The overall focus of this release is to improve performance and simplify use. The developers attempted to answer three key questions which they believe need to be addressed by all businesses:

1. Is my business on track in terms of overall performance indicators?
2. Am I on schedule with overall financial indicators and with individual jobs/projects?
3. Am I within budget at both the company and the job/project levels?

Sage has taken a strong “dashboard” approach in addressing these key issues, expanding the dashboard functionality introduced in Peachtree 2010 for customer management to both the inventory/services management area and to job costing (for the Quantum version onl)y in the Peachtree 2011 edition.

New Features

Many of the new features in Sage Peachtree 2011 are concentrated in the Job/Services Management area. Service Billing functionality has been streamlined to permit “batch-oriented” service billing (a la Timeslips), with various filters available for selecting the group of time and expense tickets to be billed at once, across multiple customers. A new default in the Job Cost setup area allows the user to set a warning message for any transaction that does not have a job code assigned to it (critical for those users that assign job codes to virtually every transaction). A new Job Status field has been added, which is fully customizable and can be applied to all jobs, and can be used for filters and sorts on reports and list views. The Notes field on the job screen has been expanded to accommodate up to 2,000 characters of information (the old limit was only 200 characters). When entering transactions the job code entered on the first line of the transaction will “pre-populate” on each subsequent line of the transaction (but of course can be edited as needed), to speed data entry when the entire transaction applies to a specific job. The job lookup screen on transaction entry can be sorted by the user to speed the process of finding the correct code.

At the Quantum level, there is a whole new Job Management Center dashboard, with extensive customization capabilities to allow the user to review virtually every element of a job, from purchases to time tickets to payroll entries to billings.

A new Change Order capability has been added to Peachtree Premium and higher versions, with fields for tracking change order date, notes for the change order, and a detailed area for assigning/editing cost codes related to the change order. A Change Order form (which can be customized) has been added to the forms list to allow the change order to be sent to the customer for approval and signature.

The new Inventory/Services Management Center pulls together comprehensive information about a specific item, or group of items, in one screen, so that the user can easily review purchases, sales, stock levels and shortages, unit costs and pricing, customer purchase history, etc.

A much improved integration with the Sage ACT! Contact management product will be released in the fall of 2010. The new link will allow ACT! Users who do not have access to Peachtree to review detailed customer purchase history, open sales orders, invoice detail, and other customer and vendor related information. Inventory information stored in Peachtree should also be accessible in ACT! to non-Peachtree users, depending on security settings.  This should allow sales reps to create customer quotes from “live” Peachtree customer and inventory data without having to open Peachtree. Once accepted, the quote can then be converted to an order and/or invoice in Peachtree.

Sage Peachtree will officially support Windows 7 with this release, and will provide support for Office 2010 with the first Service Release of the 20111 edition (probably this fall).  Support for Terminal Services has now been extended to the Peachtree Complete product; this functionality was previously available only in Peachtree Premium and higher.

All in all, Peachtree 2011 appears to be a very compelling release for anyone who needs more extensive job/service management functionality, or is looking for stronger tools for managing inventory. Peachtree’s competitive advantage over QuickBooks has historically been in the inventory and job cost areas, and with these new capabilities this advantage has increased significantly. I suspect that the new functionality in job costing will lead to all kinds of clever and creative uses for this powerful tracking capability in a variety of “non-traditional” settings.

Give us a call if you would like to dive into this new release in greater detail. We expect to have a “Test Drive” edition of Peachtree 2011 available on our website shortly.

What does this mean for you?  

If you are using a version of Peachtree earlier than Peachtree 2008, it means that Sage’s “official” support for your version will end shortly after this new release. While we will continue supporting these “obsolete” versions, we are constrained by our inability to obtain the manufacturer’s support for those earlier versions. It may be time to consider an upgrade.  

If you are using Peachtree 2008 or later, you should carefully review the new features for the 2011 version, and make your upgrade decision based on features. We can tell you that there are significant new features in the area of inventory management and job costing, so if you use either of these components you will want to carefully review these features.  

If you decide to upgrade, we urge you to consider placing your upgrade order through TriStar. We do very little advertising, receiving the majority of our new business through referrals from the Peachtree website. Our positioning on that website (currently #1 for Pennsylvania) is determined by the Peachtree orders we place with Sage. Your upgrade order will help us maintain that lofty position.

