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November 2000 Meeting Report |
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The November 9, 2000 meeting of the Alaska Computer Society was held at the BP building at Benson Boulevard and New Seward Highway starting at 7:07 pm. And what a nasty night it was with icy streets. Dawn Scott served as host for the evening as President Gene White had a scheduling conflict. Next month's meeting will be at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. In January we will be back on our regular schedule at BP. The December topic will be Favorite Web Sites. ACS members who have an interesting favorite site are encouraged to send the URL and a short explanation to Dawn Scott at SOS@Alaska.net. At the meeting we will go on-line and visit each to check them out. Question & Answers Howard reported on the virus problem a friend had. She was having problems with her E-mail. A technician at her ISP (Internet Service Provider) identified the problem as the Happy 99 virus. She purchased a copy of Norton 2001 AntiVirus software and asked me to load it on for her. When we started the process, Norton tried to do a virus scan but choked up and reported it couldn't fix the problem. Then it tried to log on to the Norton Web site to register and download updates. The virus had disabled the Windows winsock.dll file and so the Internet connection was inoperative. Norton choked again and we were stuck. The uninstall process didn't work because one of Norton's files was corrupted. I was able to remove it by going into RegEdit and deleting everything that had Norton in it. After checking a number of options we decided the easiest and safest fix was to reformat the hard drive and reload the software from scratch. (The floppy disk was write protected). The lesson to be learned from this is that you will have much better luck if you get your virus software loaded and kept updated before you get bitten by one of the bugs. If you want information on virus protection, there are a lot of sites that can help. Two of the leading protection providers are Computer Associates at www.CA.com/virusinfo and Norton and Symantec at www.Symantec.com/avcenter. For up-to-date information on protection for Microsoft products (and a lot of other useful information) try www.SlipStick.com. These people are experts in making it all work better. Main Meeting Dawn called the regular meeting to order at 7:16 pm. She welcomed everyone and then introduced the board members present. Tom Shackle and Ludwig Laab from the Alaskan Apple Users Group told us about their Mac and Windows Academy programs. They are now the distributors for the training CDs and videos which offer self-paced structured training on various software programs. The catalog includes: Access, Excel, FileMaker Pro, Front Page 2000, Page Maker, Photoshop, Power Point, Windows, Word, and many others. To maintain the volume of sales necessary to get the distributor pricing they are offering ACS members access to the products at the same prices they charge their members. If you are interested, you can contact Tom Shackle at 346-1911 or Tshackle@GCI.net. Dawn reported that our old friend Karen Ciocchi is planning on soon moving to California where she has accepted a trainer position with Sun MicroSystems. Write her a note at PlanB@Compuserve.com. A member asked if there was anyone doing anything about a Music SIG. We have had one in the past but has been inactive for some time. If there is enough interest and someone will take responsibility for coordinating it, the Music SIG could be brought back to life. Howard explained the working of the software evaluation program. We are presently out of products to review but are hopeful that our representative going to the Comdex show will come back with lots of good stuff. Dawn asked for a volunteer to take on the project of contacting vendors to solicit products for our software evaluation program. AND THE DOOR PRIZES. We had several lucky winners tonight. A collection of souvenir T-shirts from various vendors with no doubt profound statements displayed made for some interesting choices. The Presentation Business Accounting Software for Small to Medium-sized Businesses. Steve Dike, Senior Manager of the IT Department of the local public accounting firm, Mikunda, Cottrell & Company was our presenter of the evening. His department provides support in the development, installation and support of the hardware and software needs of their clients. An important part of that effort is selecting the right size of systems for the customer's needs. MC&C, the largest locally owned public accounting firm in Alaska, was founded in August of 1977 by Robert Mikunda and David Cottrell. They serve business and industry plus non-profit organizations, school districts, cities, retail stores, native corporations, utilities, and hospitals. Through acquisitions and mergers, the firm has grown to seven partners and 60 employees. They have offices in Anchorage, Kenai, Bethel, and Seward offering the full spectrum of business consultation, evaluation, accounting, and auditing. WHAT IS AVAILABLE There are three levels of business accounting software. The basic beginning level is for the small firm with less than five concurrent users of the system. This includes among others: Quick Books, Peach Tree, Dac Easy, and MYOB. In the mid level is found Great Plains and Solomon. At the high end which was not discussed in this presentation is found Oracle. The best choice between the packages is determined by the number of users, the number of transactions to be handled, and the numbers and types of accounts. And, of course, the ability to expand and adapt as the business develops and requirements change. In accounting software there is no standard format. Each vendor is free to use his own version of data base structure, field names, and report writers. The end results are the same for all - that is a financial statement and tax reports. The differences are ease of setup and use, effective reports, data integrity and auditability, and support costs. Also, the ability to interface with other data bases, spread