It's About Time

Peachtree - Inactive records

You probably already know that you can assign an "Inactive" status to your customers, vendors and inventory items from the "Maintain" selection on the toolbar.  Once you open the selection, you will see the "Inactive" box.  It's nice to be able to categorize your records this way, however, after you have marked them inactive you may not want to see them on the drop-down lists anymore. 

You can "hide" all the inactive records simply by selecting Options, Global

On the Accounting tab, under "Other Options", check the box to "Hide Inactive Records"

 

 

 

 

 

Peachtree: Entering Dates

Here's a quick tip for entering dates in Peachtree.  Just press ALT+D at any time to jump to a Date field.  If the date field says Aug 17, 2008 and you want to enter something for August 15, just type the number 15 in the field.  If you want to create a date in March, say March 3, simply type 303 in the date field. 

Outsource Your Payroll to Peachtree

You probably already know what a payroll service company can offer you.  Besides saving time, they reduce your risk of payroll penalties by filing all the state and federal tax forms and making deposits on time.  This is all good, but you are still left with the task of making payroll entries to your General Ledger.  We all know that manual entries can be error prone. 

Sage Software now offers the only full payroll service system that is completely and seamlessly integrated with Peachtree Accounting software.  It couldn't be easier.  No more manual payroll entries.  If you are switching from ADP, they can import from the ADP output file, so you do not have to re-key that information.

If you would like more information about this service or special pricing information, call (561) 416-9288.

Crystal Reports: Customized reports for your software

Most software programs today have a variety of options for creating and customizing reports within the software.  These reports are usually adequate for 90 percent of all reporting requirements. 

But what happens when you need to create an important report that will allow you to perform a critical piece of analysis?  You might spend hours or days trying to get the information into a standard report. After all, the information is all right there in your software. 

When all else fails, we usually resort to printing up a variety of reports that contain all the pieces of information that we need, then manually entering that data into a spreadsheet to compile the report.  While this provides a solution to the reporting problem, it is far from efficient.  Worse yet, many companies just start using the "guesstimate" approach, because it is too much work to create a spreadsheet.

Another often-overlooked reporting option is Crystal Reports, which has become the standard tool for report writing.  Most software programs will have some capability to create custom reports using Crystal Reports.  Unless you have someone on your staff that is proficient with Crystal Reports, you will need to hire a professional to create these reports for you. 

Is it Cost-Effective?

Naturally, there is a cost involved in hiring a professional to create the report, so you wonder if it is worth it to spend money on a report. 

In today's economic environment, most companies are trying to run as efficiently as possible without hiring additional personnel.  With that concept in mind, you do not want your personnel spending their time with "busy work" like manual entering data from a report to a spreadsheet.  If you want to figure out if the cost of customization is worthwhile, do the following:

1. Add up the amount of time spent to create the spreadsheet report
2. Multiply that amount of time (daily, weekly, monthly) times the payroll cost.
3. Compare that to the report cost

This will give you the basic ROI.  Another cost that is more difficult to assess is the loss of productivity that occurs when employees are spending their time with tedious, manual work.  In most instances, it's safe to say that this time could be put to much better use. 

If you want more reporting information, please contact Compu-Aid for a free estimate and consultation.