Sage — Peachtree Premium Accounting For Construction 2010

From the July 2009 Review of Construction/Contractor
Accounting Systems

The
Peachtree brand has long been a favorite of professional accountants for their
small business clients, providing a broad base of general bookkeeping capabilities,
including GL, AP, AR, invoicing, inventory, sales orders and contact management,
along with good business management functions, reporting and analysis features.
Peachtree’s Premium line includes versions tailored for several vertical
industries, including Construction, Distribution, Manufacturing and Nonprofit.
The Construction version extends the strong general business functionality of
Premier to meet the specific needs of builders and general contractors through
job tracking and costing, subcontractor management, accrual-based accounting
for managing retainers, and progress billing. Pricing for Peachtree Premium
Accounting for Construction starts at $499 for a single-user version, or $1,199.99
for a license that supports up to five simultaneous users.

LEARNING CURVE/EASE OF USE:
Several assistive features help guide users through initial installation and
system configuration, including preparation checklists and setup guides. During
setup, users are also able to select template charts of accounts based on their
specific business type, speeding the process for less bookkeeping savvy persons.
The system then uses this information to provide terminology related to their
field.

Peachtree Premium’s interface is based on Navigation Centers that serve
as hubs for key areas of the program, with the Business Status Center providing
a broad overview of key business indicators in text and graphical formats. The
data displayed on this dashboard is customizable, allowing users to quickly
view account summaries, AR, inventory, sales data or other information and reporting
options most important to them. It also provides drilldown access all the way
through to individual transactions, if desired. Peachtree provides status centers
for Customers & Sales, Vendors & Purchases, Employees & Payroll,
Banking information and general Company data, as well.

These centers are also customizable, as are virtually all other areas of the
program’s interface, including resizable panels, graphs and summaries.
Selection lists for customers, vendors, employees and other entities are available
through their appropriate centers, with lists offering excellent sorting and
filtering options, while summary and contact data is displayed in spreadsheet
format. Peachtree’s data-entry screens are well designed, with tabbed
views of categorized information, and intuitive fields with several smart entry
functions.

KEY MODULES & MANAGEMENT TOOLS:
Peachtree Premium includes full GL, AP, AR, serialized inventory, sales, banking
and customer management capabilities, along with options for payroll and advanced
add-on functions. The system includes a full-time audit trail and has screen-level
security settings, along with period closing procedures for helping to maintain
account integrity. Other features include analysis tools, customizable reports,
financial statement generation, and the ability to accept credit cards.

The system’s core construction features are accessed via the Maintain
Jobs screen within the Customers & Sales data center or via the Business
Center, which provides tracking of job information and allows setup of job phases
for progress measurement and billing. As with the rest of Peachtree Premium,
many of the interface options are customizable, including data-entry fields
that enable tracking user-defined information.

The construction version of Peachtree Premium also offers subcontractor insurance
tracking, provides a labor burden assessment for tracking overhead costs per
employee, and supports retainage. Progress billing functions can be used to
generate customer invoices based on progress milestones or on percentage complete
of estimated revenue or of each line item. Users can produce sales orders and
invoices directly from estimates, which can be emailed from within the program.

Several new enhancements and additions have been introduced for the 2010 version
of Peachtree Premium, including a new Customer Management Center, which provides
more immediate access to customer information and detailed transaction histories
via user-configurable dashboard views, along with simple export functions that
allow users to output data to Excel or PDF. Additionally, Business Analytics
functions offer performance benchmarking against other similar businesses. Among
other new features are improved inventory, employee and security functions,
automated backup and the option to have more than one company open at the same
time, a nice feature for users managing more than one entity using the same
Peachtree system.

REPORTING:
Peachtree Premium offers strong reporting capabilities, with options available
from the program’s data centers or directly from the comprehensive report
center. More than 140 standard reports are available, all of which can be customized
using the internal report editor or using Crystal Reports. Construction management
reporting options include contract transmittal letters, component pick lists,
assembly planning, overhead, cost by employee, equipment costs and progress
measurement. Reports can be emailed directly from within the program, or exported
into Word, Excel or PDF format. When viewed on-screen, reports have full drilldown
capabilities.

IMPORT/EXPORT/INTEGRATION:
The Peachtree Premium system offers automatic data routing between all modules
as needed, including between add-on modules, such as advanced payment solutions,
online bill-pay, remote access options, Sage’s Timeslips program, and
Act! Link for Peachtree. It also integrates and syncs with Outlook for email
and contact management, and can import data from QuickBooks and Excel files.

SUPPORT & TRAINING:
Excellent assistive features are available throughout the Peachtree program,
from startup to right-click menus and task-specific guidance. The Peachtree
support website offers downloads and program updates (including tax table updates),
a knowledgebase, online chat support, tutorials and self study guides. Technical
support is available on either a per-incident basis or with support packages.

RELATIVE VALUE:
Peachtree Premium Accounting for Construction offers a comprehensive small business
management system that provides basic features and reporting for construction
project/job management. The program is easy to use and offers excellent customization
features, along with data centers that help keep users on top of key business
information.

2009 OVERALL RATING: