SouthWare

Excellence Series

Introduction – SouthWare Excellence Series is one of the most complete and impressive mid-market accounting solution available today – easily this is one of the ten best accounting software packages on the market, and in many regards it is the best value in mid-market accounting systems. Strong words? Yes, this is a powerful claim, and this coming from a guy who has championed many other products in year’s past. Read on to find out why J. Carlton Collins holds SouthWare in such high regards.

Background Information

Founded in 1984 (by President James Clemens), SouthWare has a staff of 35+ employees, 50+ active dealers, and 6,000+ customers. The company adheres to strong values, and they are very proud of the fact that over 80% of their employees have been with SouthWare for more than 12 years. SouthWare Excellence Series includes 34 modules which can run on more than 600 different combinations of platforms, operating systems and databases including Windows and Linux. With more than 6,000 customers, SouthWare is one of the top selling mid-market solutions available today.

SouthWare’s Home Page on the Web

SouthWare’s Features

Using current data (compiled as of Spring 2004), we compared SouthWare Excellence Series’ features to those of other top accounting software products and found that SouthWare more than passes the test. In a comparison of 862 inventory (stock) and order entry features for 142 popular accounting software products, we found that SouthWare beat out 126 other products, including popular solutions such as  Macola ES, MAS 500, Dynamics.GP, e by Epicor, AccountMate, eBPCs, Dynamics.NAV, ACCPAC Advantage, JBA, Lawson and even Dynamics.AX (see comparison report below).

Inventory & Order Entry Feature Analysis for 142 Products

Of course features should not be the only measure by which you should select an accounting software package – you should also consider important factors such as the company behind the product; the underlying technology; the reseller channel; product stability; the size of the customer base; the financial strength of the company; product support, etc. However virtually everyone agrees that features are definitely one of the key factors to consider.  When compared to other top accounting software solutions, SouthWare consistently beats the competition. For example, based solely on number of features:

SouthWare’s General Ledger module has more features than SysPro Impact Encore, Macola Progression, Scala, Epicor’s Vantage, DataPro’s Infinity, Deltek’s CostPoint, Best’s MAS 200, Made2Manage and more than 50 other top products. 

SouthWare’s Accounts Payable module has more features than Dynamics.AX, Macola Progression, JBA System 21, ACCPAC Advantage, Dynamics.SL, Ross Systems, Epicor’s Vantage, DataPro’s Infinity, Deltek’s CostPoint, Best’s MAS 200, Made2Manage and more than 60 other top products. 

SouthWare’s Job Costing module has more features than Dynamics.NAV, Dynamics.AX, Macola Progression, JBA System 21, ACCPAC ProSeries, Ross Systems, Epicor’s Vantage, DataPro’s Infinity, Deltek’s CostPoint, Best’s MAS 200, Made2Manage and more than 70 other top products. 

SouthWare’s other modules rate similarly – beating many of the top products on the market today – the product certainly holds it’s own in terms of accounting system features.

Very Elegant

In addition to the abundance of regular features, we found that SouthWare Excellence Series also contains a wide assortment of modules, capabilities and functionality, which we can only classify as “way too cool”. For example, some of these cool functions include: Alerts; Report Card; Macros; TaskWise; News Flash Report; Explorer View Look Ups; and Map Point Integration. Each of these innovative features is discussed briefly below:

SouthWare’s Intelligent Alerts

SouthWare Excellence Series provides automated alerts - or the ability to alert users to predefined financial conditions. With this feature a CFO can create simple or complex formulas that continuously compare actual amounts against pre-determined values. When that value is exceeded, an alert pops up on the computer screen and is also sent to the appropriate people as an e-mail message. For example, a CFO might create formulas to sound an alert in the event that cash on hand falls below $100,000, gross margin drops below 20% or the number of days in inventory exceeds 80. In most cases, there is no limit to the number of triggers that can be created. Alerts are also referred to as “event triggered reporting” or “management by exception”. Here at ASA Research, we are big fans of this type of technology and we believe that users should always look for this capability when evaluating an accounting software system. SouthWare’s Intelligent Alerts screen is shown below:

SouthWare’s Alert’s Screen

Report Card

SouthWare’s Report Card screen is a simple and clever way in which SouthWare communicates the company’s status at a glance. Similar to the report card format that we are all used to, SouthWare grades six key factors of business performance over the previous seven month period. The formulas and grading scale used are definable by the user. For example, growth rates equal to 8%, 6% or 4% might equate to an A+, B, or C- for one company, while another company may establish growth rates of 20%, 15% and 10% to represent A+, B, and B- results. Once you have established your grading parameters, whatever they are, SouthWare consistently rates your company’s performance. The report card screen is shown below:

SouthWare’s Report Card Screen

The following screen shows the controls which SouthWare provides over the grading calculations and parameters which is an essential reason why this tool is so useful.

