Financial statement software, Excel based, AFP, Accounting for practitioners, Accounting for professionals.

Pendock Mallorn's AFP taps power of Excel.

PENDOCK MALLORN'S AFP TAPS POWER OF EXCEL.
(Reproduced with permission from The Bottom Line, November 2002)

Pendock Mallorn has released a major upgrade to its client engagement software - Accounting For Practitioners (AFP) - that uses a model approach, combined with the power of Excel.

AFP provides a low cost, easy to use alternate for public accounting firms that don't need the horsepower and high learning curve of Caseware and Caseview.

AFP is targeted to accountants with a client base of smaller companies; where engagements are primarily compilations (including year-end write-ups and client bookkeeping), reviews, and occasional audits. About 75% of public practitioners fit this profile.

The new release - AFP 4 - has been rebuilt from the ground up in Visual Basic for Applications. However, the new version has retained the program's traditional ease of use, while adding a host of new features.

Installation is straightforward and I had the program set up and configured in less than 15 minutes. You enter the client's name, fiscal period, contact names, and whether the engagement is a compilation, review, or audit.

The trial balance can be entered in AFP's pre-formatted trial balance table, providing the number of accounts is "normal" - about 100. If there are more than 100 accounts then you use the program's import feature to bring in the client's trial balance.

Journal entries include account lookups, the ability to enter additional text, and auto-incrementing the journal entry number. The entry cannot be posted until it's in balance. A running total for each entry makes it easy to spot an error.

If a wrong account number is entered, simply change it and the entry is redirected to the correct account. The trial balance, financial statements and lead sheets are updated as each entry is made.

If you have a slow computer, the updating can be set to manual and will only post once all the entries in the session are completed.

The preparation of lead sheets is an automatic process. Select Refresh to update existing lead sheets with new accounts or select Create New to add new lead sheets. A prompt will appear if a new lead sheet is required.

Continuity schedules are built into appropriate lead sheets and as much commentary and analysis can be added to each as necessary.

Account analysis data can be imported into the lead sheets from the client's accounting program, or if a listing of adjusting entries is required, you use AFP's Account Analysis selection.

AFP ships with a choice of CICA or CGA compilation and review engagement checklists. Importing the appropriate checklist into the current file is an automatic process. Where the engagement is a review, the review checklist can be completed on another computer and imported into the main file at any point. This lets one person maintain the checklist while another updates the main file.

If long term loan calculations are required, the calculations for up to 26 long term loans - payable as well as receivable - are included.

An amortization schedule is prepared for each loan, and then all loan repayments are summarized showing interest and capital for each of the next five years. This can be handy when preparing the financial statement notes.

If the client is a farm corporation, changing to a farm format is as simple as selecting "Farm Format" from AFP's menu.

If the client is French, enter an "F" in the English/French language cell. The trial balance, GIFI code descriptions, the notes library, and financial statements then appear in French.

Standard engagement and representation letters for compilations, reviews and audits are included and completed automatically. Letters can be edited if changes are required.

There is a notes library containing notes suitable for each engagement type. If your firm has standard notes, adding them to the library is straightforward.

The financial statements are integrated with the rest of AFP and contain numerous options to handle individual preferences. For example, statement headings can be left-justified, centred, or right justified. Underlines can be solid or single, full page width, two column width, or a combination of the two.

AFP creates a comparative ratio analysis for up to five years for each income statement item. Nine standard balance sheet ratios are also prepared. If necessary, more ratios can be added.

Printing options include a preview, draft watermark, whether comparative or non-comparative statements are being issued, and an option to conserve printer memory.

This option is handy if you're printing numerous sets of statements on a printer with limited memory.

The print instructions are sent to the printer sequentially - after each set is printed the next set of instructions is sent.

The monthly bookkeeping feature in AFP means you don't need another program to handle this task. AFP produces monthly income statements showing the transactions for each of the 12 months and compares the current period with each of the 12 months in the previous period.

As well, AFP has a robust bank reconciliation feature that handles multiple bank accounts. When reconciling a bank account, only outstanding transactions for the bank being reconciled are shown. Transactions in subsequent periods are suppressed. Items that clear for an amount different than the amount recorded are listed along with all outstanding items.

The cheque-recording feature lets you prepare a table of recurring payees. To build the table, you enter the full name of the payee, the initials of the payee or other identifying code, and the account number that would normally be charged.

For example, to record a cheque payable to Bell Canada, simply enter BC and AFP does the rest. It shows the full name, increments the cheque number, and enters the account number - all of which can be overwritten. AFP runs in Excel 97, 2000 or 2002 (XP). There are no annual fees.

Overall, AFP is an intuitive, easy-to-use, fully integrated engagement solution for accountants in public practice. Staff training is easy and if you have a question, AFP includes context-sensitive help and toll free telephone support.

Quick Info

AFP is priced at $799 and is licenced for up to 5 users. There are no annual maintenance fees.

Pro: Intuitive, easy to use, toll free telephone support.

Con: Requires Microsoft Excel, version 97 or higher.

Pendock Mallorn Ltd.
Toronto, Ontario
Tel: 416-264-2126
Web: www.pendock.com
e-mail: sales@pendock.com

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