PsL Monthly 1993 September/PSL Monthly Shareware CD-ROM (Public Software Library)(September 1993).bin/reviews/ab_01

Text File | 1993-07-02 | 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.

Other features include up to 300 accounts which can be grouped into 32
categories; standard, pre-defined report formats; a locked-in audit trail;
three levels of password protection. Requires a printer that will print 132
characters per line.

Although the documentation touts the ease of use of GL II, and it may indeed
be easy after you take the time to print out the manual and to sit down and
study it thoroughly, we suspect that some users may find this program
difficult to set up. As we usually do with new programs, we tried running it
without reading the docs first. We feel that this is a fair test because after
running thousands of programs, we can usually bull our way through 99% of the
time.

When we tried to enter a transaction before setting up the accounts, the
machine would not let us back out of our faux pas without rebooting. When we
dutifully restarted and tried to enter accounts, we were told that there are
several mandatory accounts which had not yet been set up. Yet in browsing
quickly through the manual on-screen, we could find no easy reference to
setting them up. The information is probably there, and the author is probably
cursing our sloth even as you read this, but our experience has been that if
we can't find it in a hurry, most other people won't either. Ideally, we think
the program should have walked us through setting up those accounts instead of
just beeping at us.

Bottom line: if you are willing to approach this program seriously and
studiously, you can end up with a very good accounting system.


OnLine Accounting System
   OnLine Resources
   $129
   #7007/2562 [3 disks]
is an integrated General Ledger, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable
package. This accounting system is designed for businesses with a minimum of
$100,000 per year in gross revenues. It features interactive, menu driven
modules, open item and real time, context-sensitive help, the ability to print
summary reports and aging reports, multi-user LAN support, multiple printer
support, flexible programmable printer support, multiple profit centers, number
of records limited only by hard disk space, encrypted data files, and more.


Order Pro
   Automated Systems
   $104
   #2784
is an order-entry program. It allows you to quickly and easily set up customer
files, inventory files, and enter orders. The program requires you to know each
customer's number or manually search a list; you cannot search by name. Also,
you cannot add new customers on the fly, so the program seems aimed solely at
businesses with a small number of repeating customers. Within that scope, this
is an excellent program with many features. Requires 512k RAM and a hard drive.


Painless Accounting 6.1 [PAINLESS]
   Pierce, Kendall B. ASP
   $125
   #7005/1540 [4 disks]
is an accounting package that includes receivables, payables, general ledger,
process billing, check reconciliation, trial balance and other standard
financial statements and journal reports, and appointment scheduler. The
program has check printing capabilities, GL historical files, check register
historical files, reoccurring billing entries, vendor sales tax rate table,
multiple line invoices, departmentalize by cost of goods, multiple A/R
checking accounts, reoccurring A/P entries, budget reports, three types of
depreciation, multiple companies, reoccurring GL entries, physical inventory
adjustments and reports, a budget generator, a fixed asset manager and report
and much more.

Other features include the ability to create your own Statement, Invoice, PO,
and Received PO print formats, five levels of Passwords, balance forward
clients, EGA/VGA support (43-50 lines), direct check writing journal, sales
tax journal, historical sales tax report, exploding windows, build materials
report, taxable/nontaxable products/services, version 3.0 to 4.0 conversion,
network compatible, payroll module, supports over 60 printers, DOS functions,
enter default trans descriptions, check reconciliation and appointment
schedular, cash disbursements in cash payments/receipts, American/Canadian
address formats, international date formats, and custom formats support box
drawing and fonts.

Also included is the ability to view client and vendor comments on screen;
client, vendor, product, and service history; job costing; hot key to 10 other
user defined programs from within the program; track manual check numbers;
post historical payment information; P.O. and billing freight; automatic
account, client, product and vendor balance setup; full screen editing in
product and service file; and tracking of salesman commissions. Requires a
hard disk, and 640K of memory.


Painless Accounting/Payroll Companion
   Pierce, Kendall B. ASP
   $45
   #2325
is a graph, report, and export program for use with Painless Accounting and
Painless Payroll. You can generate Bar, Stacked Bar, Pie, Line graphs,
subtotal and total on numeric fields in reports, and export to ASCII files.


