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| Architosh News Reports | |
| Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com) |
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Special Report: Financial Software for Architects - Part 2/2
Many Architosh readers have been asking for information on financial applications to apply to their architectural and design practices. In part 2 of this two part news report, Architosh will introduce Macintosh software for both time management and billing and financial management accounting solutions. It should be noted, that in part one of this report some of the current PC-only software developers used to support Macintosh development and no longer do. Peachtree Accounting for Macintosh, for example, was sold to Aatrix Software and is now Aatrix Accounting 3.0.
Primary Financial Accounting Applications for Macintosh
QuickBooks and QuickBooks Pro 4 for Macintosh
Other Financial and Time & Billing Applications for Macintosh
QuickBooks & QuickBooks Pro 4.0 for Macintosh (Intuit) QuickBooks & QuickBooks Pro 4 is a true Macintosh application which offers Intuit's award-winning ease-of-use and power in a comprehensive, total business financial software package. Intuit's software is very popular and the Pro version offers time-based billing functions and reporting and cost/job estimating, all of which can be put to valuable use for AEC. However, QuickBooks for Macintosh was released in 1995 and is now over 3 years old. Intuit claims that only 5 percent of QuickBooks users are on the Macintosh platform and that it no longer makes sense for them to upgrade the Macintosh version of QuickBooks. Claiming that Macintosh customers are important to them, they state that technical support is available (and so are the products) including Tax Table updates, etc. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 16 MB RAM for application. Mac OS 7.1 Special Note: At this last months Annual Apple Share Holders Meeting a person asked Jobs about the QuickBooks/Pro situation (meaning the lack of an updated version) in light of the fact the Bill Cambell, Intuit's CEO was on the Apple board. Jobs' reply hinted at an upcoming QuickBooks Pro version for the Macintosh. Paraphrasing, Jobs said that Apple, of course, wants to get all the best products on the Macintosh (not necessarily all PC software, but the best PC software). Architosh advises you to write or call in to Intuit stating your interest in an updated version of QuickBooks Pro for the Macintosh. Version 4 is still widely available and supported. Architosh has learned that April 15th or 19th are most likely going to be a major Apple announcement day. Steve Jobs is probably going to introduce Apple's plans for reentering the small business market (SOHO). We suspect that Apple will redo its main page navigation bar, adding a Small Business section to the list of buttons like its Design & Publishing and Education web areas. It is highly likely that Apple will also announce plans for a new forthcoming QuickBooks & QuickBooks Pro 99 for the Macintosh, as Jobs has stated repeatedly that Apple wants to have all of the best software for the PC available for the Mac. If Apple is going to address the small business market with any seriousness, it just has to have Intuit's software development support behind it, in much the same way as it needed Microsoft Word for the general business market.
Aatrix Accounting 3.0 (Aatrix Software) Aatrix Accounting 3.0 is a full featured financial accounting package. The program was formerly Peachtree Accounting for Macintosh, which Aatrix bought in April 1997. This program is a more full featured version of Aatrix's Mac P&L 6.2 (profit & loss) program. Mac Home magazine recently gave this program a four apple rating (out of five) in its March '99 issue, claiming that "the user interface is nearly as easy to use as is M.Y.O.B's, and every feature is literally a mouse click away." Unlike Mac P&L (see below) this program includes a payroll module. Other features and functions include inventory, assembly options, and advanced reporting capabilities. It also allows you to create completely custom reports tailored to your type of business and way you work. Other features similar to Mac P&L include accounts payable, general ledger, accounts receivable, and year end procedures. Aatrix accounting includes the mandatory electronic funds tax payment deposits, bank reconciliation and vendor payments. It also does direct deposit of payroll checks. Because this program was formerly Peachtree Accounting for Macintosh, and that program was a TAL Partner with Timeslips, it should probably still work in terms of integration of Timeslips Deluxe for Macintosh (see below), thus allowing you to implement Timeslips in your office amongst staff architects and have this timecard data sent automatically to the general ledger functions of Aatrix Accounting. NOTE: this is an assumption, and has not be verified with Aatrix. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 8 MB RAM for application, 15 MB hard drive. Mac OS 7.5.
