Project Accounting Software

Archive for August, 2010

The file based accounting system dominates almost all small to medium size accounting software in the pass, only big corporate with hundred of thousands can afford SQL Accounting, but this is not the case any more, as SQL database server getting cheaper (even FREE!), more and more accounting system are built on SQL database server, and I think you should seriously consider SQL Accounting for your company and yourself!

The Advantages for software developer:

1. Scalable architecture.

User can easily expand their connection and scale to a larger system, conventional file based accounting will only allow multi-users connections up to 20 or less. The database powered accounting system will always take more resources than the file based accounting, but modern computer is powerful enough to run any database application, even on desktop computer.

2. Realtime processing.

SQL Accounting with stored procedure support can process calculation on the fly! Support both realtime and batch processing.

3. Separate Business rules from interface.

With proper software design, developer can separate business rules from software interface; The database stored procedure will handle all business rules and processing related matter, while the software will handle all validation and user interactions. Such design allowed developer to port existing software code to web based or other platform easily.

4. Faster product delivery.

Separation of user interface and business rules will greatly reduce testing and debug time, deliver the project more faster.

The Advantages for end user:

1. Faster response time.

Powerful database will speed up processing time.

2. Store more data without performance decrease.

The real database storage allows over 100 GB of data while maintaining a fast response time, file base will start to decrease in performance when data grow over 1 GB.

3. Less cost to integrate.

Standard SQL database will be easier to integrate with the existing system, any business software vendor should be able to communicate with the database and automate the data exchange process with minimum support from accounting software vendor.

There is no reason not to select SQL Accounting, functionality can be easily extended, but the based architecture of the business system must be flexible and scalable to save money in the long run of the development.

(C) Copyright 2008 CYNICS SOFTWARE – Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety as long as all links and author resources box in place.

For a business organization it is very difficult if not impossible, to maintain the accounts. A proper management of the account books intact with their crucial details is what every organization aspires for. Since the data has to be maintained on a daily basis, it becomes more important to take the help of accountants whose attributes are excellence combined with commitment. Accounting help is sought by the accountants in an organization for a flawless functioning of the accounts department. Besides reducing the large manpower, it assists in minimizing the loss of time and efforts towards the maintenance of accounts sheets and other data. The professionals from whom the assistance is sought are adept in handling crucial accounting projects and in tracking numerous data related aspects. A professionally qualified chartered accountant irons out the errors that might creep in due to the unavailability of time.

Since outsourcing is of great help to the accounting personnel, professionals are hired to deal with the financial transactions. It provides a platform towards the management of accounts related information and the final financial statement. Accounting help in the same way assists in processing the non-operational information which is necessary for any business. Any minor error in the preparation of data sheets can result in a disaster which becomes very difficult to handle later and thus professional expertise is sought by the companies. The data used by the managers, shareholders, Banks, creditors and the government has to be maintained in such a way that the information can be shared between them. Accounting help is a professional way towards the perfect organizational structure of accounts department which further assists in managing each aspect effectively. The information is kept strictly confidential and the accounting experts provide their clients a full privilege to monitor the data on a periodic basis.

The fee aspect is duly taken care of by the professionals with a minimal amount demanded by them. This is a foolproof way towards minimizing the monetary losses which otherwise an organization has to incur on the in-house staff salaries. The accountants regularly update the financial records and thus help a company in knowing about its status in the market. The competence of the professionals is reflected in the final conclusion of the projects, which is accomplished with the help of accounting software. The latest software is installed in the premises of accounting firms for a proper monitoring of the accounting records. Accounting help ease out the complex processes by providing a company have a complete control over its non-operational services. Beside, a better management is ensured for a better viewing of the different functions of an accounts department.

A tax session is normally considered hectic and literally a thankless job. To ease accountants, every financial record is prepared with the help of suitable models by the experts in accounting. Online file transfers are a regular feature if one takes the accounting help as this ensures greater transparency than the traditional methods followed till date. Financial records like balance sheets, profit and loss statements, journals and ledgers, bank reconciliation statements and other important documents are checked regularly to ensure their perfect condition. During the tax return sessions, a number of benefits come to the fore with the help of these professionals. Company budget and other proceedings are testimonials in themselves, when one opts for the services of excellent accountants who know their job very well.

Business is composed of a set of interrelated systems that ensure the smooth flow of business processes and convert capital to revenue efficiently. It is important for a business owner to consider each component as if it is just the existing system inside the process. Thus, utmost importance and consideration must be given to each process component, which includes the accounting process.

