Accounting For Practitioners is Excel-Based.
4 1/2 Star Rating
By Shelley Newton, CPA
Reprinted by permission The CPA Software News:
110 N. Bell, Suite 300, Shawnee, OK 7480 1-800-456-0864: www.cpasn.com
Accounting for Practitioners (AFP) from Pendock Mallorn Ltd. (800-567-4500; www.pendock.com) is an Excel-based system for preparing trial balance and lead sheet information quickly and easily. Using the Excel interface, the workbook provided is a highly customized workbook that uses Visual Basic to supercharge the normal Excel environment. To say that this is merely a spreadsheet would greatly understate the power and flexibility of the system.
This is a truly customized application that provides entry and validation functions far beyond the spreadsheets created in the normal office setting. Purchase of the program gives the user a collection of workbooks in Excel. Worksheets relating to the setup, trial balance, leadsheets, grouping schedules, ratios, financial statements, and client letters are included in the main workbook.
To navigate the system, an AFP Menu is added to the normal Excel drop-down menus along the top of the screen. Initial data entry requires the general client information and file location information to be entered. Data entry begins with the opening balances of the trial balance. Separate journals are provided to enter information relating to the checks, deposits, sales, adjusting entries and tax entries.
Making entries is easily accomplished by selecting the appropriate journal from the AFP Menu. An intuitive form appears into which data is entered easily to reflect the journal entry. Information entered into each form automatically updates the trial balance, leadsheets and financial statements.
The system does a good job of preventing a preparer from accidentally entering information into a field that is calculated by a formula. The system accumulates information entered for deposits and expenditures. From the information, the trial balance is updated. The ability to create monthly financial statements is available for monthly bookkeeping purposes. A bank reconciliation function creates a professional looking reconciliation.
Depreciation and amortization sheets are available and can be calculated automatically. Income and expense ratio analysis is also automatically computed. Information can be imported from an Excel or text file. The import process is relatively easy. The import file is opened in Excel and formatted to put each item of information into a single column. The worksheet is then pasted into the Trial Balance Import page. Selecting the Import function, each column is assigned and associated with the account number, description and balance. Grouping codes must also be re-entered when importing.
AFP Is No Ordinary Spreadsheet
Having a basic understanding of Excel is vital to the successful operation of this program. For the preparer who is trying to create an automated, easy-to-use spreadsheet and is frustrated by the setup involved, this is a good solution.
This is no ordinary spreadsheet, though. It has been customized by extensively using Visual Basic code. Basic navigation skills and the ability to follow the meaning of the tickmarks are really the main skill set required. Investigating issues that arise is simplified by the ability to view the formulas that provide the ending totals. Double-clicking on the value highlights the information referred to in the formula as is common with Excel.