Aatrix Mac P&L 6.2 (Aatrix Software) Aatrix Mac P&L 6.2, which stands for profit and loss, is a less featured accounting program compared to its sister application, Aatrix Accounting 3.0 (formerly Peachtree Accounting for Macintosh). Features include general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, inventory management, additional system wide features, year end procedure, custom form designer. The year end close out feature creates a copy of the company database and archives it. When opened again, the menus are dimmed accordingly allowing only certain features to work on the archive. Open transactions and balances are transferred to a newly created database, reducing year end work by 50 to 70 percent. The Aatrix web site comes in two flavors: a simple site and an interactive site. Both are currently under construction but some information is available for view. You can also download FREE trail versions of their software. PDF manuals (another good source of info for evaluating purposes) are also dowloadable. The site also features a free Tax Calculator. It's a good tool for consultants and sole-proprietors trying to estimate their taxes for the quarter or any other time period. Just put in your gross wage, pay period, pay schedule, marital status, and exemptions and your taxes are calculated automatically. You get net salary, fed tax, Medicare tax, and Soc. sec.tax amounts. Aatrix will be at Macworld Expo in New York, July 21-23, 1999. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 16 MB RAM for application, 15 MB hard drive. Mac OS 7.5. For both Aatrix accounting programs it is recommended that you have 16 MB RAM, and run Mac OS 8.0 or higher. Both programs are Mac OS 8.5 compatible.
B.Y.O.B. 8.2 is an accounting program that has picked up where Intuit left off with QuickBooks for Macintosh. Mac Home magazine gave M.Y.O.B 8.2 a perfect five apple rating and a MACnificent Mac Home Award. The program features general ledger, checkbook, sales/receivables, invoicing, bids and estimates, payables, purchases, inventory management, contact card file, automatic tax tracking and reporting, payroll, links to MS Word and Excel, Time billing module, and multi-user licenses. M.Y.O.B Premier adds advanced inventory management, multicurrency, and six (6) months of toll free tech support. M.Y.O.B is used by over 350,000 registered users worldwide. The product was introduced in 1989 on the Mac and later in 1991 on Windows. Winner of numerous awards, its general ledger also integrates with Timeslips TAL application data (see below). The professional time billing module makes it ideal for service-based businesses while jobs management and improved inventory offer solutions for item-based businesses. The Time Billing module can track carryovers and write offs while maintaining a complete audit trail of original time. The user simply enters activities as they are performed, either at one time or daily. The product handles complete or partial time billing. For partial time, the user can the have the remaining time carried over to the next billing period or written off. Either way, M.Y.O.B keeps a comprehensive audit trail. Billing can be tracked in units as well as hours. Time units can be tracked in 6, 10, 12, or 15 minute units, as commonly done in legal offices. Both billable and nonbillable time can be tracked, and there is flexibility in how billable time activities are priced, allowing the user to price by activity, employee or by client. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 16 MB RAM for application, 40 MB hard drive. Mac OS 7.5 or higher, PowerPC recommended.
Timeslips Deluxe 5 for Macintosh (Sage US Inc.) Timeslips Deluxe 5 for Macintosh is the world's best-selling and most award-winning time and billing software. It is designed to help you get paid for every hour you work and maintain better control over where and on what you spend your time and money. The program is designed for lawyers, architects, accountants, graphic designers and consultants who bill be time. Timeslips Deluxe for Mac is a complete time and billing solution for service professionals and offices of all sizes. TAL Deluxe for the Mac is an add-on which links Timeslips Deluxe for the Mac to a general ledger software application. LAPTrack Deluxe for the Mac is a complete Macintosh-based TSTime application add-on with slip analysis reporting designed for users who require time and expense entry but are NOT connected to a network. For mobile users who utilize the PalmPilot series of PDA's, iambic's TimeReporter for Timeslips Deluxe can allow you to keep track of billable hours in the field or on the road. TimeReporter also works with Windows CE devices, for those few Mac AEC professionals who work with Windows CE PDA's. General Ledger Software Packages - TAL Deluxe Partners: Aatrix Mac P&L (see above) M.Y.O.B. (see above) Great Plains Accounting Series (see Part 1/2 of this news report) Peachtree Accounting for Macintosh (see Aatrix Accounting 3.0 - or inquire with Peachtree) Software Requirements for Macintosh: 16 MB RAM for application
Big Business 2.5 (Big Business) Big Business 2.5 is a comprehensive business management and financial application, really aimed at the item-based business market. The goal of Big Business software is to integrate four critical business functions--sales, purchasing, inventory and accounting. This doesn't necessarily apply to service-based firms like architecture and engineering, but may apply to interior design and decorating firms that purchase furniture, office systems, and other interior-related items at the reseller level. It may also apply to architecture and engineering VAL's (value-added resellers), like Integrated CADD Services, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which lease and sell computer software and hardware to the AEC market. Optimized for businesses that buy and sell products, Big Business has 90 company templates for retail, wholesale, distribution, and more. And with its multi-user client/server version, or web server add-ons, Big Business grows with your company to help you make it big, as they say. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 24MB RAM for application, 50 MB hard drive. Mac OS 7.5 or higher, Ethernet for server version with a dedicated server machine. The server machine must be a PowerPC with 48 MB of RAM.