 In most cases we are able to match or exceed whatever upgrade pricing Sage is able to offer you directly (as a consequence of our Platinum status). So, by placing your Peachtree upgrade order with TriStar you help us maintain our Platinum status, and we help you to save a little money on your upgrade.

 A classic “win-win!”

 Give us a call if you would like to discuss your upgrade options.

Good financial reporting always needs to start with a good chart of accounts. If you haven’t visited this critical area of your Peachtree setup in some time, it’s time for you to take a closer look. Are the categories you are tracking the ones that make sense to you? Don’t just leave this to your accountant–you are the one that needs to ultimately make sense of these business indicators!

A recent Wall Street Journal article (Colleen Debaise, November 1, 2009) highlighted the three basic financial statements every business should review, and provided a good summary of their purpose. And of course all of these reports are readily available in Peachtree.

The Balance sheet, or statement of financial condition, is a snapshot, as of a specific date, of the financial condition of a business. It is a summary of the business’s financial situation. The balance sheet tells a business what it owns and what it owes. The Balance Sheet is divided into three distinct sections:

•  Assets are the resources that a business controls such as cash, equipment, buildings, furniture and money owed to the business such as accounts receivable.
• Liabilities are the debts or obligations of the business owed to others such as accounts payable, notes and loans payable, taxes, and payroll.
• Net worth, also called equity, is what’s left over, or assets less liabilities.

The Profit and loss statement (P&L) , or income statement, is an historical record that shows how much a business has made in revenues, how much it has spent on expenses, and the resulting amount of net income over a specific period of time (such as a week, a month, a quarter or a year). This statement tells a business how much it is making or losing, and if structured properly, which specific products or services, or groups of same,  are selling the best and where the business is spending too much on expenses.

The Cash flow statement shows how cash “flowed” in and out of the business over a specific period of time, and usually uses the same time frame as the corresponding profit and loss statement. A P&L may show a profit, yet the business may not be generating enough cash. Sales may be growing to new customers, but those new customers may be slow to pay, causing a cash shortage. Also, the business may be spending more on inventory in anticipation of growth, once again causing a cash shortage. Profitable businesses can quickly become “cash poor” and lose control of the business, as a result of too-rapid growth without the corresponding financial controls in place.

  All three financial statements together should be considered when evaluating the financial condition of a business.

And Peachtree makes it real simple to generate all three — as long as you start with a decent Chart of Accounts. If you haven’t reviewed yours in some time, maybe it’s time to take a fresh look.

 Two reasons.

 First, have you ever tried to restore a tape backup file to your server? Chances are this backup system was set up, and is periodically tested and maintained – hopefully! – by your IT person or firm. Chances are also that you don’t really have a clue how to restore a file yourself, or an entire directory, from your backup media, thus requiring you to chase down your IT support resource in the event you need to restore your Peachtree data. By the time that occurs you have either been “down” for longer than you can tolerate, or additional accounting data has been entered into the system, meaning more redundant entry when the database is finally restored.

I still recount a “horror story” from over fifteen years ago, when a client dutifully changed backup tapes every morning, took them off-site every night, and never made an application-based backup. One day they corrupted their database and needed to restore from tape, only to find that the tapes were all blank. No one had ever verified what was being backed up, or tested the restore process to insure its reliability.

 Application-based backups should not be considered as a replacement for an unattended server-based backup system, but as an adjunct to such a system. Server-based backups typically write their data to some type of external storage device, so that if the server drive fails (the most common type of server failure, by the way), your precious data is available to you “detached” from the server drive. It is, however, so much easier to restore an application-based backup file, since the program takes all of the “techno-babble” out of the restore process and guides you through the restore right from within the application.

These types of backups can of course also be stored on external media (thumb drives, USB drives, etc.) but will run much more slowly if directly backed up to an external device. Better to first back up to a local drive, then drag the completed application-based backup file to the external media for secure storage.

 Second, do you really remember – or have the time – to manually run a backup every day? Can you routinely get everybody out of the system, on your schedule, so that you can run the backup? Probably the answer to one or both of these questions is “no”. Peachtree’s automatic backup configuration can eliminate these roadblocks to protecting your valuable accounting data.

