The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Pastel SOHO Accounting for Windows
Bernadette Houghton
 bernieh@iaccess.com.au

Pastel Software is aiming its new SOHO Accounting for Windows squarely at small businesses. Customised for Australian users, SOHO has pre-defined charts of accounts suitable for a range of organisations, including schools, retail businesses, clubs, service stations and medical practices. And with the year 2000 - and potential data disaster - looming ever closer, it is reassuring to know that SOHO uses full four-digit years in its underlying tables.

Main Features

While it is certainly useful to understand the basic principles of double-entry accounting, SOHO offers several features to shield you from much of this nitty-gritty and make it easier to navigate, including

  • System Navigator, a graphical display of SOHO's functions, so you can bypass the menu system
  • Setup Assistant, which walks you through the process of creating a fully working company with a complete set of accounts
  • Transaction Assistant, which leads you step-by-step through the process of creating general journal and cashbook entries
  • Input screens that look like their paper equivalents e.g. invoices and cheques
  • Data Remote, VCR-like navigation controls.
If you don't need your hand held, you can bypass the assistants and enter data directly into tables.


Figure 1. SOHO's main screen, with the System Navigator


Figure 2. Using the Transaction Assistant to record purchases

Like most accounting systems, SOHO offers a general ledger as well as customer, supplier and inventory journals. You can establish as many as 999 main general ledger accounts, with 999 sub-accounts for each main account. With the drill-down screen you can zoom quickly to underlying records from high level accounts.

SOHO supports multiple companies (in separate files), budgeting and up to three bank accounts. By default, it uses batch processing, with new records placed in a temporary file until merged with the ledgers. Until this time, you can easily make changes; after merging, any amendments require adjusting journal entries or credit notes. SOHO uses separate batches for different transaction types (e.g. sales, purchases) and different periods, and requires that each batch be merged with the ledgers individually. You can, however, choose to use online processing, where ledgers update immediately.

You establish control accounts for sales, purchases and inventory at the initial account setup (or have the Setup Assistant create them for you). SOHO allocates the appropriate debit or credit to these accounts whenever the ledger updates. On most transactions you can override the default control account. You can post transactions to previous periods at any time; there is no monthly close-off. However, you do need to invoke a year-end process to prepare the ledgers for a new financial year.

Debtors and creditors

SOHO offers most basic accounts receivable and accounts payable functions, including credit notes, sales tax, categorisation of sales (e.g. by salesperson or area), recurring transactions, reconciliations and so on. There is no provision for quotations or pending invoices, though. The graphical input screens are easy to use, and you can add new records to the master lists (customers, suppliers, inventory) on the fly. Invoices can hold as many lines of description as space permits. While SOHO restricts you to the standard credit terms of current/30/60/90 days, it will alert you whenever sales or purchases exceed credit limits. It will also warn you if there is insufficient stock on hand to fulfil an order; however, you'll have to track any backorders manually as SOHO lacks this capability.


Figure 3. Processing supplier invoices. The customer invoice screen is shown


Figure 4. Allocating payments towards invoices

You can process debtor and creditor payments on either an open item or balance forward basis (where payments are applied to specific invoices or to the outstanding balance). You can also switch back and forth from one method to another.

Inventory

SOHO's inventory system requires that you allocate individual inventory items to groups, with up to 999 groups possible, and an unlimited number of items per group. Each group has a corresponding set of general ledger accounts, but if you don't need this level of detail, you can simply allocate all items to a single group. You can also use the inventory system for services, which means you can perform the same analyses on services as on products (e.g. monthly fluctuations, gross profit).

SOHO uses the average cost method to cost individual inventory items, and summarises movement for each item on a monthly basis. You can specify minimum and maximum re-order levels, and SOHO will report what you need to re-order and from which supplier. You can also globally adjust selling prices.


Figure 5. Creating inventory items


Figure 6. Drilling down through the accounts

Reporting

SOHO has 40-odd reports, including ageing, sales analyses, transactions and inventory, as well as a range of graphs. While you can specify the query set and change the names of financial categories (e.g. Fixed Assets, Retained Income), you can't otherwise customise reports. You can apply simple formatting to graphs, though (e.g. background colour, graph type), and export data to external programs for further analysis.

Using the Forms Designer, you can customise SOHO's standard documents - invoices, credit notes, statements, labels and so on. Lack of time and an ominous PC Update deadline precluded me from looking at this in detail. However, you can choose which fields to display, add graphics and bar codes, and otherwise arrange objects to your liking.


Figure 7. Reporting with SOHO


Figure 8. Creating graphs with SOHO

Assessment

SOHO lacks some standard ease-of-use features common to other packages, and its interface is sometimes confusing and often inflexible. For example, sometimes you can tab out of a field to invoke look-up tables, but other times you must specifically press F5. Sometimes you can use the Data Remote for navigation, other times you can't. You can't insert new lines in the middle of an invoice, and there is no quick fill, where you start typing something and the rest of the line completes automatically.

Batch processing can become quite confusing, with batches requiring separate update. If you leave a batch open, there are continuous and intrusive warning messages. SOHO uses your existing DOS or Windows backup system, which has the potential to cause problems. On my own machine, for example, SOHO couldn't find my Windows 95 backup program (yes, it was there). Without a straightforward backup process, there is a real risk that backups won't be done and data may be irretrievably lost.

Setting up SOHO is fast and easy - five minutes or so if you use any of the predefined charts of accounts. SOHO also succeeds fairly well in sheltering you from a maze of debits and credits. Even so, there are times when you really do need to know if an amount should be a debit or a credit (e.g. while entering initial account balances). SOHO makes this easier by using defaults in the appropriate field. The Transaction Assistant is an excellent way for novices to learn how to use the package, and the graphical input screens are straightforward and easy to use.

If your accounting needs are simple, SOHO presents a viable choice with an established upgrade path in Pastel Partner V4 for Windows - just make sure you have an effective backup routine.

Reprinted from the July 1997 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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