Business Accounting
22 messages in this thread
You sure have a point there, I just got the February Amazing Amiga. The
front cover suggest that it's a business special, but alas, the only
reviews are about Gold Disk Office, BGraphics, and Desktop Budget. Hardly
serious business coverage in my book.
I just bought that same issue. They don't have to review everything at
once, just make business coverage a somewhat regular occurance.
Just to put in my 2cents worth; most of the Amiga business software is
pretty mickey mouse. I have a demo of BGraphics and unfortunately it is
sorely lacking in output quality. SuperbasePro is the _only_ "real"
relational/programmable database and the spreadsheets??? phew! The
"business" world revolves around very few necessary tools; relational/
programmable databases, spreadsheets, high-quality printed output (who
carries their cpu to a presentation? they carry laserjet printouts!) and
word processors and communications software. Also, the business world is
NETWORKING and the lack of networking soft/hardware, as well as
incompatible file formats make it impossible for me, as a business computer
consultant, to seriously reccommend an Amiga for the "standard" business
office, MUCH TO MY CHAGRIN! 🙁
I have found that Lotus (quattro), Paradox, PFS Write, Freelance (charting
software) and any comm package are all I need to set up any business on the
IBM side; on the Amiga I do not have these choices, especially the charting
software, spreadsheets and dbases. There are _plenty_ of bit-mapped
graphics, communications and word processing progs out there, but where are
the rest?? -Scott
Don't forget Accounting software! 🙂
Hi Scott, you certainly have a good point there. I could get by with my Ami
for evrything except spreadsheets, so I'm using Quatro Pro on a
BridgeBoard. I haven't checked SuperBase yet, but I heard the upcoming V4.0
will be quite nice. I gave up on accounting software for the Amiga, and I
will become an official DacEasy Consultant.
DacEAsy????? UGGGHHHH.
Betty
Dac-Easy??? Why don't you just give your clients an assembly language
compiler, and tell them to write their own accounting program?
DacEasy is too difficult for many people, and their reports are
virtually illegible, especially their trial balance.
To bring this back towards an Amiga topic, the best way to record
small (okay, very small) business records is with a spreadsheet. Set up a
spreadsheet resembling a cash receipts and cash disbursements journal and,
if you are on an accrual basis, sales and purchases journal. Post the
summaries of these journals to a general ledger spreadsheet, which you can
then give to your accountant to prepare financial statements. Easy…
The only math really needed is addition and maybe subtraction, so
any Amiga spreadsheet can handle the job. To get fancy, it's nice to have
a DSUM function on the spreadsheet, so that data can be categorized more
easily. SuperPlan and Maxiplan both offer this, I'm not sure about
Advantage. If you wanted to get REAL fancy and link all the spreadsheets
together, a spreadsheet that can call cells from another spreadsheet can
automate some additional transfer work. Maxiplan offers this.
I think I'll give myself an after tax-season job and write up a
sample batch of templates. If anyone is interested, I'll upload them
(don't expect them until May…
I'd be interested. I use Analyze! and MaxiPlan. If you could do Macros it
would also be a large help.
There is a set of business templates for Advantage in AmigaUser right now –
should still be in Library 1. I don't know what all of the templates do,
but the description said there were sets for business and for law.
I would also be very interested if you could upload some templates!! But
please have them in .wks format as all the amiga sheets can import them. I
use Splan and no one uploads spx files!!
Scott,
Freelance!? I never used the charting part but the drawing part can always
be used as a terrible example. Typical PC GUI (gross user interface).
PC's – just say no.
Malcolm
hehehe I agree….not very artistic or better yet, fun to use. Have you
ever tried Harvard Graphics? That is *THE WORST* piece of commercially
availabe software I have ever seen. Ever. The most inconsistent chunk of
code yet. Sheeesh! just say NEVER! -Scott
I've never tried Harvard Graphics but I HAVE noticed something. PC users
who use things that I think are junk (MultiMate, Ventura, Freelance) tend
to think they're fabulous (scary). But the PC users I've known who used
Harvard Graphics thought it was awful. I don't even want to SEE it!
It is worth seeing……after all that is beleiving! -:) Scott
Malcolm, a friend of mine loves Harvard Graphics…. I've given up on him
loooong ago. (grin)
Someday we'll get a great graph/charts for the Amiga…. (sigh)
Hi, good to see you again.
I thought the graphs in Advantage were pretty good. At least compared to
Lotus. I believe there's a Graph program in Gold Disk Office but I haven't
seen that package running.
Malcolm, unfortunately I was spoilt by the graphs in a program called
Beoing 3D (I believe) for MS-DOS computers….. makes all other graphs
look like a hurried sketch.
Khalid, you should look at FoxGraph. It has a range of about 40
different pre-defined 2-D graph types, 40 different pre-defined 3-D graph
types, and the ability to graph z = f(x,y) type functions in lotsa colors.
Also all those graphs can be rotated through all dimensions with the cursor
keys in front of your eyes. It is a program to look to for ideas.
Harvard Gravics isn't THE worst. I used MicroSoft Chart Ver.2 and Ver.3
when I was a Co-Op intern. This program was so awfull that its performance
went into the toilet when we "upgraded" versions. We should have known
what to expect; it did come from those wonderful people who brought us DOS
and the ever un-popular OS/2.
Ahh…I _forgot_ MS's chart programs…..hehehe
-Saw OS/2 at Networld last week in Boston; when I tried to get a demo of
the DBmanager the file server "broke"……oh well….. -Scott
OS/2 The old joke that its an operating system divided by 2 is still
true. The first time I saw OS/2 in action, we had to put over 3 meg of RAn
AT class mach"ran" ok. It just couldn't run any software. I feel sorry
for the corporate drones who are forced to deal with that os for a living.
Mark
….largest known virus in existance today…..like a bad flu….. What is
truly amazing is the overhead required for OS/2……Amigados fills up one
floppy!…..(really only 256k of memory!)…sheeeesh!
I suppose that you give up a lot when you give up your identity for a "big
blue" suit……
-Scott