 To use the new Peachtree automatic backup feature you run a small “utility” (from within the application, off of the File menu) to specify:

• what company to back up,
• where to store the backup file,
• what credentials you have to permit access to the company database,
• what additional components you may want the backup to include,
• and what to do in the event that a backup file with the same name already exists.

You save these settings in a “configuration file” (one for each company whose backups you want to automate), and then invoke the Windows Scheduler application, which is typically installed on all Windows-based PC’s.

 Windows Scheduler then takes over the process, asking you how often the backup should run, and what time it should kick off. The “no-brainer” setting for this are “daily, in the middle of the night sometime”.  Just be sure that it can complete its backup before your server based-unattended backup starts up, as the one could conflict with the other and prevent a clean backup from either source.

 If you are not yet running on Peachtree 2010, you can still use Windows Scheduler, in conjunction with some old-fashioned “batch files”, to more or less accomplish the same automated backup routine.  Not a simple task, however. You can start a fire with a flint and some straw, as well, but lighters are a whole lot easier. And “easier” usually translates into actually getting the job done reliably and consistently.

When it comes to backing up accounting data, reliability and consistency are the values you are looking for.

 Give us a shout if you would like to learn more about automated backups for Peachtree.

 Workflow Manager
With Quantum’s “Transaction Tracking” feature, users can now build a customized “workflow processing” model right within the accounting system.  For each type of Peachtree transaction (sales orders, vendor invoices, inventory adjustments, journal entries, etc.) users can define a series of “statuses” (typically chronological), and assign a user’s login ID to each status as the “responsible” party. As the transaction gets processed, and moves from status to status, the next person in line to handle the transaction gets notified that the previous status is complete and the transaction is ready for the next step. Notes can be attached to each transaction status, so that detailed information about the previous steps in the workflow process can follow the transaction as it moves from status to status, and person to person.

Sales orders are the obvious target for this kind of processing. When a quote is accepted, the sales rep (who perhaps does not have authority to create new orders) changes the status of the quote to “accepted”, which notifies the sales department that it can create the order.  Entering the order notifies the warehouse (or production) staff that an order for items has been placed, and they should pull the items. When the order is pulled,  the warehouse can notify the next person in the chain that the order is ready for shipping, and notify accounting that the order can be invoiced. All of this can happen automatically, in real time, within the accounting system, as work is processed.

Less obvious but equally useful tracking tasks will undoubtedly emerge as users gain more experience with this new Peachtree Quantum capability. Things like  

• notifying the CFO when all adjusting journal entries are complete so financials can be printed;
• letting the owner know that payments have been processed and checks are ready for signature; 
• checking with other users for items needed when preparing a blanket purchase order;
• advising the “next person in line” that a manufacturing transaction has been imported from your external production system and an order can now ship

We will be tracking new and creative uses for this very flexible new tool in the Peachtree Quantum product, and will report on the more innovative uses we uncover.

Customizable Dashboard
Peachtree radically overhauled its “Executive Dashboard” feature a few versions ago. With the release of Peachtree Quantum 2010, Sage gave Quantum users the ability to create their own customized “dashboards”, each configured as a separate tab on the “My Dashboard” screen.

 Users can select from a list of  over thirty “modules” of information to include on a dashboard, and can then filter the information displayed based on the type of information selected (based on date,  customer type,  open purchase order, employee pay type, etc. etc.). These tabs are “user-specific”, so each user can configure his or her own dashboard with just the information required to manage his or her work.

 Combining the “Customizable Dashboard” with the previously described “Workflow Manager”, users can create a tab detailing accounting system transactions by their tracking status. This approach will display what transactions are at what status within your system, and give a very powerful picture of your company’s “pipeline”, showing where resources are tied up, what bottlenecks are creating problems,  who is handling too many transactions, etc. etc.

 Users can also add a tab called “My Peachtree Inbox”, which will display all of the transactions currently assigned to them. From this tab the user can easily mark transactions as processed and assign them to the next person in the chain, without leaving the dashboard.

