Product Descriptions

Analysis Program

The analysis program is no more than a tool to help you define your requirements and determine which products you should examine in more depth. It should not be used to make a final purchase decision. Only you can make that final purchase decision. The program has been designed to assist you define your requirements by listing many features, functions and reports found in the leading products. Many companies, particularly smaller organizations, have found that the features list actually helps them define what they need by presenting both specific features and processing methodologies they may not have considered prior to purchasing The Accounting Library.

The program itself is only as accurate as your needs definition. If you don't take the time to define an accurate representation of your requirements, or select requirements just because they are available, or don't analyze each finalist in sufficient depth to confirm its applicability, the analysis will be flawed, perhaps fatally flawed. Use the program to help you define your needs and narrow your field of focus, but use it wisely. You are the only person who has an intimate knowledge of your organization sufficient to determine which product is best-suited.

Manuals

The analysis program is an incredibly powerful and time-saving tool, but it's power will be reduced significantly if the process of selecting software is flawed. That's why we provide all of our subscribers (end-users and consultants) with a two-volume, 500+ page, set of manuals designed to be your guide throughout this time-consuming, sometimes frightening, software selection process. We will literally take you by the hand and lead you step by step through the following steps:

• Help small business owners understand some accounting fundamentals,
• Define your business success factors and how an accounting system can support these objectives.
• Justify the need for this process by examining your ability and commitment to change,
• Help you organize the people and process,
• Create a preliminary needs definition that takes into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of your current system and current business processes as well as the needs and desires of each person who will be using the new system (data input as well as reports),
• Complete a preliminary analysis whereby your most important requirements are compared against each product and the best-suited selected for more detailed analysis,
• Create a detailed needs definition whereby you identify in depth each of your requirements,
• Complete a detailed analysis of your needs against each remaining product to determine their relative strengths and weaknesses as well as specific weaknesses you need to discuss with each semi-finalist,
• Evaluate all finalists including the results of the analysis program, demos, judging both the reseller and vendor, and many other subjective factors,
• Create a final RFP for the vendor (or vendors) in whose product you are interested,
• Prepare for installation and implementation,
• Understand the process by which companies examine themselves to determine strengths and weaknesses, and finally
• Develop and implement your own business improvement plan.