The
newly released BusinessVision
Version 7 is not an upgrade to the
previous product, but a fundamental
technology design shift that results
in a huge business functionality
leap. Key to the changes in Version
7 is the concept of the “One Stop
Shop” metaphor, where all the data
you are looking for is on the screen
in front of you. This, among the
hundreds of changes in V7, is the
key payback for companies using
BusinessVision.
V 7 uses Net Express as its
programming language and this moves
BusinessVision into the world of
object orientation and the
beginnings of .net. As a result,
BusinessVision now has a technology
platform that will serve it well for
many years to come.
The most important new feature in V7
is the total redesign of the data
base structure. While V7 is still
using flat files, it now provides
substantial Structured Query
Language (SQL) like search and query
functionality, enabling users to get
information more easily and much
faster.
V7 supports three fiscal years:
last, current and next. You can post
into any period of any of these
years. This allows for the
post-dating of sales orders and post
financial values into a future
fiscal year, eliminating the need to
perform a year-end in advance in
order to post certain entries.
Equity (current and retained
earnings) is now separated, allowing
financial statements to be produced
for this year or last year, without
the need to post year ending
entries.
The Chart of Accounts now has up to
4 segments and a maximum 24
character account code. Plus you can
define a division with an additional
6 characters. The customer and
supplier number goes from 6 to 20
characters. Part numbers are now 34
characters and the part description
doubles to 80 characters. An
additional inventory “extended
description” has also been included
that supports up to 5,000 characters
of text. You can now have 200 sales
departments. Sales orders support
999 lines on an order instead of the
99 in previous versions.
A new user interface provides
immediate, online access to the data
you need most. A complete snapshot
of a customer is available,
including open sales orders; sales
order history; comparative sales per
period for current and prior years;
and past and outstanding accounts
receivable transactions – all within
a single module.
Navigation is improved and almost
all of the modules are now fully
resizable and retain their
customized size and position on a
user-by-user basis. You can
re-arrange and resize columns, set
foreground and background colors and
more. Master file detail windows now
use a tabbed interface. Each tab
contains fewer fields, making larger
records such as customer and
inventory information look less
complex. “Pop-up” browses have been
replaced with browse tabs on
records. This provides immediate
access to information that was hard
to get to, or even not available at
all, in previous versions.
The benefits here are huge. You can
review the complete picture of a
customer all from one single
intuitive interface. Each record
stores and displays its creation
date, creator's ID, and last
modification date. A large number of
additional information fields have
been added. These range from
additional address lines through to
new multiple contact information.
Many master file fields, including
the information fields, are now
“Search” fields. You can enter a
value in one of these fields and
then use the navigation buttons to
browse the master file in that
field's sequence instead of the
traditional code and name sequence.
Sales order and purchase order
processing is accelerated by
allowing users to enter data
directly into an “order grid”,
replacing the original single line
data entry grid. Extensive notes can
be added to the general ledger chart
of accounts, divisions, warehouses,
territories, salespeople, product
codes, terms, sales tax codes and
ship via records
Promotional pricing is a highly
useful new feature. You can specify
a date range within which the
promotional price is valid. You can
configure the price to override
other existing prices, or to work
within the existing price structure.
Once a promotional price is out of
its date range, the item
automatically reverts to its normal
pricing structure.
In previous versions of
BusinessVision, if you wanted to
design reports, you had to purchase
Crystal Reports. BusinessVision has
now licensed the current version of
Crystal Reports. This now lets you
edit existing reports and develop
new reports. You can now create up
to 99 custom reports per module,
instead of five.
There are an additional 50 new
reports in V7. Some examples are
cash flow statements; financial
statement by fiscal period;
financial statement summary;
projected cash balances report; and
a report that projects future cash
requirements.
Each module now has a module report
that provide summary and detail
information about the currently
displayed record. This is the ideal
way to get a one page summary of all
relevant information about an item,
customer, or vendor.
While the reporting in V7 is
substantially improved and you no
longer have to purchase Crystal
Reports to modify existing reports
or to create new ones, there is
still room for improvement in the
reporting area. Crystal is a world
leader in reporting but it is not
easy to use. I had hoped that
BusinessVision would have included a
simple, easy-to-use, report designer
in V7, but that is not to be.
So am I totally happy with the new
product? The answer, of course, is
no. But then I never am. Some
modules in the initial release will
retain their "old" look and feel
(A/R, A/P, BOM, Budgets, and POS).
These will get updated in an interim
release later this year. I would
have also liked to see some wizards
for performing more complex tasks
like establishing a new company,
setting up multiple currency, etc.
Finally, while there is a huge
amount of expansion in V7, some
areas are not expanded as far as
they could be. A good example of
this is in payroll, where more
benefit and deduction types might be
useful to certain businesses. This
has been accommodated in the new
data structure, but users won't see
the benefit of this expansion until
later releases.
BusinessVision V7 sets a new
standard for the Small to Medium
business accounting software market.
Its new database structure and
screen redesigns will reaffirm its
position as the leader in its market
space. It’s been a long time coming
but the wait was worthwhile.
Pricing
Limited Edition (single user) $294
Small Business Edition (3 users)
$1,295
Standard Edition (5 users) $4,995
SQL Client Server Edition (10 user
edition) $8,995
BusinessVision
2600 Skymark Avenue, Building 3
Mississauga ON L4W 5B2
1-800-642-7693
604-207-3363 FAX
sales@businessvision.com
www.businessvision.com
Alan Salmon, Managing Director of
Alan Salmon & Associates Inc., is a
leading authority on accounting
software. He is Vice-President,
Canadian Operations of K2
Enterprises, a North American
consulting firm providing technology
training to accountants. In addition
to his work with consultants,
accountants, and software companies
in both Canada and the US, he is the
chairperson of the Microsoft
Accounting Technology for the 21st
Century seminar series. He can be
reached by e-mail at
asalmon@salmon.ca or by visiting
www.salmon.ca.
.
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