PC-Books
   Edelman, Barry
   $?
   #7094/630
is a general ledger program for small businesses.  First the good points: the
number of accounts and transactions are limited only by disk space; new accounts
can be added while entering transactions; full-screen editing lets you go back
and correct errors immediately; it's relatively easy to correct prior entries;
the documentation contains a tutorial; a transaction can be divided among up to
15 accounts.

Overall, PC-Books is a very well-written program. Being an inveterate
nit-picker, there are a few things I would like to see changed. When asked for
the date, it's nice if the current date or the last date entered is shown as
the default so that all you have to do is press Enter. When entering a split
transaction, a running total somewhere on the screen is handy. Most
distracting is that pressing enter when Entering data into a field on a line
moves you down to the next line. To move to the next field on the same line,
you have to press the Tab key. Most programs have the Enter key move you to
the next field and the cursor key move you down.


PC General Ledger
   Fricke, Gerald V.
   $?
   #7094/005
is an excellent small business accounting program. Features include separate
journals for receipts, disbursements and general entries, the ability to print
checks including the storing of up to 200 payee names and addresses, the
handling up to five bank accounts, up to eight departments or cost centers,
the handling of recurring entries, the ability to add new accounts in
mid-entry, to export data to Lotus 1-2-3, optional password protection,
complete audit trails and you edit existing posting screens.


QUE Accounting
   McHugh, Gerald
   $45
   #7094/1527
is a menu-driven accounting system featuring password protected access,
dynamic updating of Trial Balances, context-sensitive help, the ability to
modify transactions and an unlimited transaction storage capacity.

Other features include subsidiary companies, accounts or departments; an
unlimited Chart of Accounts based on Company plus Department plus Account
combination; up to 99 fiscal periods; automatic backup and restore to protect
data from loss due to power failures; financical statements by corporation, by
company or by department; financial comparisons between periods; budget
variance report; direct interface with dBase; automatic repeating entries;
allows either current month or year-to-date trial balances; a pop-up
calculator and notepad, and more. An accounting tutorial is included.
Required: 512k RAM and 1 meg of disk space.


QUE Accounting AR
   McHugh, Gerald
   $45
   #7094/2692
is the Accounts Receivable module of the QUE Accounting series. This may be used
as a stand alone system or integrated into the QUE Accounting General Ledger
(#1527). It provides the ability to record transactions for a given company and
department. Requires 640K. (Note that this program and Que Accounting are part
of a MegaDisk Set, along with other programs, for a $6.99 disk fee.)


SBAS General Ledger
   Millrose Corp.
   $25
   #7082/843
is a double-entry general ledger system that handles cash receipts,
disbursements and journal entries for the small business. Reports include a
trial balance, balance sheet, income statement and a general ledger in either
monthly or year-to-date format. Requires 384K and a hard disk. (Note the
following modules that are part of a MegaDisk set with this General Ledger.)


SBAS Order Entry
   Millrose Corp.
   $73
   #7082/2596
is an order entry system which provides picking slips, invoices, inventory
control and accounts receivable. Inventory reports include inventory on hand,
inventory at cost, cost of sales, compare book and physical, and more.
Accounts receivable provides invoices, customer statements, accounts aging
reports, and customer labels. Other features include multiple sales tax rates,
the ability to print multiple copies of invoices and/or credit memos, the
ability to search by either customer number or customer name, and two
inventory reports including backorders and inventory below minimum. Requires a
hard disk and 512K.


SBAS Accounts Receivable
   Millrose Corp.
   $73
   #7082/2597
is a stand-alone (ie: not integrated) accounts receivable program. It allows
the entry of invoices, credit memos, cash receipts, provides customer
statements, receivable aging report, cash receipts report, sales report,
customer labels, and customer lists. A pop-up calculator is also included.
Requires a hard disk and 384k.


SBAS Invoicer
   Millrose Corp.
   $15
   #7082/2598
prepares customer invoices. Items can be specified as taxable or non-taxable.
Invoice numbers are automatically incremented.


