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A group of amateur investors examines trading and charting software. Generally they suggest taking time to read the manuals, or review the tutorials in order to determine the most appropriate product. They also believe that knowledge of charting and basic principles of the stockmarket is necessary prior to operating this more advanced software.

Small businesses that are growing should devise a system for monitoring their cash flow and managing their finances. Business owners should establish an accounting system as early as possible. One relatively inexpensive way to do this is to invest in accounting software.

As firms move from time and billing systems to practice information systems, new demands arise for information such as time and costs associated with market efforts and collecting receivables. Supplying [...]

Accountants are moving away from write-up work and concentrating on higher-end financial reporting and business consulting activities. With this migration to higher-end tasks, vendors of accounting software are offering write-up packages with better features and integration that adds value to financial reporting engagements. These vendors are touting the ease of use of these new products as well as their reasonable price to attract more accountants., As accountants migrate to higher-end work, write-up software offers better features and integration. The word is out among the software vendor community: Write-up work, long the bread-and-butter of accountants, has [...]

Numerous software are available designed to simplify the process of conducting many electronic banking transactions and allow users to trade stocks. Although seemingly easy to operate, these software are complicated and users must first understand basic operations.

A growing number of business organizations are automating their credit management operations to spot problem areas before they turn into disasters. There are a number of software packages that can collect information from sales ledges and use it to generate work lists for credit controllers. These computer programs can access data bases to be able to evaluate the financial status of potential customers. One such software that is now available in the UK market is from Lysander Systems in Buckinghamshire. The work list produced by the program allows credit managers to make telephone calls and send out reminder letters to customers. Another useful product is Sanderson CEL's open systems credit management software which is designed to help companies recover debt they did not expect to have. A third product is from Trinity, which can deal with various areas of credit management ranging from sales order processing to purchase order processing.

While many of the available products are useful even essential none can replace the knowledge and experience of the practitioner. If you're planning to get into personal financial planning, don't [...]

Retirement planning and gift-giving can be made easier with the InsGift software. The program allows users to plan for retirement income needs, evaluate investment options, determine proper amounts for lifetime gifts to heirs, and plan for estate taxes. This DOS-based program produces both graphical and tabular reports for client analysis. The program is available from the Estate Preservation Alliance in Dallas, Texas.

Financial Decision Systems Inc.'s CORPTax and CORPFact are tax planning software that provide valuable assistance to companies that prefer to use in-house tax departments instead of outside tax consultants. CORPTax is a tax compliance program that can be used to prepare all federal and state tax returns. Its database contains all pertinent client information, including trial balance amounts and adjustments. The software offers Window's features and capabilities. CORPFact, on the other hand, is especially designed for compliance with Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 109, 'Accounting for Income Taxes.' It can be used to compute and report such items as current taxes payable, provisional expense, company-by-company book-to-tax income reconciliation and post-filing provision of return reconciliation. CORPTax and CORPFact is priced between $15,00 and $26,400, depending on the number of programs requested.

Treasury managers are encouraged to shop for derivatives analysis systems. Derivative analysis software prices continue to slide while user friendliness is rising. Furthermore, the entry of Pentium chips has speeded up processing power, therefore making the microcomputer a viable platform for derivative analysis systems. Treasury managers are advised to choose open architecture systems and avoid contracting for software that has not yet been released into the commercial market., Developments in derivative analysis software have been exciting for corporate end-users in the past few months. The reason: The most powerful derivative analysis software is now readily available to every [...]

CCH Tax Assistant for IRS Collections is a program for tax preparers. By combining comprehensive databases and powerful research capabilities with form-writing options, this software enables tax practitioners to research, document and prepare any correspondence or compliance, thereby allowing them to identify and make use of the best approaches in tax preparation. The main menu of IRS Collection has three parts. The first part enables the user to encode all significant information for the research project. The second part contains the research modules, such as the Choice of Strategy module and the Collect Financial Information module. The third part of the main menu, on the other hand, contains seven menus covering such topics as bankruptcy and tax discharge, installment agreements, liens and levies, nonfiler representation, compromise offers, penalty and interest abatement, and trust fund recovery penalty. The one-year price for the software is $795.

MoneySoft Inc.'s ESOPlan is a software package designed to help senior management, benefits consultants and tax practitioners make a full consideration of all financial issues surrounding the setting up an employee stock option plan (ESOP). The package is particularly useful for those who wish to determine if the benefits of a ESOP will outweigh the time and effort required to set one up. The two-part package has an analysis section and a report writer and comes with an comprehensive and eminently readable instruction guide. The package's can be run on an IBM PC with at least 2 MB free on hard disk and 1 MB RAM. It costs $695 at retail outlets and can be ordered from Microsoft at an introductory price of $395 until Jun. 30, 1995.

