3-segment account number structure - if this is not a problem, then MAS 90 for Windows is an excellent candidate for many companies in the $2 million to $50 million range.

Solomon IV for Windows is a deep product with more than 45 modules designed to meet many industry niches such as project costing, financial reporting, distribution, service, and manufacturing. The product features a strong general ledger with some of the best multi-company capabilities we've seen. Written in Visual Basic 5.0, the product is highly customizable. In 1999, the company took a bold move by standardizing its' product solely on the Microsoft SQL Server database in an attempt to attract larger corporate customers. While this move has been successful in achieving the company's goals, the resulting higher price tag and increased complexity position the product for the higher-end of the mid-range market.

CONCLUSION

There is no substitute for the full-scaled evaluation and needs analysis process to help a company identify the best product to meet their needs. However these general guidelines discussed above can sometimes help a company narrow down the list and identify the best two or three products for evaluation purposes.