Review of High-End Accounting Systems — 2006

As each of these products has matured, more third-party solutions have become
available to provide complete robust vertical solutions for businesses that
require specialized service management, rental, manufacturing, project accounting
and job costing solutions. In addition, high-end features such as available
to promise, soft and hard inventory allocations, deferred revenue tracking,
vendor performance tracking, matching tolerances for purchase order receiving,
multi-lingual screens, intercompany accounting and consolidations continue to
set these systems apart from their mid-range peers.

All of the products reviewed here provide a variety of tools, including source
code in some instances, which allow functionality to be extended through customization
or integration with third-party applications. A few of the vendors offer programmatic
access to the respective application’s business objects through Visual
Basic. This powerful approach allows for customization or integration that is
not invasive to the native programming code, provides some level of upgrade
protection, and also ensures the integrity of data added to the database.

To provide consistency among the reviews, the following areas were evaluated
for each package:
Modules/Scalability — This section breaks down the available
modules as well as any other significant features that merit highlighting. This
section also mentions new modules and enhancements that have recently been added.

Usability/User Experience & Security — This section
evaluates the overall user experience in using the software, from the menus
to transaction entry. A requirement for any system in this class is the ability
to tailor workflow to meet a user’s needs and how that impacts the overall
user experience. As expected, each of the systems uses some form of role-based
security.

Extensibility — This section examines the availability
of third-party vertical solutions and integration to solutions that extend the
product’s base functionality to include payroll, human resource management,
fixed assets, CRM, Point of Sale and other applications. All but one of the
solutions reviewed has a moderate to extensive list of add-ons. While the quantity
of available add-ons is certainly a plus, our evaluation also focuses on the
quality of the integration with these additional modules.

Integration/Customization — The ability to tailor,
customize and integrate high-end accounting solutions with other critical applications
is key. Each of the systems we reviewed provides extensive tools to accomplish
this task. This section describes import and export capabilities, screen customization,
integration, and custom programming tools available for these systems.

Reporting — Each product reviewed provides a large
variety of quality reports. Several provide built-in custom report writers that
let the user create reports based on specific formats and needs. Other systems
include Business Objects’ Crystal Reports, which has become the standard
for many mid-market and high-end accounting systems. Financial statement report
writing tools vary from product to product, and each offers a dashboard of some
sort as well as a variety of business intelligence tools.

Support, Training & Help — This section evaluates
each program’s online Help system, as well as the availability and methods
of product support and training. Reasonably priced classroom or web-based training
should be available for new users at convenient times and locations.

Overall Assessment — This section looks at the strengths
and challenges of each of the products reviewed. Every system will excel in
some industries and fall short in others. For that reason, we have attempted
to identify the best industry fit for each of the systems and assess the quality
and value of the system based on its best fit.

In closing, the reader is reminded that, while software reviews provide valuable
insight to a system’s features, strengths and weaknesses, it should never
be the final authority for selecting a system. For that reason, a thorough needs
analysis and system evaluation is absolutely essential for selecting an ERP
system. 

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We would like to give special thanks to the membership and leadership of
the Information Technology Alliance (ITA) for partnering with us on a survey
that provided feedback on the accounting systems included in this year’s
review of high-end accounting programs, as well as insight into the partner
programs of many major accounting software developers.

As the premier association of technology advisors to mid-market and small
businesses, the ITA’s membership includes CPAs, EAs, CIOs, CTOs, value-added
resellers, specialty technology consultants, and the developers of technology
products and services. By partnering with them, we can pass on part of their
extensive knowledge and experience to our readers, providing additional
insight into the strengths and weaknesses of these systems. Along this line,
each product review includes a section that lists some of the specific “competitive
advantages” and “competitive disadvantages” that were
cited by ITA members as well as areas for improvement if noted. More data
and information about the ITA
survey can be viewed here.

Once again, we appreciate the assistance of the ITA professionals who
participated in this survey, providing us with valuable knowledge that we
have been able to pass on to you, our readers.

~~ Gregory L. LaFollette, CPA.CITP, Executive Editor

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