pastel

[murdock]

i need to set my bussiness up in pastel(express 2007 which i will have upgraded soon) so that i can keep track of money going in and out of my bussiness...i have a bookeeper who sorts my books at a fee of R650.00 out every month but cannot tell me who owes me money and how much...unfortunately the bookeeper doesnt use pastel.

so i have decided to set up both companies in pastel express which i purchased in 2007 but never got around to loading the info yet...i need to either do a 2 day course which will cost me R2500 plus the upgrade for a years online support which will cost an additional R1000 which will also include the 2009 upgrade.

i need advice...am i doing the right thing or do i change my bookeeper to one who runs pastel and get them to set it up so that i can do my invoicing in pastel saving me hours of my time sitting going through my bank statement and job book trying to figue out who owes how much and pastel will automatically do my vat.

i started the one company in feb 1991 and the biggest obsticle to date is trying to find someone i can trust to do the books correctly...the last bookeeper i had use to call me to ask me where to allocate my lunch slips i am an electrician not a bookeeper how would i know...surely the bookeeper would know where the best place would be to allocate the expense.

[Dave A]

Murdock, the problem with most accounting packages is that they appeal to accountants. Your accountant is probable using Caseware. It is powerful and wonderful if you're an accountant, and incredibly operator unfriendly even if you are an accountant or professional bookkeeper (although they probably don't think so. If you've slept on a bed of nails, you'll probably think it is normal and OK )

I'm no particular fan of Pastel. I've been involved with a number of organisations over the years that have been on Pastel and extracting the reports I want almost always involved calling some expert to find out how the heck to do it. And that is before we get into the fact that there are people who make a living just fixing the damn database from time to time because it has a knack of bugging out. It is the only accounting package I've ever seen that could produce a trial balance that doesn't balance.

OK - I'm probably starting to bore you now. Moving on...

If I look at what you are going to have to spend to learn to work with Pastel, you'll save money going with Quickbooks and have more fun. It is way easier because it uses a graphic interface that shows flows and documents that anyone that has cut a cheque or handled a bill can recognise.

If all you want to do is manage debtors, then Econoaccounting would be a viable option too, by the sounds of things. (Ian Franks is a fan - if I recall correctly).

[IanF]

If all you want to do is manage debtors, then Econoaccounting would be a viable option too, by the sounds of things. (Ian Franks is a fan - if I recall correctly).

Hi Murdock
I am a fan of econoaccounting, I got the lite version as I do invoicing and quoting off a print management system. What I like is you download and import your bank statement, then you "train" the system to auto allocate the recurring things like bank charges. It then picks up the VAT properly. Also with this feature you input for invoices something like "invoice pri xxxx" this then allocates this to litho printing sales. This you set up. My bank always reconciles great, and then all unallocated entries goes to default expense account. So once a month you clear this out, not with journals but, by changing the entry where this came from.

While it works for me the main reason is I want it to work for me and I understand it. If you don't want it to work for you it won't, I found out this simple philosophy after being in charge of installing a major system in a big company, but you are the only one you have to convince. The website is www.econoaccounting.co.za

Also Alta Murray has developed a system so she may add to this blog.

Ask if you have any questions.

[Donovan Boddy]

Please can someone help me with the following :

I run a Hospitality program that requires specific regional settings, but for some reason this causes a problem with Pastel, is there anyway I can change the settings in Patel to run off a different set of regional settings?

Thanks in advance

[greghsa]

Which operating system are you running Donovan? Windows XP or Windows 7?

[Dave A]

Greg, does Pastel pull the regional settings out of the OS like Quickbooks does?

[Martinco]

Greg, does Pastel pull the regional settings out of the OS like Quickbooks does?

Yes it does !

[Martinco]

My suggestion would be to subscribe to the "doubleentry" forum which Neville Bailey runs and he is a Pastel fundy and very helpful. Saves you having to phone Pastel.

Go to www.doubleentry.co.za and subscribe..............costs you nothing !

[Dave A]

Then if the hospitality program is also pulling its regional settings from the OS and it has to be different from the Pastel settings, the easiest solution would be to set up each on seperate machines.

[Martinco]

Just a thought........................can the hospitality program not run in a VM ( Virtual Machine ) ? Or will the VM also pull the settings from the host ?
This obviously depends on the OS

[greghsa]

Sorry the operating system question was just a precursor. If I knew the OS, it would be easier to assist Donovan. Through trial and error, I have figured out that it is the currency decimal symbol in Pastel has to be a . (fullstop).This is not negotiable . Once I got this right, I was able to change other settings to make the hospitality package (in this case my clients hospitality software was called HOST) happy.

[Donovan Boddy]

the OS is Windows SBS 2008, currently both systems are running on separate PCs, but the owners of the Hotel are wanting to run on one. The idea of a virtual machine interests, surely I can assign a different set of regional settings on the Virtual PC?

Thanks for your replies, much appreciated.

[AndyD]

You can select different regional settings for a virtual machine but beware of reversing the date settings from UK to US style for example, this can play havoc if there is a shared SQL database.

[Neville Bailey]

My suggestion would be to subscribe to the "doubleentry" forum which Neville Bailey runs and he is a Pastel fundy and very helpful. Saves you having to phone Pastel.

Go to www.doubleentry.co.za and subscribe..............costs you nothing !

Just a slight correction - I have removed the link to my forum on my website for the meantime (I am trying an experiment for a while - details to follow in due course). However, if you wish to sign up to the forum, go to http://www.doubleentry.co.za/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl.

Of course, I am willing and able to assist anyone on this forum with their Pastel queries!