Ok here's a question and maybe an attempt at little market research, but either way it could be interesting for all and maybe I will attempt to summarise the comments in some form that will be useful when next someone needs to purchase an accounting system.

Just to note that earlier this year I was developing an accounting system for the Auto Workshop industry, which was based was systems that had been written over a 10 year period, which has currently been shelved due to a marketing nightmare.

However, the question is whether your accounting system is a post event recording system or if it avails itself to be used as an active control tool and if in fact this is deemed to be desirable.

I.E. At the end of each day can you use your current system to see what material was ordered, delivered, paid for, what material was not delivered and is now overdue, and pass these transactions as authorized, see what your daily takings were, labour efficiency, man hours billed, customer complaints for the day, follow-up action taken, note follow up action you want taken, rep call sheets, results of disciplinary hearings, current bank recon for the day etc etc

Can you view any source document (JNL, GRN, INV, CN etc) from any General Ledger transaction.

Can you generate your own reports in Excel or other, such as cash flow, balance sheets, trail balance, and management accounts, easily and with limited expertise.

Do you have and your staff have access to productivity tools such as

1. Access to standard journals, (repetitive journals that are repeated monthly) standard weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual payment generator and control system that high lights payments that are overdue.

2. Ability to reconcile debtor, general ledger and creditor accounts on line, i.e., within the system and diarise items for future action.You Know that vehicle licence that is never paid on due date.

3. Ability to look up the history of purchases for lets say HB pencils or any other item, over the last 5 years, in terms of price, supplier and QTY.

Ok so lets hear what system you are using and what it does well and what it does not do, that you would like to have. Think we need to specify the industry sector, as this will help understand the requirements of your business.

If your system is a box of papers that get sent to your accountant at month end, that also counts as a system.