Upgrading computer applications continuously is very important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), according to Robert Lavery, president of Robert Lavery Associates, a Sage software development partner.
He told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY that companies using the latest in accounting systems would see higher levels of efficiency.
“The continuous upgrade is extremely important so that people are using the latest functionality and are able to take advantage of new features,” he said.
“It also means that as a business you maintain your competitiveness. So you want to be able to streamline those business processes and use those new features that will help the business,” said Lavery.
He added that they were continuously upgrading their Sage ERP (Enterprise Report Planning) Accpac accounting systems.
“The benefit of workload is that now the accountant or finance people don’t have to create reports for the sales, marketing and operations people. You present the data in a format where they can massage the data and format and filter it themselves. So you offload that responsibility from the accounting people onto the operational people.”
He said there were no security issues, since “all the products can be locked down at the user level, file level or data level”.
XM Developments currently sells its products in over 100 companies around the world. They are involved in e-commerce, integrated online stock ordering and management systems.
Speaking to participants during a 2012 Sage Barbados Conference at The Crane Resort last Tuesday, Lavery said regardless of the industry or the type of organization, “everyone has the same issue of Accpac holding all kinds of information” but it was a matter of getting that information out in a quick and easy way.
Accpac is an accounting application produced by Sage especially for small and medium-sized businesses.
“But it is not just the question of getting the information out. You need a way to get that out to the right people at the right time in the right format. And Crystal Report, as good a report writer that it is, is not the answer to management reporting and analysis,” said Lavery.
“Information should be easily accessible by people who need to make decisions or do analysis, and the data should be what we call alive; people should be able to manipulate that data and format it and filter it, graph it and present it in a way that is easy to understand so that you can make decisions more quickly and more efficiently,” he explained.
During the session, Lavery walked participants through the characteristics and benefits of upgraded report systems and how they work, noting that the systems could automatically run reports that go out on a regular basis once the parameters were selected.