SouthWare’s Report Card Screen

Macros

SouthWare provides macro capabilities that allow a user to record and playback macros to repeat common or complex tasks. For example, a user might create a simple macro to print the 26 month-end financial statements, journals and reports desired by management. Thereafter the user need only play back the macro each month in order to produce those same reports. Accounting system macros are not only time savers for experienced users, but they are also particularly useful to inexperienced users who need guidance to operate the system. Several top accounting packages such as Dynamics.GP and ACCPAC Advantage also provide macro capabilities, but SouthWare goes a step further by allowing the user to schedule macros to run at pre-defined times. For example, SouthWare could produce the various sales reports needed each Monday at 8:00am in time for the 8:30am sales meeting. To record or playback a macro, the user need only press the F4 key from any screen. Users can also schedule macros to play a specified times - this feature is shown in the screen below:

SouthWare’s Macro Scheduling Screen

TaskWise

SouthWare’s TaskWise module is best described as a combination “CRM Tool” and “Digital Dashboard” on steroids. It does not do the module justice to call it just a CRM tool - it is much more than that. For example, here is a partial listing of some of the features contained in TaskWise that you won’t find in most CRM tools:

1.      Prioritize and track all “To Do” tasks by company, department, and user

2.      Track all calls, meetings, and contacts

3.      Track all relationships (customer, vendor, employee, prospect, etc.)

4.      Track projects

5.      Display financial graphs

6.      Display digital dashboard

7.      Warehouse management

8.      Review sales status

9.      Manage service dispatch

The following screens show some of the TaskWise functionality:

The financial graphs screen (shown below) provides visual displays of your company’s growth or decline in revenue, profits, inventory, and current assets. A single click on any graph launches that graph in Microsoft Excel so that further analysis or printing can be performed on the data.

SouthWare’s Financial Graphs Screen

The warehouse status page indicates the number of pending and completed orders, as well as the amount of revenue booked today and accounts receivable expected in the next 7 days. The user can also use this page to print labels, inquire on inventories, and check the shipping status using the UPS or FedEx tracking number on the built-in web browser window.

SouthWare’s Warehouse Status Screen

The Accounting Department view shown to the right displays a variety of summaries for financial amounts such as sales, payables, receivables, and payroll. Drill-down buttons allow the user to access the underlying details with a single click.

SouthWare’s Accounting Department Screen

The ExecuMate view is just one click away from the Accounting Department view and it provides even more details such as aging, history, profit margins, and more.

SouthWare’s ExecuMate II Module

This sales information screen is ideally suited for use by the sales department, from the sales manager down to the service dispatch call takers. Here you can take orders, issue quotes, inquire about existing orders and drill down into sale history.

SouthWare’s Sales Info Screen

News Flash Reporter

SouthWare’s News Flash Reporter provides a browser view for virtually any SouthWare data. In the example screen shown below, the News Flash Reporter presents data from the TaskWise module as well as alerts (shown in box on right) and task status and summaries. The user need only "flag" a task as being news worthy and it will automatically be displayed in the News Flash Reporter.

SouthWare’s News Flash Reporter Module

This same approach can be used to display any data in SouthWare. For example, the screen below shows data for a particular customer. This allows anybody in the organization to access any data desirable via their browser - which means that setting up and maintaining systems throughout your organization is much easier.

Explorer View

With version 9.0, SouthWare has added an improved data view similar to the explorer functionality found in Dynamics.GP and MAS 90. This new data view is available throughout the system in lieu of look up fields, and it provides a clean graphical view of all data in SouthWare. Icons allow the user to display records a page at a time, or a complete list of all records. The resulting data may be sorted by any column with the click of a button, columns may be repositions via drag and drop, and all data can be exported to Microsoft Excel by clicking on the Excel icon button.

