Business accounting software evaluation

Modifying the source code is a very involved process that often required many months of programming and costs tens of thousands of dollars.

While modification was successful for many customers, too often the results were less than desirable for others. Modification projects often resulted in blown budgets, exceeded time frames, and non-functioning code full of bugs.

Poor programming often led to unsatisfied customers that adversely affected the product's reputation.

Customers who modified their source code often found that doing so left no upgrade path to future versions of their accounting software package, at least not without losing all of their modifications.

Financial statements

Reports

Forms such as checks and invoices

User screens

The database

The help screens

By inserting blank user definable fields

By integrating or linking the system to third party software products

The simplest financial statement customization involves financial statements and reports. This process usually entails the ability create new financial statements, or edit existing financial statement formats. Some products also allow you to change the font, add lines, and even add graphic pictures, such as a company logo, directly to the financial statement.

This type of customization is fairly common and most products do offer this level of customization; however, some products offer much easier-to-use tools than others. You should evaluate your prospective products by asking the reseller to demonstrate the process of inserting a new column and moving an element on both a report and form.

Some software producers seem to they think that their product is customizable simply because users can format the financial statement or insert new columns. Yes, this is a form of customization—technically speaking—but it falls well short of the more powerful forms of customization.

The more powerful forms of customization involve editing the user screens and underlying database. This type of customization also involves the ability to customize accounting system forms such as checks, invoices, picking lists, and packing slips. This ability allows the end user to edit the form formats by adding new information to the form or rearranging the information so it will print properly on pre-printed forms.

For example, this customization might allow a user to continue using an old box of pre-printed checks, even though the company has just upgraded to a different accounting system. Or, a company could tailor their customer invoice to contain exactly the information desired.

Greater customization capabilities can be found in other products such as Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and Macola. The more sophisticated customization tools allow the user to validate data as it's entered into the system, force data (i.e. the user can not leave the data field blank), and even calculate data based on other data entered elsewhere in the system. Other sophisticated capabilities include the ability to set the tab order of the user fields, insert drop down boxes, and embed third-party applications via the accounting software user input screen.

One of my favorite features is "Blank User Definable Fields." This form of customization is strong because it allows a user to tailor the accounting system to meet their particular needs. For example, a boat marina operator may insert data fields to keep track of the name of the customer's boat, the slip number where that boat is parked, the boat mechanics name and phone number, and a number of other useful bits of information. Products such as MAS 90, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and even QuickBooks, provide this capability. Along with editing the user screens, this type of customization usually involves default settings as well.

Default settings are more important than you might realize. Many accounting software products allow the user to specify default settings on a field-by-field basis. For example, a company that works primarily in Georgia might pre-configure the customer and order entry screen to display Georgia as the default state for each new record automatically. This can save time and improve accuracy.

At first glance, this might not seem to be much of a time saver, but consider this: Many companies process tens of thousands of invoices each year. Without a default setting, the order entry clerks would need to enter "Georgia" or "GA" tens of thousands of times once for each order. How many hours would it take for you to simply type out the word "Georgia" or "GA" 50,000 times? Assuming that it takes only one second to perform this task, it would still take 14 hours to type "GA" 50,000 times. A default setting such as this would allow the user to simply tab over the data field altogether and skip the data entry portion for this particular field. Now multiply 14 hours times all of the other fields where default settings are likely to apply.

Most companies have default terms, shipping methods, categories, sales person codes, currency codes, etc. By simply establishing default data, even modest size companies can save hundreds, if not thousands, of hours each year in data entry time. As a twist to this feature, some accounting packages allow the user to setup Boolean lists, or drop down lists, to improve speed and accuracy. Still other products enable the user to setup automatic calculations, which enter the default data on-the-fly. For example a product may use the system's date and payment terms to calculate and enter the discount date or due date automatically.