That is why we have tax lawyers. That is why we have public accountants. That is why we have financial managers.

It is because of the accounting process.

It is the measurement and the disclosure of essential financial information that will help public accountants, financial managers, tax authorities, investors, and other decision-makers to effectively allocate their financial resources to each business process, thus maximizing the conversion of a business’ working capital to huge revenues.

Accounting involves processes in which important financial information of a particular business is recorded, summarized, evaluated, and interpreted. Furthermore, since money is one of the biggest factors that may affect the existence of a business in a certain market, accounting is given utmost attention and consideration at all times.

In accounting alone, there are several aspects that a business owner must consider. There you have the cost accounting, the cash-basis accounting, financial accounting, internal fund accounting, management accounting, project accounting, and others.

And the list continues to expand.

In other words, you might conclude that accounting is a serious and a critical matter that must be handled by a group of people who have the technical expertise in dealing with the accounting as well as financial issues. Realizing this reality, more and more business organizations hand the accounting aspects of their business process to third-party organizations, or most commonly known as accounting outsourcing.

Accounting outsourcing is considered to be one of the more effective management tools, thus many companies often incorporate outsourcing as one of their strategies in business planning. As a matter of fact, the Outsourcing Institute reported that the concept of a CRO (Chief Resource Officer), a professional outsourcing executive manager, is widely-acceptable in larger corporate organizations.

However, you need not be a large corporation to benefit from accounting outsourcing. Even small and medium-sized enterprises can provide better service and produce high-quality products in a more cost-efficient way if they outsource their non-core business processes. This includes the accounting aspect.

By decreasing the demands on your administrative personnel, you will be able to free them from additional responsibilities and they will be able to support areas directly to your sales, clients, and to the marketing task of your business.

Accounting outsourcing firms can execute your accounting and bookkeeping tasks in all frequencies (monthly, quarterly, and annually) or can supplement your present administrative staff to lessen the responsibility. Here is a summary of the services you can acquire from outsourcing your company’s accounting process:

- Preparing cash disbursement checks;

- Preparing input credits and bank deposits;

- Preparing company payroll;

- Preparing tax deposits and bank reconciliation;

- Preparing financial statements;

- Preparing payroll tax returns; and

- Evaluation and review of financial results on different frequencies.

With accounting outsourcing, you will be able to see the benefits of having a cost-efficient business operation. With your accounting process at the hands of outsourcing professionals, you can focus to the core of your business and convert every cent of your working capital into hundreds to thousands of dollars in generated revenues and profits.

Rollalong, a leading provider of modular buildings and portable cabins in the UK, has been delivering space solutions for over 50 years. They recently selected Visibility Corporation’s VISIBILITY.net as their project-based ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Software. Rollalong won a multi-million pound deal to engineer, manufacture and install modular buildings for the Ministry of Defense (the Aspire Project). Rollalong selected VISIBILITY.net, because it is the ONLY ERP product in the market that allowed them to perform Project Accounting in a manufacturing business without having to have in place Engineered Bills of Materials. Rollalong selected VISIBILITY.net after rigorous examination of the product in multiple testing sessions.

According to Mark Thornton, Manager of Visibility Europe Operations, “Rollalong will see the following benefits using VISIBILITY.net:

•An ability to phase the implementation of the ERP system,

•The key to their business is Cost Control over the Projects particularly the Aspire Project,

•The technology lowers the cost of ownership (Visibility installed the hardware and had available the software to every user in Rollalong within half an hour of being on site,)

•They will use Document Attachments and Workflow extensively,

•Key will also be Project Inventory functionality.”

Dean Williams Rollalong’s IT Manager and Tim Cowhigg, Managing Director, were central in the decision-making process.

Visibility Corporation (www.visibility.com) is a leading developer and supplier of business software solutions designed for the unique needs of project-based, engineer-to-order and to-order manufacturers. Visibility’s Enterprise Application solutions help midsize manufacturers of complex products operate their businesses effectively. Visibility has an extensive customer base throughout North America and Europe and has the strongest representation of ERP among complex manufacturers.

VISIBILITY.net is an integrated ERP solution offering comprehensive enterprise-wide functionality and integrated workflow. This browser-based solution cost effectively delivers the power of .NET-based Web services for use with either a Microsoft SQL Server™ or Oracle® database. Conducting business any place, any time, any where is a reality, deployable with unprecedented flexibility.