SouthWare’s Explorer View Screen

Selecting a record in this explorer-style look up window also displays more details about that particular record, as shown below:

This data view may also be altered by adding other data fields to the view, or by grouping the data by category as shown below:

Map Point Integration

Version 9.0 integrates SouthWare's customer data with Microsoft Map Point - an add-on tool that provides a database of every street, hotel, bank, restaurant, museum, etc in the United States, and throughout the world. Map Point updates itself on line and SouthWare customers can use Map Point to plan driving routes, obtain directions, plan where to stay and where to eat on the road, etc. Map Point also contains the United State census data allowing users to overlay the resulting maps with critical population data such as average household income, age, etc. 

Customization

Here at ASA research, we are strong advocates of the ability to easily customize an accounting system; in fact we think that this is the most important functionality to look for when evaluating an accounting system. Our reasoning is that there is no way for an accounting software vendor to provide every conceivable data field and feature a specific company might want, and those that try only end up producing bloated software that is too difficult and cumbersome to use. Today’s best products strive to provide solid core accounting features and functionality, along with easy to use tools that allow the company to customize the product to their particular needs. SouthWare follows this philosophy and Excellence Series delivers. The Extended Data and WorkFlow module allows users to add new data fields to files and change the flow of data within the program without being locked by custom programming. Your customized changes will continue to work automatically even as you upgrade the core SouthWare product to new versions.

The Extended Data module is fairly simple to use, you certainly don’t have to be a programmer to add simple enhancements to the system. With this tool you can add new data fields that become part of the normal entry and reporting for your system. For more advanced needs, you can also use Extended Data to create stand-alone databases. For example, a boat marina owner might use a separate database to keep track of all docks, slips, or boats for rent. As you add extra data fields, you can also print these fields on invoices, purchase orders (POs), picking tickets, and service orders, etc. You could also create your own prompts and defaults, or add new ways to search through your master data files. 

The Extended Data module does not allow for full program development – there are limitations to the amount of customization that can be performed. However, these limitations are considered to be far beyond the levels of customization most normal companies would experience. For example, Extended Data allows you to add fields to more than 20 different master files, with up to 26 fields per file. You can link up to 20 additional screens for a maximum of 546 new fields per file. You can also add fields to more than 20 different transaction files, with up to 15 fields per file. Thereafter you can link up to 20 additional screens for a maximum of 315 new fields per file. Added fields can accommodate manual or automatic entry, user-defined names, prompts, and defaults. Data for a field can be validated against your existing data files (ie: customer names), or a list of valid values. You can create up to 8 new search fields per file (new fields are automatically integrated into the standard search feature.)

New fields created with Extended Data are automatically accessible with ImportMate™ and ReportMate™ and WorkFlow. Some example uses for Extended Data include, Adding alternate phone numbers to the customer file; Adding additional description fields to the inventory stock file; Add more shipping and credit information about your vendors; Add more reference dates to customer equipment records; Add a “Date Inactivated” and “Reason Codes” to G/L Accounts.

Modules

All together, SouthWare Excellence Series offers 36 separate modules. These modules and selected key benefits for each module are summarized below.

1. Accounts Receivable Invoicing Adapter - Maintain detailed invoice histories, supports service codes, returns, price adjustments, retainage, credit limit checking, unlimited lines of text on the invoice, miscellaneous charges, added fields, invoice notes, and end of day sales register.

2. Accounts Payable - Maintains 5 years of history for each vendor, supports multiple discounts, one-time vendors, payments on hold, customer refunds, check voiding, 1099 forms, and recurring transactions.

3. Accounts Receivable - Maintain 5 years of history for each customer, supports customer notes, invoice notes, added fields, multiple bill-to and ship-to addresses, open item or balance forward invoicing, commissions based on profit, automatic late fees, reprinting of invoices and vendor refunds.

4. AcuODBC Vision Driver & AcuXFD Technology - ODBC Connectivity provides the ability to export data to ODBC compliant applications such as Microsoft Excel.

5. Assembly Work Orders - Component features include tracking number, multi-location, conversion U/M, Fixed or Variable quantity, Confirmation option, W/O Effective Date; Up to 9999 components per assembly ; creates a stock item from multiple stock items - components can be sub-assembled for multi-level assembly.

6. Cash Flow - Reconciliation report; unlimited number of bank accounts; check number audit report.

7. Collections Adapter - Manage collections by scheduling collection calls and entering collection call information. Supports automatic selection of customers who need a call, review previous calls, record who you talked to and what they promised, call date and promised date tracking, and zoom into the details of any invoice.

