The latest business-accounting product to enter the already overcrowded tray is Business Sense from Monogram Software, publisher of Dollars & Sense, a popular home financial-management program. Established programs such as Plains and Simple (from Great Plains), Rags to Riches (from Chang Labs), and Simply Accounting (which Bedford Software recently sold to Computer Associates) have been available for some time. Business Sense differentiates itself from these other full-fuction packages (which include the following modules: general ledger; accounts receivable; accounts payable; and, in the case of Simply Accounting, payroll) by offering the user all the functions on one disk — the ease-of-use approach.
Most of Business Sense's limitations are well above the concern horizon of the kinds of businesses that should use it. The recommended number of employees, customer accounts, and vendors Business Sense can handle is 2,000 each, and it can handle checks of up to $1 trillion. Any business that has more than 50 employees and more than $5 million in sales shouldn't even consider Business Sense, because it can't handle the data volume of larger businesses. Despite that caveat, Business Sense offers many features and functions that its competitors lack and is clearly a winning low-cost small-business system.
WHAT IT IS Business Sense is a fully integrated accounting system. When you update the accounts-receivable module, all changes that have to flow to the general-ledger system do so automatically. Automatic integration is a plus as long as you can operate your entire accounting system on one Mac. If you have several clerks doing your accounting, the system can't be split up. Business Sense is also not designed for network operation or for subsystem consolidations — everything has to be on the same machine.
The general-ledger module manages multiple companies, but it can't consolidate them. Each company can have up to 99 departments and five bank accounts (which may be a limitation for some users).
Recurring entries such as rent and lease payments are easy to set up and are automatically posted to the system, based on user-specified dates. The system also provides a full audit-trail capability and supports reversing entries.
Twelve months can be kept open, but Business Sense runs only on a calendar-month basis. It doesn't support flexible month ends.
Only two levels of security are built in to the program. The first level prevents users from accessing payroll, company information, account histories, and income statements. The second level yields unrestricted access.
Account numbers are four digits long, with a trailing eight-digit subaccount number, which makes it simple to assign accounts for reporting purposes. Unfortunately, all the reports in Business Sense are hard-coded. If you want ad hoc reporting capabilities, you have to export data to a spreadsheet (in either SYLK or ASCII format).
The accounts-receivable module provides detailed customer histories, credit-limit warnings, and automatic generation of credit memos. Finance charges and discount schedules are easily set up and automatically calculated.
An important feature of Business Sense is that it can readily track partial payments against open invoices and can account for sales commissions for up to 2,000 salesmen. A full aging subsystem generates aging reports by customer.
The accounts-payable system tracks the invoice date, due date, and discount date for all open invoices. Details for generating an aging analysis for cashflow planning are automatically tracked — an important feature for small businesses that aren't cash-rich. And instead of trying to fool the payroll system into paying independent contractors, you can use the accounts-payable module. This module also produces the IRS-required 1099 form.
The payroll module can accommodate up to ten withholding categories and ten wage categories, plus tips and fringes. Any form of slate or city tax can be accommodated. Full federal W-2 reporting as well as 914 reporting is supported. Using the receivables module, you can even track cash advances to your employees.
Stacked on top of the four main modules is a built-in budgeting system that tracks actual expenditures in relation to forecast amounts in either tabular or graphic form. Budget reporting can be done for individual cost centers, for aggregations, or on a consolidated basis. Almost any report can be viewed graphically over any time span within the fiscal year that you specify,
HOW IT WORKS Business Sense fully exploits the Mac interface. You open each module in its own window, and each time you close a window, all the transactions are automatically posted. By clicking on information such as an account number in one window, you can easily move that data to another window, and hence another module, without retyping.
Business Sense has powerful productivity functions such as lookups of partial names and account numbers built into the program. In addition, the program’s Find feature locates accounts, descriptions, and amounts in any journal or report.
As you would expect. Business Sense generates mailing labels and can export any of its files to another application.
Starting the program is straightforward. A sample chart of accounts can be easi ly modi lied. Setting up accounts is simple, thanks to excellent use of the Mac interface and to the step-by-step, easy-to-read printed documentation. A simple Help file is kept on-line, and it can be edited to accommodate company policies and procedures if necessary.
Full error-checking routines are incorporated into the entry screens. Error checking applies to entries that are out of balance, nonexistent accounts, posts to summary account, deletion of active accounts, adjusted closed invoices, credit limits, and missing tax tables for payroll.
The system does not offer incremental-backup capability: backups of all data files are necessary.
Business Sense has the potential to set new standards for ease of use, documentation, and functionality with the inclusion of a few significant enhancements, such as customizable reports, more-flexible data-security options, improved audit trails, and the ability to consolidate companies. Business Sense is smooth and fast and is dearly worth consideration by both novice business accountants and experienced bookkeepers.
Landis, Ken. (September 1989). Business Sense. MacUser. (pgs. 67-68).
Monogram Software
Applications
out of 10 (0 vote)
8 / 
2021-12-07 / 
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Business_Sense.sit_.hqx
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