sheets, and business management software packages are major selling points of the better products. THE ENTRY LEVEL Quick Books is reputed to be the leader in this part of the field. It is inexpensive, offers a lot of functionality, and is relatively easy to set up. There are two versions of this software. The regular version has most of the functions needed by a very small business. The professional model adds networking for up to five concurrent users and provides job costing capabilities. It will also interface with Microsoft Excel and Word for exchange of data. The most significant limitation for Quick Books is you cannot have more than five concurrent users. Otherwise it is an excellent product. It is very powerful and offers many features and functions for the small business. Even though it is easy to set up, a manager would be well advised to have an accountant do it. To get the right business reports and correct information for taxes, etc. takes an accounting expert's knowledge and experience. This is true of almost any of the packages available. There are other important considerations that may be significant. Most entries can be changed by almost anyone with access to the computer. There may be no audit trail for these changes. There is a way to make changes that do leave a trail but it is not a system requirement. Another weakness is the lack of batch processing for the input of data. Also, it is a proprietary data base so that information cannot be easily transferred to some other platform for data manipulation. In a complex business environment it is important that payroll taxes be properly attributed to the department in which they are accumulated. The low end packages do not offer this capability which makes proper cost allocation difficult. THE MIDDLE LEVEL A good package will offer security for each module in the system. Additions and changes will be auditable. Electronic bill paying is the coming thing as a means of streamlining business. It is an integral part of e-commerce. A good system will provide batch processing to input data. The data base will be an industry standard format so that information can be easily transferred to some other platform for data manipulation. It will be easy to properly attribute payroll taxes and other expenses to the department in which they are accumulated. GREAT PLAINS The two leading contenders in this category have been Great Plains and Solomon. This past June, Great Plains purchased Solomon in June primarily for their customer base. The two products may be unified in new versions to be introduced in the near future. Great Plains is the package preferred by MC&C for most of its clients because it has all of the above features and many more. Great Plains is sold in modules. There are 300 different products, many of them provided by other companies, which give it a wide range of features and capabilities that can be configured to a user's special needs. This is very useful as different categories of business have different reporting, management, and functional needs. Great Plains configured with all of the modules needed by a typical medium sized firm could cost in the neighborhood of $20,000. The expert business consultation to set it up and give the necessary instruction to the staff could easily run to another $20,000. This sounds high but you must keep in mind that much more efficient and accurate record keeping and reports available will result. Support costs can be substantially reduced if the company works hard to prepare for the new system. With expert consultation fees running at $100 per hour and as many as 210 hours needed typically, it would be prudent for a mid-sized firm to have up to $50,000 budgeted. Again, a good implementation plan can speed up the process and save a lot of consultant costs. Learning the system is a significant part of the cost of implementation. SOME OF THE FEATURES Great Plains is written in C++ and integrates easily with add-on modules written in ActiveX. It also works easily with bar code input. Microsoft communications format is standard. In many businesses, job costing is an important part of selling. Great Plains offers a module that makes it possible to plug in the specifications for a job such as a computer network and get an immediate estimate of the cost of the installation. Of course it is necessary to have established an accurate price list of all the elements that go into such an installation. One of the latest improvements in efficiency involves the practice of printing your own checks as they are needed. Using plain check paper and magnetized ink, automated check writing can make a significant reduction in the cost of the checks themselves and the manual work involved in generating them. If your business uses several different types of checks, the savings can be significant. Human resources management is an important part of the accounting requirement. With closely integrated modules, the duplication of data input is eliminated. Control of fixed assets is another key element. The bar coded asset record system starts with the Purchase Order and continues for the life of the product. The status of the equipment inventory can be closely monitored through the accounting module. A new development is the use of e-time sheets eliminating the need for time cards. An employee logs on and enters his time sheet information. It is forwarded to the supervisor for approval then on to the time keeper. In the industry, accounting systems are called back office products. Front office products are those that interface with people and the public. MORE INFORMATION For more information, check the Mikunda, Cottrell web site at www.MCC-CPA.com. They are located at 3601 C Street, Suite 600, Anchorage, Alaska in the Denali Building. Information on the products mentioned in this report can be found at the following sites:
If you would like to compare a number of products, check this web site for a list of the top 100 accounting packages along with their main features and links to their individual sites. http://Softbase.Hypermart.net/top04.html |
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