8. Contract Management - Contract assigned to service location, territory, and route sequence; handles contracts based on meter usage; create proposals / turn into contracts; generate scheduled service orders.

9. Database Director™ - Store or replicate your data in MS-SQL, Oracle, Informix, ISAM, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase (for history files), Btrieve, C-ISAM, generic ODBC.

10. DocTransfer™ - Directly exchange documents with customers and vendors who also use the SouthWare Excellence Series™. Exchange EDI documents with customers and vendors.

11. Equipment Servicing - Track by serial #, tag #, or system; specific warranty dates based on model; loan, rent, out-of-service indicator; up to 10 schedules per equipment model; based on time elapsed or metered usage.

12. ExcelReport™ - The ExcelReport allows you to produce a report card summarizing six success factors; trend analysis, GPA analysis using an A-B-C-D-E-F grading scale.

13. ExecuMate II™ - ExecuMate provides a window into the financial health and activity of your business and includes a summary of the following data: company totals or profit center detail; cash and aging totals; trigger “Alert” warnings; financial statement totals current balance; cash worksheet; last 10 weeks actual cash flows; next 10 weeks projected cash flows; actual trends; A/R and A/P aging; today’s sales; activity statistics per day, week, month, etc.; trigger “Alerts” for G/L accounts or financial ratios.

14. Extended Data™ - Add new data fields to standard files. Create your own prompts and defaults, add new search keys.

15. Fixed Assets - Tracking, valuing, and depreciating your assets. Supports 15 character asset ID numbers, property tax report locations, cost basis, salvage values, replace costs, insurance coverage amounts, usage, owned, leased, or borrowed indicators, straight-line, declining balance, usage-based, sum-of-the-years digits, statutory, ACE, and non-depreciable, and partial period conventions.

16. General Ledger - 16 column reporting, source and use of funds report, cash flow in compliance with FASB 95, multi-company consolidation, 4 segment account numbers, 5 year comparisons, and on-screen zoom to detailed transactions.

17. ImportMate II™ - ImportMate II is an add-on module you can use to automatically input data into selected Excellence Series files. ImportMate II prompts you for all the information it needs and checks to make sure that the data you are bringing in is valid.

18. International Transactions™ - Record, track, and report multi-currency transactions involving international trading partners. Features include unrecognized gain/loss report, history of gain/loss report toggle display between natural currency and base currency (dollars)

19. Inventory Control - Comprehensive line of modules for your inventory-related operations. Sophisticated Inventory Control includes tracking numbers (serial/lot/etc.), various costing methods, multi-location flexibility and many related capabilities to help you manage inventory levels and information. Purchasing features help you buy what you need, when you need it, and at the right price. You can track the assembly of items from inventory, returns to vendors and returns from customers. Sales options include Point of Sale, Order Entry (and related shipping processes) and Rentals. Plus, powerful management tools ensure that you always know where you stand in reaching your goals for profitability and service.

20. Job Cost - Completed contract or percentage complete; copy function to quickly duplicate a job; AIA Invoicing option; subcontractor retainage;  change order; overhead allocation; and up to four breakdowns such as phase and cost category.

21. Order Entry - Customize the keystrokes and security features per operator ; text and notes for the order ; special purchase, drop ship, and handle as surplus; backorder, substitute and cancel options; sell from multiple locations on an invoice.

22. Payroll - Distribute salary to multiple G/L accounts ; employee notes; added fields; pre-check authorization report; direct deposit; retirement, review, leave reports; 401-K, cafeteria plans, and garnishments.

23. Point of Sale - Numerous pricing options; serial, lot, or other tracking numbers; option to display suggested related items; allows miscellaneous add-on charges; calculates proper sales tax; any combination of cash, check, credit card, or on account payment; calculates change due; optional interface to electronic cash drawer.

24. Purchasing - Suggested order quantity based on EOQ, movement class, quantity discounts, prior usage, min/max; safety stock - fixed or based on usage; option to “freeze” order controls for items; Info about out of stock situations; seasonal indicator and movement class generates POs for stock based on current item status and order controls replenishment, expedite, exceptions, review cycle, scheduled receipts, vendor performance, and other reports.