Managing employee time is major concern to modern business world. In the past, there were several disconnected components in time tracking, and an effective centralization of accumulated time data was a mess. With technological advances, today’s business has effective centralized office monitoring system, which is a combination of hardware and software facilities. Time tracking now means keeping log of all big and small actions and assignments completed in any given periods of time. office monitoring automatically reduces overhead in other areas like payroll, processing or tracking employee productivity.

A fully equipped internet monitoring software allows an employer to monitor the activities of employees on different projects. A software solution ((like the one from spysure.com) designed for employee office monitoring allows you accurately record billable hours and make necessary modifications in workflow for greater productivity.

Spysure internet monitoring software has different applications. If you hire out employees to a third party and bills the party based on human hours spent, you can give make accurate bills by reporting the human hours.

Workflow management and project analysis

Spysure internet monitoring software for workflow management or project management is based on the principle of complete transparency of the work involved. You can monitor which task took too much time, which employees were efficient in completing a specific task and other specific data that you can analyze and make appropriate corrections in workflow management. Since there is solid report, you can accurately plan your future projects in a better manner by assigning efficient hands for specific tasks.

Spysure internet monitoring software, no longer only record timesheets and generate reports, but they can also be integrated into accounting system, billing system or even project management system. The less time an employer wants to spend on his/her employees, the more the requirement of an integrated employee time tracking system. When integrated into in-house billing system, an employee time tracking software helps to generate invoices based on utilized time.

Sure, you don’t have to employ a person at the counter just to record the arrival and departure of your employees. Efficiency of employee time tracking system with paper and pencil ends there, you get precious little data from those reports. Spysure office version reports to you in a spreadsheet file, which you can access over your corporate network or over internet. You will accurately know where your employees are, even while you are visiting a different country.

Punch card readers to biometrics office version are available in the market. If your office deals with rocket/atom bomb technology, office monitoring systems are needed for various reasons. If you do ordinary business in an extraordinary way, you have cheaper alternatives.

Consider the case of spysure office version, a software program that helps your business from becoming a sinking ship. The Time and Attendance software from spysureonline.com allows the employers to track the activity of employees separate the real hard-workers from those pretend to be so. You can monitor their arrival to the office, their rest time and time of departure from the office.

You can also track work-time ration on specific projects and tasks and create reports on any aspect of employee productivity you choose. The employees’ knowledge that their productivity is tracked can motivate them to be more punctual and productive.

A major section of customers of spysure office version uses the reports to identify the employees that deserve a promotion, demotion, or firing.for more information visit http://www.office-monitoring.com

This is a comedic take on the history of AT&T.

Bookkeeping is a time-consuming job. It is a challenge to maintain books systematically while handling and managing overall office tasks. However technology has come to the rescue! Online accounting is a fast growing way used by small businesses to take care of their accounting needs. Online accounting has two components- online accounting software and a remote bookkeeper. While you can have one and not the other, it makes a lot of sense to have both the software and the bookkeeper remote!

Broadly there are two key ways-hosted and ASP based. In the hosted method, the software is hosted on the software company’s servers or third-party servers. They hold the licenses of the software. The underlying software is still a desktop based one. It is just housed in their servers. In an ASP or online base method, the underlying software has been specially designed for online access. For e.g. QuickBooks and Peachtree also have an online accounting platform which have been designed specially for being accessed remotely.

The benefits of online accounting and bookkeeping are as follows:

Low start-up cost: You don’t need to buy the software or worry about data back-ups. All you need is a PC with good internet access
No worries about system upgrades and checks
Fully integrated service-online accounting service providers can handle all the activities from your accounting to personal /small business taxes
You can actually afford to have a full-time dedicated accountant as the costs for such services are 50% lower than your local hiring costs
Many online bookkeeping solutions also offer an add-on data back-up package that includes a regular/daily back-up of your critical data
Many sites offer a document management solution too! So you can keep scanned images in their secure servers for easy access in future. Imagine having a break-in in your office and the computers get stolen!
Online accounting services are especially ideal for start-ups and early-stage small businesses that want to minimize non-critical investments and don’t have the time or resources for back-office functions.

However working in an online medium (software or service provider) does require getting used to as the bookkeeper is physically not present before you. But technology has also made communication cheaper and available through multiple medium- phone, chat, email, online meeting tools or project management software. So after a while, you don’t miss the physical presence of the bookkeeper or the software.

It is important to understand one’s complete accounting requirements before deciding on an online software package. Most current online packages don’t handle inventory well or complicated sales processes (with estimates and sales orders) well. They are also not suitable if you carry a large range of SKUs/items, as the invoicing features are designed towards handling simpler sales/vendor invoices.

