Accounting Today: AFP5 is easily a terrific "poster child" for what can be accomplished with Excel!
Accounting Today: AFP5 is easily a terrific "poster child" for what can be accomplished with Excel!
Years
ago, when PCs first became popular in accounting practices, it was very
common to find applications that were created in Lotus 1-2-3. 1-2-3,
and its predecessor VisiCalc, made it easy for a user to create a
moderately complex application without having to learn a formal
programming language.
As the years went by, programming became more popular, and applications
based on spreadsheets became less common, though there are still plenty
of them around.
And that brings us to Accounting for Practitioners, which is a complex
set of spreadsheets, designed to be run on top of Microsoft Excel, that
comprise a full-featured trial balance application. As such, it
requires that the target PC have a version of Excel installed and
available. Some previous versions of AFP have worked with versions of
Excel as far back as Excel 97. The current version requires a slightly
more recent version, and will work with versions from Excel 2000 up to
the present Office 2007 version.
Don't blow off AFP just because it is constructed using Excel
spreadsheets. Excel has some excellent tools, such as pivot tables,
macros and a host of complex calculation operators, which make it a
good base for constructing complex financial applications. And AFP
makes very good use of many of these embedded capabilities. A further
benefit is that while some of these spreadsheets are locked to make
sure that you don't screw them up by accident, if you are a competent
Excel programmer, or have one available, you can add your own custom
routines and features into AFP. Chances are, however, that you will
find more than enough functionality and utility in the application that
you won't be moved to touch the code.
AFP comes in three editions, each adding features and the number of
users licensed to use the product. The "Light" version has the fewest
features, and is basically targeted at practitioners who want to use it
as a data collection engine for tax prep. The 2008 release can directly
export into CCH and Thomson Tax and Accounting tax prep software, and
this capability for Lacerte and Drake is under development.
We tested the Gold version, which has all of the bells and whistles and
can support up to 15 simultaneous users (the Standard edition supports
up to five users). Other features included in both the Standard and
Gold editions include leadsheets, ratio analysis, amortization
schedules, client engagement and report letters, notes to the financial
statements, and the ability to lock files for security in engagements
that require enhanced security, such as audit or SOX compliance. The
Gold version that we tested also adds document imaging and management,
budgeting, trend analysis, and the ability to output reports in PDF
format.
Installing, configuring clients and using the application is a bit
different from the other applications we tested. After all, this is
basically a set of spreadsheets. At the same time, each sheet has
detailed instructions at the top that explain how to use the functions
and features, and a comprehensive PDF manual is also included for any
questions that aren't explained within the applications (and there
aren't many of these).
The only downside we can think of to AFP is that you'll need a copy of
Excel for every staff member who is licensed to use the application. At
the same time, we can't see a staff member not having a copy of Excel
to use anyway.
AFP5 is easily a terrific "poster child" for what can be accomplished
with Excel, and Pendock Mallorn continues to add features with every
new release without losing the backwards-compatibility with older
versions of Excel.
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