PsL Monthly 1993 December/PSL Monthly Shareware CD-ROM (December 1993).iso/reviews/ab_01

Text File | 1993-10-01 | 23KB | 505 lines

AB-01: General Ledger Programs


Call Master
   Micro Data Assist
   $129
   #7091/1770 [2 disks]
is a service call scheduling system with a fully integrated accounts
receivable system and general ledger journal listing of all sales information.

With this system you can set up service contracts, maintain your call
schedule, post invoicing and payments, print statements and aged receivables,
print reports, envelopes, rolodex cards, labels and many more functions.

This program is ideal for Pest Control, Air Conditioning, Lawn Services, Pool
Maintenance, Janitorial, etc. Requires 512k and a hard disk.


C-A-S-E Accounting
   Forester, John
   $75
   #7091/1588
is an accounting program for consultants and small businesses. It includes a
general journal, sales journal and payroll journal. Information files contain
cases or projects, invoices and credit sales, payables, employee's pay,
capital equipment and depreciation, income statements and balance sheets.
Numerous reports are available.

A unique feature allows up to four partners and four independently allocated
profit centers, plus overhead, and separate dollar value inventories for each
profit line and overhead. The screen for choosing the set of accounts to use
(this year's, last year's, company A's, company B's, etc.) shows the list of
of accounts so the user doesn't have to remember the initials that he
assigned.

The financial history and totals of any case or job may be both displayed and
printed. You may also move directly to any specific set of accounts when
starting the program. A mail merge system for sending letters to all or a
designated few, of clients, debtors or creditors is included, and much more.
Requires 456k, 2 drives.


CPA-Ledger
   Tronolone & Foster
   $0
   #7091/1724 [2 disks]
is a double-entry general ledger system for small businesses. It is completely
menu driven and gives you the ability to post transactions, prepare unadjusted
and post-closing trial balances, prepare an income statement, print a listing
of all transactions posted to your bank account for any period you wish,
search for previously entered transactions based on multiple criteria,
reconstruct specific general ledger accounts for any period that you wish,
print a chart of accounts that summarizes all debits and credits posted to
each account, and add new accounts to your general ledger.

This version will not print a balance sheet or selective income statements and
many output options have to be printed out and cannot be viewed on the screen.


CheckMate Plus
   Custom Technologies ASP
   $60
   #7003/821 [2 disks]
is a double-entry, checkbook based, accounting program for home or business.
It's forte is a slick, easy-to-use interface. Those who value efficiency of
use as much as ease of use will find that CM doesn't measure up to the
retail-only program Quicken or the shareware programs Cash Control and Ultra
Check, all of which have a one-screen approach to data entry, editing and
review.

On the other hand, for a large number of users, computers are already too darn
efficient. These users will appreciate the way CM's pull-down menus, pop-up
windows and plentiful on-screen information guide you through each step.

Other features include budgeting, a pop-up calculator, easy memorization and
recall of repetitive entries, graphical analysis, loan-amortization
calculator, and pre-defined reports such as balance sheets, income statements,
and budget comparisons, as well as user-defined reports.

CheckMate Plus is powerful and flexible enough to be used by a business
(although it lacks modules for receivables, payables, payroll, etc.), but is
easy enough to be used by novices at home.


Medlin Accounting 4.2
   Medlin, Jerry ASP
   $25-$35/module
   #7003/006
is a double-entry general ledger program with accounts receivable, payroll and
payables modules.

Of all the general ledger programs in the library, we personally feel like
this one is the easiest to use. The reason is that that entries are scrolled
up the screen as you make them and you can easily move up the screen to
correct or change an earlier entry. The author's approach also allows
virtually unlimited "splitting" of a check, charge, receipt or whatever to
multiple accounts.

PC-AR is the accounts receivable module. It allows a maximum of 2000 customers
and 1500 charges per accounting period.

PC-INV is a module which works directly with the accounts receivable module to
generate invoices and post them to PC-AR. It will multiply quantity times
price and insert the total and calculate sales tax.

PC-PR, the payroll module, includes the 1991 payroll tax tables. It allows a
maximum of 500 employees and 1000 payroll checks per accounting period.

PC-AP, the accounts payable module, can sort invoices by due date and will
print checks.


PC-Deal
   Marshall, Robert S. ASP
   $40
   #7003/004
is a double-entry cash accounting program for personal or small business use.
It will maintain transaction journals and account ledgers for a period of
thirteen months, the twelve month accounting period and the first month of the
next year.

The next year's transactions are carried over into next year's ledger at year
end closing. Reports include the usual financial statements plus bar graphs.
Data can be exported in seven different formats. Allows up to 300 general
ledger account categories and you can to add or edit transactions over a
period of up to 12 months.


PRO PC-Accounting(PSS)
   Pro Systems Software
   $90
   #7003/1102
is a completely integrated accounting program. From one menu you can select
accounts receivable & billing, accounts payable & payments, general ledger &
checkbook, price list & inventory and customer & client invoicing, or print
journals, special reports & lists. The set-up part of the program lets you
define such things as billing terms, four levels of hourly rates and more.

We added the company's initials, (PSS), to the name to avoid confusion with
PC-Accounting II by another company. In general, we think PSS's program is
somewhat better than PC-A II, but PSS's does have several relatively minor
problems. After installing the program, we had to edit our CONFIG.SYS file to
remove some duplicate lines added to it by the Install. We also discovered
(after a brief moment of panic at wondering what had blown up) that our PATH
had been changed to A:\, explaining why our system utilities were no longer
working.

The program's input routines do offer default responses most of the time,
which is admirable, but you cannot return to a prior field to correct an entry
without going all the way through the entry first, which is a technique that
most programs have (thankfully) long abandoned. And when we tried to use the
TAB key, while still hoping to get back to a previous field somehow, the
screen started scrolling up and away instead, leaving us blindly trying to
exit the program. The program also prompts for all input at the bottom of the
screen rather than at the appropriate field on the screen. This type of data
entry has never made sense to us, but it isn't really a problem.

The program comes with very limited documentation, but the on-screen help
should be sufficient for most people to get through the program. In summary,
our complaints, although lengthy, are not major, and anyone needing an
integrated accounting program really ought to check this one out.


General Ledger II
   Peak InfoSystems, Inc.
   $50
   #7007/1727
is a major-league general ledger designed with many professional features. For
example, the Journal program contains a pre-posting list feature that lets you
see what the posting results will be, and make corrections if you want to,
before final posting.

The Reports Menu includes a selection that lets you print all of the mandatory
end-of-month reports with a single keystroke. Also included are "master" and
"detail" accounts, and "departmentalization". Although they're there, you
don't need to use them, or even know anything about them.