 Peachtree Quantum Manufacturing Edition (QME)
This July Sage announced the first of its “specialty” Peachtree Quantum editions, with this initial release focused on manufacturing. The Quantum Manufacturing Edition (QME) combines the power and flexibility of Peachtree Quantum with the comprehensive inventory and production management capabilities of MISys, a very well regarded, value priced manufacturing product that has been in use by small manufacturers for almost 30 years.

 TriStar just completed the certification training required to sell and support this manufacturing product, and are anticipating our first implementation of QME in September of 2009. We’ll have a lot more to say about the new QME product in a future blog posting.

Automated Backup – Peachtree will now include a routine to automatically back up your Peachtree database at a user-defined time of day, and it will make this backup for you automatically without any user intervention. It will not be necessary for Peachtree to even be running when the backup process starts. As a Quantum only feature, Peachtree will automatically log out any users who are still connected to the database when the scheduled backup begins. 

Customer Management Center – Expanding on the “Business Alerts” concept, Peachtree 2010 will offer an additional “dashboard”, focused on customer details. From this configurable interface users will be able to quickly retrieve comprehensive information on their customers, including open quotes, unpaid invoices, orders to ship, aged balances, open time tickets, specific inventory items purchased over some defined time period, and various other key business indicators relating to customer management. 

Inventory Management – With the release of the product users will be able to look up inventory items based on searches for key words in the various “memo” sized fields (Description for Sales, Description for Purchases, and Item Notes. This feature could lead to some very creative uses of these description fields for classifying and categorizing items. A new report has been added which shows item sales history by customer, to help spot trends in customer purchasing behavior. Inventory item type can now store a “default” value, rather than the previous “hard coded” default of Stock Item, which should lead to fewer item maintenance errors when entering new items. 

Record Transaction History – This feature allows the user to quickly see the entire “chain of events” related to a specific transaction, moving either forward or backward in the sales or purchasing process. Thus the vendor payment screen will offer a fast and easy method for viewing the underlying purchase order(s) which initiated this payment, without having to first pull up the vendor invoice and from there open the purchase order. The same functionality will be available for customer quotes, orders, invoices, and payments. 

Multiple Companies/Improved Security – Users will now be able to open multiple Peachtree databases at once, without having to close one to open another. In addition, security has been strengthened by adding additional security options (“strong” passwords, lockout after multiple failed access attempts, password expiration, user access to change their own passwords, etc.) 

The Quantum version of Peachtree 2010 offers some additional interesting features available only to Quantum users.

 Order Processing Workflow – You will now be able to “model” your company’s order processing workflow right in the software. Each step in the order process can be identified and annotated with detailed notes, and completion of a step in the process can send an automatic notification to the next person in the processing chain. A centralized “status” screen can also be configured to show all of the steps required for a specific order or orders, with notes, next steps, and scheduled tasks displayed.

 “My Personal Dashboard” – Users can create their own personal “dashboards”, with multiple “views” for different types of information recorded on the dashboard. These dashboards can provide a very visual indicator of business performance, and can allow managers to quickly pull together various accounting components into a comprehensive snapshot of the company. Track open quotes, orders to be filled, and customer open invoices on one tab, and inventory production runs, items below minimum quantities, and open purchase orders on a separate tab.

 Multi-User Management Tools – Need to make a backup, or run some database maintenance, but find that others are still logged in? In Peachtree Quantum 2010 you will be able to “broadcast” a message to all logged in users to alert them to log out, or if necessary you can manually log out other users yourself to complete that critical task that requires exclusive access, without having to chase down individual users.

 We expect the Peachtree “Sneak Preview” webinar on April 21 to show some or all of these new features, and we will be attending comprehensive training classes on Peachtree 2010 from May 11 to 14 in Nashville. Once we return from that trip we will have lots more to say about the new Peachtree 2010 product!

A lot of improvements in this new Peachtree version are focused on Sales Order entry and inventory, including a very interesting new “workflow manager” for sales order processing (in Peachtree Quantum only, I believe).

If you would like to learn more about how you can capture your own internal “workflow processes” within your accounting software, you should plan to attend this one hour seminar. Some of the software engineers who created the product should be on hand to answer questions at the end of the webinar.

Send me an email at jmschaller@tristardatasystems.com if you would like to register for this informative one-hour presentation.