SBAS Write-Up General Ledger
   Millrose Corp.
   $93
   #7082/2599
is a double entry write system for the accountant handling several companies.
The number of records is limited only by your storage capacity. You can create
a different chart of accounts for each company. It records cash receipts,
disbursements, sales,journal entries, and payroll. Reports include separate
journals for receipts, disbursements, sales and journal entries. Various
employee earning reports may be printed to allow easy preparation of the
federal/state quarterly and annual payroll reports. Financial reports include
trial balance, balance sheet, income statement, and general ledger for the
current period or year-to-date. Balance sheets and income statements may be
customized. Requires 384K and a hard disk.


Bottom Line Accounting 2.E
   Hooper International ASP
   $ various
   #7296-97/2693 [8 disks]
(formerly Takin' Care of Business!) is an integrated set of accounting
modules for the small/medium business. This menu-driven system provides
on-line help for every entry. The General Ledger ($49.95 shareware
registration fee) module allows you to monitor your assets, liabilities,
net worth, capital, income, expenses and budgets in every area. It
records your transactions into the appropriate accounts and gives you
the ability to generate a complete range of financial statements.

The Accounts Payable module ($39.95) manages your cash flow, and the
payment of all invoices. It also allows for cash flow forecasting, and
is totally integrated with the General Ledger module, so all accounts
are easily updated.

The Accounts Receivable module ($39.95) allows you to set up customers
and bill them using balance-forward accounting, with statements showing
all outstanding activity.

The Payroll module ($49.95) gives comprehensive, accurate
payroll-related information on as many as 1,000 employees. It
automatically calculates employee deductions and liabilities,and prints
payroll checks.

The Inventory module tracks costs, analyzes sales, helps manage stocking
levels and prints reports. Cost methods available are FIFO, LIFO,
standard, or specific item cost.

The Point of Sale/Invoicing module allows you to create and print either
product or service invoices while at the same time creating the
appropriate transactions for interface with Inventory, Accounts Payable
and General Ledger modules. You can print invoices on-the-fly, while the
system automatically creates all transactions necessary to reduce your
on-hand inventory levels; add credit customer purchases to Accounts
Receivable balances; and create General Ledger journal entries to record
the sale (income). Also include is an Account Reconciliation module and
other Financial Utilities.


EZ Business
   Veit, John
   $20
   #7495/3213
is an accounts receivable program that creates bills, reports, Rolodex cards,
labels and account listings. It has constant balance updating. You can print
bills for any time period. Requires a hard disk.


EZ Payables
   Veit, John
   $10
   #7495/3214
is an accounts payable program that creates reports, Rolodex cards, labels, and
listings of accounts and amounts payable. You can add, edit and review data.
Requires a hard disk.


EZ Wages & Taxes
   Veit, John
   $10
   #7495/3215
records and totals wages and deductions for state, federal, and other reporting
purposes for one or more months. You can print employee information, wage totals
for W-2 forms, Rolodex cards, and labels. It does not calculate deductions -
simply lets you record payroll data. Requires a hard disk.


EZ Wholesaler
   Veit, John
   $40
   #7495/3216
produces daily invoices, weekly statements, and other documents. You can print a
100 to 150 item price list, product quantities for each day, listings, labels
and Rolodex cards. Requires a hard disk.


Express Mail Order Management System
   Automated Processing Company
   $100
   #3283
is an order-entry program which integrates customer, supplier and inventory
databases. The program is very complete and solidly designed, if not efficiently
designed.

Our main complaints involve the number of screen/menu changes it takes to make a
simple order (from customer selection through invoice printing) and the fact
that you can only see one item at a time when entering an order (other than for
a bug that causes the text on the screen to scroll up at times). Another
shortcoming is that the customer database only allows one line for the
street/building/suite address, which is frequently inadequate.

Outweighing these shortcomings in our minds is the flexibility and ease of use
of the program. The program is flexible enough for many types of businesses.
There is no documentation, but none is really needed as menus guide you through
the program.

When entering an order, you are warned if a product is out of stock. Other
features include many useful reports, the ability to print invoices, mailing
labels, and inventory labels. Requires 640k and DOS 3+.

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