2008 Review of Contractor/Construction Accounting Systems

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• April-May 2008 Issue
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Reporting -- Reporting is always an important area no matter the industry. But a good reporting system should allow for the export of data to a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, and it should offer a decent number of standard customizable reports and utilize third-party report writers such as Crystal Reports. The product should also allow reports to be easily e-mailed and converted to PDF files with the click of a button.

Support & Training -- Since you’ll only know how good the support staff is when you need them, this is a difficult area to asses in a review. However, it is important to know the support and training options available so that’s what this section provides. Although some of the products reviewed here require little training, others will require a considerable amount of time for training.

Relative Value -- This section basically assesses the price/value equation. Obviously, a product that falls on the high end of the pricing scale should provide many more features and options than a product that falls on the lower end of the pricing scale. But does it?

Every business will have different must have’s, which makes it difficult to determine the true value of each product based solely on price because a product’s value is relevant to the business’ needs. A visit to the product website will usually answer many of the questions a business might have as well as provide an opportunity to request a demo.

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