Quantum migrationSmall businesses are so cute - one minute they're little start-ups in someone's garage, and the next thing you know they're off to their first day on the stock exchange. In between, they can run through an awful lot of accounting programs. Sage Software recently introduced a new product in its Peachtree line, Peachtree by Sage - Quantum 2007, to fill in the steps in their upgrade path. While other products in the Peachtree line allow only five named users, Quantum supports up to 10. It also offers roles-based security, so businesses can keep tighter control over their data as their staffs
expand, and a year of unlimited access to customer support through its Signature Care Plan.
Price: New - $3,750; upgrade - $2,995.
Sage Software
www.peachtreequantum.com
(800) 228-0068
First Strike
Everyone knows that you have to spend money to make money, but sometimes you also have to spend money to save money. As a case in point, consider the new editions of Apex Analytix's accounts payable error prevention and fraud prevention software, FirstStrike, which the company claims has prevented over $1 billion in overpayments. Both versions - FirstStrike Retail 6.0 for high-volume buying environments like grocery, general merchandise and drug stores, and FirstStrike Commercial - can help companies significantly reduce overpayments, while at the same time improving their internal controls, preventing fraud and contributing to Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
Price: Percentage of dollars recovered, or as a monthly subscription based on annual invoice volumes, starting at $4,999 per month.
Apex Analytix
www.apexanalytix.com
(800) 284-4522
Better BPM
As businesses scramble to learn more about themselves to improve their performance, Cartesis has released the latest version of its business performance management solution, Cartesis 10. One of the main features of the new release is its ability to integrate internal and external financial data, giving users more useful merger and acquisition planning info, key performance indicators, and benchmarking tools. Cartesis 10 lets companies publish and use financial data formatted in the Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL; it also integrates with an online database of public company financial information from the Securities and Exchange Commission's Edgar Online.
Price: Contact vendor.
Cartesis
www.cartesis.com
On scholarship
While a business school degree might help you in the long run, useful knowledge can help you right now. One place to look for it (outside of the admissions office) is CasePlace.org, a Web site set up by the Aspen
Institute Business & Society Program to serve as a free education resource for businesspeople and academics. Visitors can search through a robust collection of case studies, commentaries, references and more on business ethics, corporate governance and accounting (including a new series on earnings management), and inspection copies of case studies from Harvard Business School. You may not get a degree here, but then again, you won't have to take all those tests - or pay tuition.
Price: Free.
Aspen Institute Business & Society Program
www.caseplace.org
New and improved
Sage Software's Sage Accpac ePOS point-of-sale software has been certified for use by retailers in the processing of credit and debit card transactions by a leading consortium of processors in Canada. ... RedTail Solutions has received Microsoft Certified Partner status for its Xpress Conveyor Platform for Global Data Synchronization, which is built on the .Net platform. Also, the company's outsourced EDI service now integrates directly with Microsoft Dynamics GP.
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