25. Rental Department - Ideal solution for the business that both rents and sells items; multi-location option, base rate for rental table, serial number tracking option, Cost/Value/Price info; other info such as bin location, turnaround requirements; rentals, sales, and service in single transaction; option to sell or exchange rental items; grace period, cutoff times and weekend pricing; security deposits. 

26. ReportMate™ - Access the data in any major file in SouthWare and produce a report. Relationships between files are already set up; test a field to be less than, greater than, equal to, not equal to, greater than or equal to, less than or equal to, or match on masking characters ; report formats include printer, screen, or file, HTML file, browser table, DIF, delimited, merge file, XML data, fixed-position or fixed-length text, a file to use with ImportMate, as ExecuMate II statistics; “WYSIWYG” entry lets you see and edit what the report will look like, up to 264 columns per line.

27. Return Authorizations - Lets you manage your inventory in conjunction with items being returned from customers and items being returned to vendors; Tracks item/serial#/equipment info; estimated cost; return status info.

28. SalesMark®  - Integrated contact management system 36 user-defined record types; multi-screens per record; up to 10 search fields per record; client data linked to A/R customer; territory masking; conversation records; hot keys; history of letters, literature; mailing lists and labels ; automatic phone dialing; data import to create prospect records from purchased databases; create selective call campaigns.

29. Service Invoicing  - System for service businesses that handles credits, special orders, pricing adjustments, and payments on account credit limit checking; generate invoices from contracts, service orders, equipment service pricing.

30. Service Orders  - Option for multiple service locations problem description, problem codes, estimates, comments, and actions taken, track dates and times for each step; option to service multiple equipment on one service order, multiple technicians per service order; display service orders to be dispatched along with a list of possible technicians; check technician skills, territory, priority.

31. Shipping Interface - Send order-related information to and from a third-party shipping software package; interface to/from StarShip™ (by V-Technologies); interface to/from Clippership™ (distributed by Evcor); open interface can be utilized by other shipping software that supports ASCII file transfer/polling.

32. SouthWare NetLink™ - Provide partners controlled browser-based access via the Internet to review and update your business data. Valid requestor logins; security masking per requestor and request.

33. SouthWare Thin Client - Provides graphic interface via UNIX or LINUX servers. Faster and easier to set up and administer. Performs faster, even on slower computer workstations. Results in tighter security. Reduces network traffic.  Reduces total cost of the system.

34. SouthWare WorkFlow™ - Create customized program changes for your needs while remaining compatible with the standard version.

35. SwiftMate™ - SwiftMate is SouthWare's system manager module which allows users to configure menus, security, styles, hardware, etc. SwiftMate keeps track of who's logged into the system and what they are doing. It can send e-mails between users. SwiftMate enables you to program new features with Objects, Field-Level Objects, and Field Filters. You can also create "Zoom Views" to provide unique summaries of your data.

36. TaskWise® - Combines the functions of task management, relationship management, exception management, and information sharing into a single company-wide system. Tracks contacts, opportunities, prospects, alerts, financial graphs, trends, tasks, etc.

SouthWare’s Technology

SouthWare was originally written in the Cobol programming language – the most widely used programming language in the world. Some consultants and pundits consider the Cobol program language to be antiquated; however, this is a myopic view. All programming languages today are descendants from older, obsolete programming languages. Cobol is no different. Improvements to Cobol in recent years has kept this popular language competitive with other comparable languages such as Visual Basic, C, or C++. Several years ago, SouthWare recompiled their product using a San Diego, California-based version of Cobol called AccuCobol. The result was to reproduce the entire SouthWare product into a 32-bit, windows-based product. This is similar to what Best Software did years ago when they used ProvideX technology out of Canada to recompile MAS 90 from a 16-bit DOS-based product into a 32-bit windows-based product. In both cases, these accounting system’s well-proven business logic remained primarily unchanged while the underlying technology was brought up to date. Once converted, the programmers at Best Software then re-worked their user screens to ultimately give the product a fresher windows-based “look and feel”. The programmers at SouthWare made different decisions and reworked their user screens in such a way as to allow their product to continue to run on dumb terminals and monochrome monitors.  They did this because a large percentage of their customer base had older dumb terminals and monochrome monitors. As an act of loyalty to their existing customers, SouthWare’s management decided not to force their users to implement new hardware to accommodate newer Windows-based screens. In 2003, SouthWare made the decision to finally begin upgrading it’s look and feel and as a result, SouthWare Excellence Series has received a fresh new look and feel.