Great Plains Dynamics (Great Plains Software) Dynamics is an industry leading accounting solution in the Windows world and there is a Macintosh version, though more limited than its Windows counterpart. Dynamics delivers access to decision-driving information in a superior user interface with rich reporting capabilities. The program features include multiple report destinations, including the ability to save specific information for integration in spreadsheet and business applications. In addition you can export reports to HTML for easy publishing on the Internet or a company Intranet. Some of this programs strengths lie in areas that the Macintosh version doesn't have full acccess to, including Visual Basic and OLE Automation, foundation components of Microsoft's integration strategy. Common features include a general ledger, payroll, bank reconciliation, multicurrency management, invoicing, receivables management, sales order processing, inventory control and purchase order processing. FRx for Dynamics is a powerful reporting tool that provides comprehensive, customizable financial management reports. Like Big Business, Great Plains Dynamics has more tools for item-based businesses than service-based businesses like architecture, and therefore maybe more useful to only select AEC professionals than the other programs shown here. From the Great Plains web site you can send away for a free trial CD-ROM for Macintosh. Software Requirements for Macintosh: We were not able to confirm the requirements, nor was sales support staff very knowledgeable in the requirements for the Mac OS version of this product. It was suggested that the server version only ran on Windows NT with Windows and Mac clients. The product is built on a Windows only database engine technology. Based on our phone call experience, and the lack of Mac OS information on their web site, Architosh suggest that you look seriously at Big Business if you have the need for a item-based business accounting solution on the Mac OS platform. MacArchitect 2.0 (BeeDee Corporation) MacArchitect 2.0 is a product created by design professionals dedicated to increasing profitability in the design professions. Developed by an architect with over 35 years of professional practice, then optimized for the small and medium sized firm. MacArchitect is a full-featured stand alone project financial management application for architects and designers (equally applicable to engineers in AEC). It is the only program on the Macintosh to effectively support standard architectural contracts (AIA). The program features true-single entry data convenience, effective profit planning, immediate analysis of actual versus budgeted costs reporting, monthly revenue projections, easy staff activity analysis, intuitive project performance reports, phase by phase project breakdowns, complete review of actual hours used in a project, and accurate fee estimating tools. Architosh was delighted to discover this quiet, secret little program, which sounds like a diamond in the rough--if you ask me. You can download a trial version of the software from their web site and check it out for yourself. We will be featuring screen shots of the program in the near future. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 2 MB RAM, Architosh Recommends 4 MB RAM. Operating system requirements were not yet verified at the time of this report. This is a neat application because it is completely designed just for architects. Architosh will be looking into this application at a later date and will include screen shots similar to the one below.
NetBooks 3.1.7 (Symmetry Software) NetBooks is a full featured small business accounting system for the Macintosh, offering an easy to use and complete system with integrated general ledger, financial reporting, bank reconciliation, accounts receivable and payable, inventory control, job costing, and payroll. A complete line of context sensitive help files and full documentation are included. NetBooks is 100 percent compatible with the data files created with Peachtree Accounting for Macintosh version 2.0 (NOTE: Peachtree Accounting for Macintosh is now Aatrix Accounting 3.0). NetBooks is a winner of the MacUser Editors Choice Award and Macworld World Class Award. A shareware program, this powerful accounting software cost less than any other full featured accounting program for the Mac. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 4MB RAM for application recommended. Mac OS 6 and higher, Mac OS 7.5 recommended.
TRAQtix is an Internet-centric, multi-platform, time and project tracking solution that facilitates real-time project tracking for professionals service companies and distribution groups. Version 1.1 now supports Windows NT and Macintosh servers and virtually any client platform running a web browser or Java machine. Dispersed teams, small workgroups, corporate departments, or entire companies will find that TRAQtix is ideal for tracking clients, projects, and hours as well as for generating reports based on any of these variables. There is an online demo at their web site for reviewing the program. The interface is beautifully simple and clean. Features include remote access, secure access, real-time project tracking, convenient time tracking, and project manager support. This program sounds interesting and is a true testament to the power of FileMaker Pro for developing custom Internet applications. This application would require a general ledger and payroll application as a compliment. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 12 MB RAM, 20 MB hard drive space, Mac OS 7.1 or later. It also requires FileMaker Pro version 4.01 or later, and Internet access via TCP/IP. Client browsers requires Java and frames support (version 3.0 of Navigator or IE or better). Java clients require Apple Runtime for Java 2.0 or later, and on Windows Sun JDK 1.1 complaint JVM.
