Common and Not-So-Common Accounting
Highway Builders Maintain Efficiency With Specialized software
In the world of business accounting, some tasks are universal. others are very specific to the type of business.
The problem is finding an accounting package that will compute, track, and compile the standard business transactions and have enough flexibility to handle the more uncommon tasks of your business.
Gary Biba, president of Biba Co. in Geneva, Neb., knows this problem first-hand. About four years ago, he had to search for new accounting software for his heavy/highway construction business when the company that made his previous program went bankrupt.
After examining a dozen programs, he chose Forefront, a program he says gave him the best features of standard accounting programs while handling the specific needs of the heavy/highway construction industry.
Forefront tracks and calculates data specific to heavy/highway construction businesses, says Brad Mathews, sales and marketing director for Dexter & Chaney of Seattle, Forefront's maker.
The construction industry has specialized accounting needs and, as a result, specialized accounting packages. The programs must have robust job costing functions, for example.
Special Needs
But certain types of construction businesses have even greater needs for specialized software.
"Within the world of construction, there are a lot of differences between companies," Mathews says.
The heavy/highway construction business is one such "outcast." When a contractor makes a bid to build a skyscraper, he can estimate how much steel it will take to complete it and bid the job accordingly.
But for highway builders, making a similar estimation isn't practical. A 50-mile road will roll up and down hills, twist around bodies of water. These obstacles lend uncertainty to an overall bid, so contractors generally bid according to how much per square or linear foot they expect to be paid.
Mathews says Forefront was written with these specific challenges in mind.
Finding a program designed for the heavy/highway business was necessary for Biba, of course. But several companies offer such software.
Biba had additional requirements. First- the program had to have multitasking and multiuser capabilities, a common requirement among businesses.
Being multiuser means the program had to allow access to more than one employee at the same time. Multitasking means the computer can process one task in the "background" while simultaneously working on other tasks.
Multitasking allows Biba employees to keep a report running while they look up a figure in payroll for their boss. Without the feature, Biba's office personnel would be slowed down considerably, says Judy Neemann, office manager for Biba.
"I just don't know what we'd do without it," she says. "It would be like going backwards in time if we did not have the ability to have alternate screens up."
Second, the program had to handle the data for two companies without requiring clerks to enter information twice.
Biba is divided into two companies that share employees and equipment. In earlier years (Biba has been in business since 1931) splitting into two companies provided certain tax advantages, Biba says. The tax breaks are nearly gone, but the duality gives the company advantages in bidding, he says.
Most programs Biba and Neemann researched didn't easily account for two companies. In fact. they almost chose a program from Concord Management Systems, a heavyweight in construction software, that could not easily account for multiple sites.
During training, they discovered employees had to enter much information twice to get it on the books of both companies.
"That seems to be one of the bigger stumbling blocks of a lot of these construction software companies," Biba says. "They advertise that they do it, but in fact when you get right down to it, entering information for two companies can't be done in a single entry."
Do Your Homework
Biba says that if there's a lesson to be learned from his experiences, it's that research pays off. Any business should seek a financially stable company with a product flexible enough that can meet all of its accounting needs.
Neemann says their arduous search paid off. "We're just extremely pleased with the program," she says.
by Ryan Steeves
Product Mentioned:
Forefront
Dexter & Chaney
(800)875-1400 (206)364-1400
Reprinted with permission from PC TODAY, September 1994.
Copyright @ 1994 by Peed Corporation. All rights reserved. For reorders, call (612) 582-3800.
Back to Headline News