Most impressive is the fact that SouthWare is a 32-bit application that will run on virtually any database and any operating system platform in the world. Virtually no other accounting software company can make this claim. As examples, SouthWare has many customers running it’s products on the following databases: MS-SQL, Oracle, Informix, ISAM, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase (for history files), Btrieve, C-ISAM, or any generic ODBC database. SouthWare Excellence Series also runs on virtually any operating system or platform such as UNIX, Linux, Windows, DOS, and even OS/400. This is a strong capability that should not be ignored when evaluating a product’s technology. All things being equal, I think that most people would prefer a product that provided such options. There is more to a product’s technology than just looks. Up until this year, SouthWare could be compared to a solid, dependable Cadillac that runs great and simply needs a new paint job – a good, dependable product underneath its’ rustic exterior. Now that SouthWare has updated the product’s look and feel, the product essentially leap frogs up to a top ten product by any account. The products’ respectable track record, stability, proven value, 6,000 customers, wide breath of modules, deep features, good customization, profitable company, and good future outlook make SouthWare a viable option for almost any company.

SouthWare’s Legacy Hardware Benefits

Because SouthWare will run on legacy hardware systems, including dumb terminals and monochrome monitors, this makes SouthWare is less expensive to implement and maintain.  This is because users do not necessarily need to purchase new hardware when implementing SouthWare. Often, on going maintenance is less expensive as well. Additionally, because SouthWare can operate in virtually any environment and atop virtually any database, companies are able to pick and deploy the platforms and database solutions that best match their budget, needs, and personnel skills. This also means that users may be better able to utilize legacy operating systems and database applications. These factors allow companies to better stretch the useful lives of their prior technology investments. It should be pointed out that in many cases, newer, faster computers can offer improved time savings significant enough to pay for themselves – the reader should also take this into consideration.

Solid Product Code

SouthWare enjoys a reputation for producing good solid code with fewer bugs. SouthWare’s product maturity, larger customer base, and positive feedback from customers, resellers, and the CPA community support the premise that SouthWare deserves recognition as a top product. To keep a product stable and relatively bug free requires a consistent effort on the part of the publisher. Dynamics.GP is legendary for compiling and testing its product nightly using 700 computers and 3,200 macros to produce 174,000+ reports that are electronically checked each day. There is no doubt that Dynamics.GP sets the standard in this area. However many publishers seem to do very little to root out bugs and problems within the software – but not SouthWare.   In SouthWare’s case, formal procedures are in place address this important issue. Specifically, the SouthWare code is compiled each week and programmers gather together each Monday to review the product testing results and bug reports received from dealers and end users. All bugs are documented and efforts are made to recreate the bug issue in house. Once identified the software bugs, if any, are prioritized and efforts are begun to solve these problems. As bug issues are resolved, SouthWare posts the bug fixes to their dealer web site and notifies all dealers accordingly. I am told by SouthWare’s management that some weeks there are no bugs identified and that in other weeks all bugs that are identified are typically resolved within 8 hours. It should be noted that software bugs are common place for every company – even Microsoft admitted years ago that there were more than 60,000 known bugs in Windows NT. With extreme stories like these it is easy to understand the importance of a consistent approach to identifying and handling these pesky problems.

SouthWare Excellence Series Pricing

Comparing the prices of accounting software can be confusing, especially for SouthWare because the company does not release retail product pricing. We do know that SouthWare’s pricing is graduated based on the size of the company and number of concurrent users. The table below includes typical pricing for SouthWare, although the actual pricing you find may be higher than the amounts reported below. For pricing purposes, we compiled pricing for some of the top accounting software products for eight core modules (general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, inventory, order entry, job costing, and system manager) for 1 user, 5 users, 10 users, 25 users, and 100 users. In almost every column, SouthWare Excellence Series is the lowest priced product, despite having more features than many of the other products included in this listing.

Navigation

It is always revealing to explore a product’s navigation. Most accounting software packages have 6,000 to 10,000 user screens and SouthWare is believed to fall within this range. With so many screens, getting around efficiently becomes an important issue. In SouthWare’s case, there are numerous ways to navigate the system. The most obvious method is to use the main menu which cascades down into more detailed menus – this option works quite well.