Designsoft Creative Billing (Designsoft) Creative Billing is a premier system for easily tracking fees and expenses, including a complete accounting system, reporting and time keeping. The program claims to work the way you do; without any accounting knowledge you can get up and running quickly and easily. You can create your own custom format for forms and the rest is done automatically. This software was created for designers (graphic designers, advertising, architects, illustrators, etc.) by designers. A working trail version is available for only $12.95. There is also a very good stop watch module which integrates with the application. There are two different time clocks so you can track two different task at the same time. The time sheet is filled in automatically from the stop watch or manually with quick pull-down menus. The time sheet then sends the data to Creative Billing. The programs have a very nice and clean interface, the way software should be! This program seems very similar to Timeslips, but is perhaps simpler--and possibly quicker to use. This is a stand alone Macintosh application. Definitely worth checking out if you are attracted to Timeslips Deluxe for Macintosh. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 4 MB RAM, Mac OS 6.7 and Higher.
Time Manager (Systems Optima Inc.) Time Manager is a FileMaker Pro driven application for tracking and managing time and billing functions. The program lets you track billable and nonbillable time by client, category, and associate (staff), and then integrate directly to their custom billing package. This is an ideal package for consultants, attorneys and accountants.Time Manager lets you easily create time slips for each customer, category or associate, and allows you variable billing rate settings. The application is fully cross-platform and can be run on a dedicated server on the Mac OS or Windows NT in a mixed environment. Software Requirements for Macintosh: FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Pro Server running on either the Mac OS or Windows NT (for server) or Windows 3.1 or higher (for client). FileMaker Pro version 4.0 requires 8 MB RAM and Mac OS 7.1 or higher.
Reckoning A/E (Reckoning Software Inc.) Reckoning A/E is time and billing software for architects and engineers. This is software developed by real architects since 1984 (introduction date for Macintosh). Reckoning is their primary product. This application was developed in-house by two architects who were then working together at the same firm. They later founded Reckoning Software Inc. Reckoning A/E is listed in older software list for Mac-based AEC professionals but the site has not been updated since March 1996. Architosh has tried to contact Reckoning via email but has not received any replies. If anyone is using this application or knows about its statis, please let us know so that we can choose whether to list it or not. For now, we will place it on this News Report list, but it may not be added to future software guide coming with Architosh 2. Software Requirements for Macintosh: We were unable to confirm the OS and memory requirements for this application and believe it is no longer available directly from Reckoning.
Quicken 98/99 for Macintosh (Intuit) Quicken 98/99 for Macintosh. Although this program is geared for the home user, the program has some business reporting functions allowing home-based businesses to do their accounting functions with this simple program. Business specific functions include: excellent reporting tools, graphs and detailed reports specifically for businesses. The program has very limited support for payroll, no invoicing, inventory, auditing, or estimating. If you are a small startup and already use Quicken for home financial management, this program can serve you well so long as you stay small, use another program for estimating, time billing and invoicing or do most of these functions with spreadsheets, word processors or database solutions. When it's time to get larger and move to an integrated system, you can export your Quicken files to QuickBooks easily. Software Requirements for Macintosh: 12 MB RAM for Mac OS 7.1-7.6 or 16 MB RAM for Mac OS 8 or higher, 45 MB hard drive space, Internet access.
Closing Comments: As you can see from this list there are a number of ways to go with financial application solutions in your practice. One method would be to use a large accounting product like M.Y.O.B or Aatrix Accounting 3.0 (formerly Peachtree Accounting for Macintosh), both highly recommended by reviewers in recent magazines. And don't forget that it is rumored that Intuit will release an updated QuickBooks/Pro for Macintosh (although Architosh doesn't recommend buying into Intuit if it doesn't upgrade its Mac software often.) Another approach would be to use a product like Timeslips, TimeManager, or Designsoft Creative Billing and integrate its data (time) into a custom database application for finances. You could develop one in-house or higher a consultant using FileMaker's excellent FileMaker Pro 4.1 in both client, server and developer editions. Also, its possible to use a product like Aatrix or B.Y.O.B or one of the PC-only products in the accounting office and integrate it with TimeSlips. And, of course, don't forget to look at products like MacArchitect and Reckoning AE (if you can get it). MacArchitect, in particular, is a nice program we will be looking into further in the future. Many of these programs, including the time-tracking ones, allow you to export that data into Excel spreadsheets and Microsoft Word documents allowing smaller offices to solve accounting needs in a simple and customizable fashion. Furthermore, there are many excellent templates for both of those programs, in addition to Apple's own AppleWorks (aka ClarisWorks) that are pre-made for just such importing of financial data. Last but not least, if you are attracted to a financial program for AEC that runs only on PC's, you can most definitely run most of those applications under emulation on a fast G3 just fine. All and all, Mac AEC professionals have a wide assortment of financial solutions to choose from--many time-based--which can solve your billing and accounting needs. We owe much of this to the fact that the Mac is also very strong in the legal market, a profession much like ours which bills by hour under accounts. Going forward, Architosh will continue to research other financial solutions for the Mac-based AEC market and bring them to your attention.
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