2018 Review of Accounting CS – AR Functions

Accounting CS, from Thomson Reuters, is designed for accounting professionals that offer bookkeeping and accounting services to their clients. Part of the CS Professional Suite of Products, Accounting CS offers seamless integration with other Thomson Reuters products.

Available in a variety of deployment options, Accounting CS can be leased as an SaaS product, as a virtual office application, hosted by Thomson Reuters, or as a traditional on-premise application.

The Accounts Receivable function is optional in Accounting CS, so users will first need to enable the accounts receivable service, which includes invoicing and invoice printing, finance charge assessments, and complete AR reporting. Users can choose to process receivables for their clients or offer access to the AR system to their clients, so they can enter information as needed.

Both firm staff and clients can add customers to the system easily, with the ability to enter a beginning balance for each customer entered in the system. Users can also default invoicing information for each customer, if desired. Payment terms, finance charges, and discount information can be entered during the customer setup process as well, though users can also enter the data on the fly if necessary. Workflow diagrams exist with links to specific help for learning.

Payment terms can be applied to each customer account, with the option to choose a fixed discount amount or a percentage. Users can also set up finance charges to automatically calculate finance charges on any past due balances. The system also offers templates and auto-application of payments to invoices.

Users can easily view order history from the customer area, and users can easily record all payment received in the Manage Customer Payments screen, which allows users to record cash, check, or credit card payments. Write-offs can also be handled from this data entry screen, with the ability to write off any balances that will likely not be paid. Payments are applied by customer, so users can quickly record multiple payments from a single vendor, simply entering the amount paid in each open customer balance. Users can also create credit memos from the manage customer payments screen as well. In addition, users can also choose to unapply a payment from a specific customer invoice if desired.

Additional customer data can be accessed from the customer screen, including a complete payment history.

Accounting CS also handles invoice and statement printing, with users able to print either option from the Print Invoices and Statements screen. Both invoices and statements can be printed for mailing as desired. For those using FileCabinet CS, users can also choose to direct any invoices or statements directly to the application for easy document management.

A good selection of Accounts Receivable reports is available, including an Aging Schedule, Customer Activity Report, Customer List, Invoice and Payment List, Sales, and Sales by Item reports. All reports can be filtered by customer activity, and any designated period or date. Users can preview reports, print them to specific printer, or send the directly to FileCabinet CS or Engagement CS. Reports can also be saved as a PDF if desired. Reports can also be exported to Microsoft Excel as desired.

Accounting CS currently does not offer multi-currency capability, and mobile access is limited as well. The product does offer seamless integration with other Thomson Reuters CS Professional Suite applications which include Ultra Tax CS and FileCabinet CS. The product also offers export capability to other third-party applications including ProSystem fx, ProSeries, and Lacerte.

Accounting CS, from Thomson Reuters, offers excellent accounts receivable capability for the accounting professional that is offering bookkeeping and accounting services to clients. Those interested can download a product demo. Pricing for Accounting CS and the AR option is available directly from Thomson Reuters upon request.

 

2017 Overall Rating – 4.5 Stars