SouthWare’s Main Menu Screen

One complaint that I have with SouthWare is that the escape key does not continually return to the previous menu or screen. Instead, SouthWare requires the user to press the F8 key to accomplish this task. (I realize that this issue is really just a pet peeve of mine, and that this complaint is not commonly shared by others.) This approach was fine years ago when most keyboards located the F8 key conveniently in the left hand corner – but today’s newer keyboards place the F8 key at the top of the keyboard in a row. This placement makes it harder to pick out and use the F8 key. I asked SouthWare’s programmers about this issue and they reported that the escape key is used for other numerous functions throughout the system, and changing the system now would play havoc with the tens of thousands of users who have learned an approach different than mine.

My favorite navigation feature in SouthWare is the Jump Buttons that allow the user to jump directly to any screen in the system. The user need only type in the number to the corresponding screen they wish to jump to, and SouthWare takes you to that screen instantly. Of course you must memorize the screen numbers to take advantage of this feature – but most users pick up on this quickly. For example the user would enter AP0201 in the shortcut field to jump directly to the screen where checks are printed on demand.

SouthWare also utilizes the function keys (F1 thru F12) nicely. These keys allow the user to access help, customization utilities, extended help, logon procedures, system e-mail, etc. SouthWare also provides a series of Icons designed to provide the user with quick and easy access to commonly used areas in the system. These icons are shown in the screen below.

The AccuCobol platform allows the user to control the actual functionality of the icons, function keys, and short cut keys. The screen shot below shows this functionality as well as additional functionality over the menus, windows, colors, buttons, etc.

SouthWare’s AccuCobol Settings Screen

CPA Support for SouthWare Excellence Series

In years past, numerous CPAs throughout the United States have asked why we had not included a review of SouthWare Excellence Series in our accounting software web site. I first installed SouthWare in 1988 and was well aware that SouthWare was a decent solution, but I must confess that nearly a decade had gone by since we had taken a good look at this product. It seems that those CPAs who know the product well are loyal fans of SouthWare and they believe SouthWare’s merits are frequently overshadowed by the marketing hype generated by the larger accounting software companies. Under the pressure of so many CPAs that I’ve known and trusted for many years, we took a fresh look at the latest developments from SouthWare and were pleased with the results.

No product is perfect – they all have problems. Even the best products in the land suffer from missing features, missing modules, bugs, etc. For example, Dynamics.GP is a highly respected product but it does not utilize tabbed dialog boxes and reports are slow to print from the system. Dynamics.SL is a superior product but many of the user screens are cluttered and difficult to read. ACCPAC’s icons are too small, Dynamics.AX has no payroll module, Dynamics.NAV’s financial reports are not automatic…our complaint list marches on. By the same token, SouthWare Excellence Series has it’s share of shortcomings as well – but none more so than other top ten products. Some of SouthWare Excellence Series shortcomings that are: search dialogs require three clicks instead of just one; entering records on the fly requires an extra click of a button to open a new record dialog box; and the escape key does not always close the current window (although the F8 key does).  While we have complaints about SouthWare Excellence Series; dollar for dollar, SouthWare Excellence Series appears to be a good value, and I appreciate the fact that years ago CPAs encouraged us to take a detailed look at SouthWare Excellence Series.

SouthWare Excellence Series Weaknesses

As previously mentioned, all products have weaknesses and shortcomings and often, those weaknesses and shortcomings are in the eye of the beholder. I’ve not yet seen a perfect product from any vendor and I doubt that I ever will. In this spirit, SouthWare Excellence Series does have some weaknesses and shortcomings as well. Presented below is my list of the more significant problems I found while reviewing SouthWare Excellence Series:

The Screens Look Older – As discussed, some of SouthWare Excellence Series screens use a system font and a look and feel that makes them usable on older green screen monochrome monitors. The result is that the system looks older, even though the underlying technology has been updated and the feature set and module offerings are current and strong. Beginning in 2003, Version 9.0 corrected this problem by introducing new user screen designs that reflect the more current Windows style look and feel. This improvement can be seen in the screen shot below:

SouthWare’s Order Screen

Reports Look Older – Similar to the comment mentioned above, reports printed to the screen and to paper tend to look older because they use mono-space fonts instead of TrueType fonts. Other popular products provide a more graphical view. Beginning in 2003, Version 9.0 also offers improved report screens as well, including improved dialog boxes. See for yourself in the screens below:

Extra Keystrokes Are Sometimes Needed to Navigate Screens – If you have not yet learned how to use the jump buttons, you will need to use the menu buttons instead to navigate the system. Some of these buttons force the user to click several times instead of just once to arrive at the desired screen. Most notably the look up screen does not automatically drill to a list, two additional clicks are required. Beginning in 2003, Version 9.0 has corrected this problem, particularly in the look up screens. Now SouthWare provides much improved look up dialog boxes that respond properly on the first click. Here is an example:

Report Headings Scroll off the Page – To be most useful, reports printed to the screen should scroll the data only, leaving the row descriptions and column headings visible to the reader. Without this feature, users are forced to print reports far more often – wasting time, paper, toner, and causing wear and tear on the printer.