Farmers have a choice among several accounting packages which are either designed with their particular needs in mind such as Red Wing Business Systems' Agricultural General Ledger or a more general package such as Intuit's very popular Quicken.

CORPTax Librarian and MASTERAgenda are the latest tax compliance and practice management software products to be released under the CORPTax label of Financial Decision Systems Inc. CORPTax Librarian is a user-friendly and efficient forms service package featuring more than 3, 200 federal, state and miscellaneous forms. Stored in a single CD-ROM, it contains as much as 15,000 pages of forms and instructions. MASTERAgenda, on the other hand, helps tax preparers to monitor due dates and deadlines for their clients. It can store, track and retrieve due dates and other activity related to several tax filings. CORPTax and MASTERAgenda are both Windows-based. Single-user versions of both CORPTax Librarian and MASTERAgena are priced at $795.

Last year, I reviewed several of the CD-ROM-based tax services and published the results in the November 1993 issue of The CPA Journal. I decided to revisit them this year [...]

Property management accounting software is invaluable to track tenants, properties, income, and expenses. Using any one of the many programs available, you can get all the computer printouts you ever [...]

BNA's Estate Tax Spreadsheet version 93.1 is a computer program that aids in estate planning and estate administration. The program will calculate the tax consequences of multiple scenarios and includes information on federal and state estate tax rates since 1986. It can calculate deductions, the use of different types of trusts, tax credits, accumulations taxes, and gift taxes, among other things. The single-user version retails for $1,295.

'CCH Tax Assistant' is a new line of interactive software products designed to help tax practitioners conduct fast and thorough research. CCH developed the programs in recognition of the fact that today's busy tax advisers can no longer afford to spend hours in a library reading volumes of laws, Regulations cases and Rulings. The first in the CCH series of software packages is CCH Tax Assistant for S Corporations, which offers a research program, a word processor and a forms program. With the combination of the CCH database, decision-tree logic and document production, this product makes S corporation research, compliance and correspondence much more expeditious and efficient. A one-year subscription to the program costs $500, while a two-year subscription costs $700.

Spreadsheets offer numerous advantages not found in conventional options analysis programs. Realizing the potentials of a standard options software, many vendors have introduced spreadsheet add-ins that offer increased flexibility, control, model sophistication and accuracy. A user's guide is presented that explains the types of spreadsheet add-ins available to traders., Taking the 'do-it-yourself' approach to options analysis offers advantages you just can't get with standard options software. Here's a user's guide. Options traders at ease with Lotus or Excel spreadsheets [...]

There are a wide variety of computer programs available to tax practitioners and other specialists. Effective software solutions help these professionals deal with complex legislative requirements and prepare relevant, accurate and timely documents. Among the many taxation software available in the UK is Digita International's Taxability Pro. It can be used to complete on-screen tax returns, Repayments and Appeals, and to print facsimiles of the completed forms after they have been approved by Inland Revenue. Another useful taxation software is the Taxmaster package from Data Sciences which is intended for use of medium to large companies for handling corporate tax. For international tax planning, KPMG Peat Marwick and Price Waterhouse both provide systems for calculating tax and social security for employees to be assigned in various countries. In addition, there are a number of databases providing information on taxes and Social Security.

CCH Computax's 'ProSystem fx' is an in-office tax preparation and printing software system that can be used to process federal and state individual, partnership, C and S corporation, consolidated, deferred compensation, exempt organization, and estate, trust and gift tax returns. The program has electronic and expatriate return capabilities, financial statement output, a comprehensive level of diagnostic data, and the ability to compute tax correctly and print the numbers on the appropriate lines. It provides strong user support, facilitates immediate response to tax law changes and offers creative solutions to whatever tax-related problems that may crop up. 'ProSystem fx' may be obtained in DOS character-based or Microsoft Windows and network environments. Standard license fee for partnership and C and S corporation returns is around $1,200, while the fee for individual returns is about $2,200 or $15 per processed return.

Caterpillar Inc's Dealer Channel Systems Group decided to contract with third-party vendor CODA Inc for the installation of a new accounting system compatible with the information department's Dealer Business Systems. CODA came up with the Integrated Accounting Systems (IAS), a package that provides new functions such as user exits and advanced project accounting management. IAS was able to compensate for the inflexible reporting system and limited multicurrency capability found in the old system.