However, you can also still opt for an online service provider with a hosted package to give you best of both the worlds!

For the real estate business accounting procedures are often confusing. People who have their share in real estate also need to know about real estate accounting. There are lots of changes in the real estate field and the real estate firms need to adapt to these changes quickly. The real estate accounting software helps firms maintain their data on a daily basis and manage their monetary transfers. With so much work load the firms can filter their accounts quickly and the need to outsource work gets reduced. However sometimes the work requires more than software, it needs a professional accountant.

Real estate accounting comprises of maintaining data, documentations, journals, book keeping, ledgers balance sheet, tracking credit and debit transactions, and all sorts of bills. There have been a lot of real estate firms emerge in the market but very few of them have succeeded. The reason for their failure is the state of business and the unmanageable activities. The accounts department should be proficient in tracking the daily changes and record them correctly. The failure to do so would lead to the failure of the company. The kind of attention and sincerity required needs to be very high skilled.

The trend of real estate to get outsourcings has made the industry even more volatile. These outsourcing projects go to countries of the third world that have cheap labor. The vendors recruit qualified accountants who manage the accounts well with the latest software available at cheap prices. This would give the real estate firm a lot of assurance in the accounts department and that in turn would help them to succeed. The real estate firms save time and money in one significant decision.

The firm however needs to make sure the outsourcer is a reliable firm with good past performance. He also needs to make an intelligent decision on the price that he is about to pay for the accounting work. The outsourcer’s previous clients and projects should also be duly checked by the firm. It is important for the firm to keep the outsourcer know about the important secret data of the firm since nothing should be hidden from accounts. Also the outsourcer should not divulge this information to anyone. Therefore the firm needs to research a cheap as well as a reputed outsourcer who can handle its accounts and make sure the balance sheets keeps showings profit.

There is lot of competition going on in the outsourcing market. Almost every outsourcing form is equipped with highly advanced tools and software along with expert professionals who are trained to meet the urgent demands of the clients. In such a scenario it becomes essential to make a well thought decision. You cannot just go for any other real estate accounting firm. Check the price list and the services they are offering. Take the demo of the work and once satisfied with all requirements then sign a deal.  Definitely you are going to reap great benefits is major chunk of accounting work will be done by your outsourcing firm.

Project management requires managers to use a unique group of skills and a much different approach than general management. In today’s e-business world, project management requires technical tools and knowledge that were not a consideration even a decade ago. As a project manager, you will be primarily concerned with keeping your projects on time and under budget, and with achieving the projects’ predetermined goals. Over the course of a project, you will fi nd yourself balancing theory, practice and psychology while handling the fi ve critical components involved in executing such an undertaking. These components are: 1. Cost accounting. 2. Progress measurement. 3. Variance tracking and change control. 4. Performance evaluation. 5. Productivity evaluation. Project managers can combine proven practices with new, innovative techniques and the attached Project Management software to achieve several key goals including: Plan projects that maximize productivity. Subdivide and quantify the tasks. Create a work breakdown structure (WBS). Sequence, budget and schedule the tasks. Document all expenditures. Track progress accurately in all areas. Create progress and status reports. Maintain variance tracking. Create an objective way to evaluate performance. Perform variance analysis, that is, problem identifi cation. Prepare productivity reports. Find and correct productivity problems. Create and address alternate views and hierarchies. Sequence and schedule using Modern Project and Microsoft Project software and other tools. Employ an automated interface between scheduling and management. Understand government terms, models, reporting and managerial methods, including fulfi llment of legal requirements. Quantify and manage risk. Turn around a problem project. Deal with unplanned detours. Eliminate unexpected barriers. To succeed as a project manager, disregard two common misconceptions.

One is that project management is just an organization’s general management when that organization is set up as an ongoing project. The other misconception is that managing a project is mostly schedule managment. Actually, scheduling is only one detail of project management. In fact, on big jobs, project managers typically turn over specifi c details to a hired team of specialists, such as project schedulers, cost accountants, project administrators and control package managers. Project management can and must be dealt with in an integrated way, yet project management training is usually “unnecessarily disjointed,” and most project management tools are also disjointed. Automated project management software can help you implement all aspects of each project management task more smoothly, including depicting the progress you are making on understandable charts and graphs.

can someone help me, or help me find an example of an excel worksheet so i can see what closing out the accounts on a closing journal entry should look like?