Can’t Easily Send E-mail From Reports Printed to Screen – Here at ASA Research, we like the ability to click only one button to automatically forward a report to another person or persons. In SouthWare Excellence Series, you can write to disk and attach the file, and you can write to HTML format, but we would also like to see a “print to e-mail” option to appear in this product. Beginning in 2003, version 9.0 still does not provide this functionality as an icon in the reports screen, however it is worth noting that the improved printer options box (shown two screens above) does adequately provide this functionality.

Cumbersome Customization – While the customization of SouthWare Excellence Series is powerful, it can be more cumbersome than customizing some other popular products, depending on the task at hand. To be fair, this is a complaint we have with almost every top accounting software package – perhaps we should just be happy whenever we find customization capabilities.

Pricing is Too Low – We believe that SouthWare Excellence Series is priced too low. The product’s features and functionality, reputation, support, company backing, and channel all warrant a higher price. If it were up to us, we would increase SouthWare's pricing by 25% to 30% immediately, and use some of the resulting increase in revenues to fund to resolution of these problems mentioned above. Our reasoning for increased pricing is that we know that a profitable company makes for a better and more reliable product offering down the road.

Historically, many of SouthWare’s direct competitors increased pricing 4 to 5 years ago, and SouthWare has failed to keep up. For example, Dynamics.NAV increased user licenses 3-fold, ACCPAC ProSeries increased users licenses 5-fold, and Dynamics.GP increased pricing by 40% when they deployed a higher end database. In all cases, these price increases did not hurt sales – instead they helped fuel sales. Apparently customers saw these price increases as a sign of confident and product value. We think it’s well past time for SouthWare to implement a reasonable price increase commensurate with the product’s capabilities and status as a top product.

Corporate Marketing Needs Improvement – As a company, SouthWare has done a relatively weak job marketing the SouthWare product in the past. Despite being a great product, fewer people know about it than other inferior products which have become household names. In 1990, President and CEO of Peachtree Software Bill Goodhue told me that he “would rather have an inferior product and superior marketing than the other way around”. I think that what Bill would say today is that you always want superior marketing no matter what. There is evidence that SouthWare is taking serious steps to maintain a higher profile in the industry.

Strategic Relationships – Most top products have strategic relationships in place with many of the top add-on solutions such as FRx, Crystal, F9, BrioQuery, Radio Beacon, Star Ship, Intermec, Sales Logix, Goldmine, and others. While I agree that forming and managing these strategic relationships can be difficult, I think that overall it strengthens the product offering and the product image. It also allows for marketing synergy to compound a product’s name recognition within the industry and among prospective customers. 

Numbers of Dealers - There are currently about 60 active SouthWare dealers. There is evidence in the industry that it takes about 140 to 200 dealers to provide complete coverage including competitive reseller choices. While this may not be a problem in your area, some locations are forced to bring in an outside reseller to meet their needs.

Executive Summary

SouthWare Excellence Series has emerged to become a top accounting software product by many accounts. For example, in 2004, CPA Software News gave SouthWare a 5-star rating – its highest rating. SouthWare’s customer base of 6,000 customers and tens of thousands of users ranks SouthWare as the 12^th most popular accounting software product in the world in the mid-market arena. More impressive is SouthWare’s feature set which is very strong compared to other top mid-market products, particularly when it comes to the general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, inventory, and order entry modules. When you consider these factors along with the relatively low cost of the product, dollar for dollar SouthWare is a good value for the money – especially for the budget conscious company that values features and performance. SouthWare is not a perfect product – no product is. However, version 9.0 introduced an improved user interface and addressed many of the nagging issues that previously blemished SouthWare. The end result is to declare SouthWare a formidable product that deserves to be mentioned as a top product.

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