Four software programs that encourage retirement planning by estimating employee shortfalls are reviewed for graphics, interactive capabilities, educational value, and comprehensiveness. The programs are New York Life Insurance Co's 401(k) Educator, Fidelity Investment's Stages Strategy Selector, CIGNA Corp's ProFiles, and Wyatt Software Services Inc's Vision. Functions and features of each software package are described.

ViewPlan Inc's Estate Forecast Model version 9.0 (EFM) and Data + version 3.0 offer the estate planner tools to model a client's estate including detailed information on assets. The programs can display estate growth based on the input value, gift projections and estate tax expectations. The program can account for the death of either spouse and continue forecasts from that point. The EFM program runs on an IBM compatible computer and costs $595 bundled with Data + . A separate program, Progeny which sells for $229 handles special circumstances such as generation-skipping transfers.

Byline: Daniel Wolfe Personal financial management software has long had a blind spot for cash spending. Some vendors are trying to change that, but fewer consumers may care than the [...]

Experts in the field of corporate treasury management answer inquiries from practitioners. When asked about the most advantageous safekeeping arrangements for a company's investment securities, Duke Power Cash Operations Mgr Grady S. Carpenter Jr responded that his company found using a broker for safekeeping to be more cost-effective than using a bank's custodial service. One disadvantage of this arrangement is that the responsibility for keeping up with settlements will have to be assumed by the companies themselves. Comdisco Cash Mgr Maureen O'Grady inquired about software packages for tracking and managing her firm's swap portfolio. Larry Feigenbaum, assistant treasurer of US Leasing Int'l, replied that such programs are few and are very costly. He suggested instead that she uses the less expensive but helpful asset/liability software package., Real answers to real questions as treasury pros discuss whether bank custodial accounts offer cost-effective safekeeping and which software works best with swaps portfolios. The following discussions are a result [...]

Treasury experts are given the opportunity to ask questions from, and share ideas with their peers on a wide variety of cash management issues on a telephone consultation program coordinated by Mitchell Hutchins Institutional Investors VP David H. Blanchard. As part of this program, Gulf States Toyota Inc's cash manager and financial analyst Vance Tillman was given the chance to discuss with James E. Abel, Pennsylvania Power & Light Co's manager-treasury, the best software applications for cash postition management and portfolio management. Likewise, Holiday Inn Worldwide Cash Management Dir Martha Chistolini was able to share ideas with the treasurer of the Interpublic Groups of Cos, Alan Forster, on how the issuance of checks denominated in various currencies may be automated., The following discussions are a result of Treasur-Ring, a telephone consultation program that brings together treasury pros with questions and those with answers for a frank peer exchange. The program [...]

The introduction of new software has enabled anyone interested in doing data analysis to use computer-assisted auditing techniques (CAATs). CAATs have been used before, but only by accountants, for gathering data for audit purposes. The introduction of new software packages designed for CAAT purposes has enabled non-accountants to have quick access to processed data for analyzing marketing trends and sales shifts. These new tools have a wide range of applications and offers great benefits to anyone needing timely information.

Byline: Matt Blumenfeld iPhone Apps: CULoc8 The first CU-specific app for iPhone was created by Texas Dow Employees CU (CU Journal, May 4), CULoc8 finds the nearest TDECU branch, ATM, [...]

SimplyBiz Mortgages is offering its Mortgage Brain software for free to all its member firms throughout 2009, meaning mortgage advisers pay nothing for the service this year The software includes [...]

Product review Investment account Alliance & Leicester Type: Premier 50 current account Description: Alliance & Leicester is extending the 8.5 per cent AER credit interest offer on both its Premier [...]

Mortgage lenders increasingly are using technology to weed out or 'scrub' loans that get sold in the secondary market. A new product from LoanPerformance, an analytics and mortgage data unit [...]

SAP and Oracle are locked in a fierce battle over the enterprise-resource planning software market, with SAP fighting to retain its lead and Oracle hoping to catch up through an […]

'MyProfitCents' (www.profitcents.com) is a financial analysis software product that was developed to help people understand and improve their personal finances. The program uses Sageworks' core technology ('FIND'), which converts hard-to-understand [...]

It's no secret that accountants have made a good living providing consulting services built around low-cost accounting applications, particularly Intuit's QuickBooks. In 'Consulting Opens the Door,' writer Paul Demery examines […]

This year, after much deliberation, we cut our Top 100 list in half and made it two lists: The top 25 vendors that license technology per se, and the Top [...]

The latest version of S1 Corp.'s consumer and business lending software accommodates regional variations in a lender's policies. Another new feature is that multiple origination servers can tap a common [...]