PEACHTREE ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE Accounting 352 Course Project Part 1

Elizabeth Pearson July 16, 2013 Professor Nadonya Jackson

Section I: Overview

Peachtree Accounting Software is a software program made for small and medium sized businesses sold by Sage. This software enables controllers and mangers to automate and manage the numerous accounting tasks involved in a business. Peachtree software can benefit a company by providing accuracy that manual bookkeeping cannot. Some of these tasks include; reconciling accounts payable and receivables, creating financial statements, creating and checking invoices, tracking banking transfers and payroll, importing and manipulating spreadsheets, and integrating scanned documents like checks, receipts and invoices. Peachtree also makes it easy to manage inventory, tracking which of your items are being sold to which customer and how many. Employee management on performance and how to manage and develop your employees is also available through the use of the subscribers of Peachtree Business Care or Peachtree Payroll Systems, where you can receive access to comprehensive human resources information. Peachtree accounting software is intuitive enough that you may be able to dig in and get started, especially if you have some accounting knowledge. The programs are divided into several functional areas, including customers and sales, vendors and purchases, and company (Yakel). It is easy to find transactions that are related to others, like the quote or sales orders that led to an invoice or all the payments tied to a single purchase. Some Peachtree products have the availability for the user to easily switch from one company file to another. This software also makes it easy to track customers and handle your customer relationships with less effort and better information. Companies using this software will have the insight to the company’s financial performance and comparisons with industry benchmarking. Peachtree Software comes with a fully customizable dashboard, where the user can choose the information that they want to see and arrange it so that it can be accessed quickly and easily. Peachtree’s minimum system requirements include at least a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM for a single user installation of Peachtree. 1.8 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM are recommended for multiple users. For optimal operation of either version on a given workstation, Sage suggests 1 GB of free disk space, Internet access, Internet Explorer 6.0 and at least Windows 2000 SP39 (Rouse). Peachtree accounting software is available for almost any budget, depending on what system you would like. The following are product descriptions and prices of Sage 50 (formerly Peachtree) Sage 50 Pro Accounting Cost: $279.99 Organize your finances, pay bills, get paid, control cash flows and costs, and manage inventory and customers This is the most basic package Sage 50 Complete Cost starting $ 379.99 one user $ 699.99 three users $ 949.99 five users Offers that same features as pro but helps you to become more productive with automated purchasing and shipping features, Control job revenue and expenses at the phase and cost code level, work more efficiently with customer, vendor, and inventory management centers and have the option of multi-users. Sage 50 Premium Accounting Cost $ 599.99 one user $ 1049.99 three users $ 1449.99 five users Lets you expertly manage your expanding business with quick access to important information, customizable tools, and secure and reliable software that you control locally. Gain insight by comparing multiple budgets across four years, accurately track warranty claims, recalls, and more with serialized inventory, track profitability with job change orders, easily archive and restore company data and multi user capability. Sage 50 Quantum Accounting Cost $ 3149.99 five users $ 5199.99 ten users This package offers the perfect combination of affordability and functionality for your business. Helps you manage all aspects of your business, including accounting, customers, inventory, services, jobs and employees

Section II: Transactional Processing and Data Management 1. Revenue Cycle

The revenue cycle is a recurring set of business activities and related information processing operations associated with the sales of goods and services to customers and collecting cash in payment for those sales. The revenue cycle’s primary objective is to provide the right product in the right place at the right time for the right price. The primary exchange of information in the revenue cycle lies with the companies’ customers. Information on revenue cycle activities flow to other accounting cycles, this information produced is used to prepare financial statements and performance reports.

These transactions can all be recorded using this software. For example; let’s say your company Blueberry Harbor sold goods to IMF Wholesale, to record this transaction, first you must create the customer, customers are sometimes known as the client, buyer or purchaser they are the recipients of the products or goods being sold. Customers can be created and maintained through the customers and sales tab, clicking on customers, then create customers followed by entering all of the customer’s information. Information that would be included in this section would be: * Customer I.D. * Name * Address * Contact information This should be done for each individual customer. This customer can then be edited or maintained through the same process, clicking on customers, then view and edit customers. Select customer that you would like to edit, and then change information in the appropriate fields.

Once you have created your customer, you can then create an invoice for that customer. Invoices can be created by, selecting customer and sales tab, then click invoice, new invoice. This is where you can enter, the customer information, quantity, descriptions, dates and the sales amount. After your invoice is created and your customer has received it, they send you a payment. These payments can be applied to the invoice by, using the customer and sales tab, click on receive money, and then receive money from customers. You will be prompted to choose an account to where your money will be deposited. Once you select the account a sales receipt will appear, you can then select the invoice you are paying and apply the payment. A quick way to review information regarding your customers and their orders would be through a report. There a few standard reports that are available by using the reports tab and under accounts receivable you will find them. Customer ledger report: -will give you detailed transaction information along with account balances. The invoices register: -will show an invoice list with date, quote number, invoice number and invoice amount. Contact list report: -is easy way to find information regarding your customers name, number, etc. Customer management detail: - will provide information on invoices that are due with customer balance and credit information. Customer master file: -list shows detail information for all customers. Customer’s transaction history: - shows invoices and related transactions, by customer. Sales order register: - is a sales order list showing sales number, date, ship by date, and the status of the shipment, whether shipped or not.

Reports regarding key revenue cycle information on sales, accounts receivable and cash can be generated the same way, using the reports tab and under accounts receivable. Aged receivables: - will show a customer with outstanding invoices sorted by aging categories. Cash receipts journal: - will display the money received from customers in journal format. Sales journal: - provides sales transaction displayed in journal format. Items sold to customers report: - will show quantity, amount, cost of sales, gross profit, and gross margin of items sold to a customer. Customer sales history: - shows the history of sales per customer including cash sales. 2. Expenditure Cycle

The expenditure cycle is a reoccurring set of business activities and related information that is associated with the purchase of inventory for resale or raw material to use in producing products in exchange for cash or a future promise to pay cash. The primary objective in the expenditure cycle is to minimize the total cost of acquiring and maintaining inventories, supplies, and the various services the organization needs to function. The primary exchange of information in expenditure cycle lies with is suppliers. Information about the need to purchase goods flows to the expenditure cycle from other accounting cycles. Expense data from the expenditure cycle is used in financial statements and various other management reports. Expense transactions can be recorded using the Peachtree Software. Let’s use our previous company example but reverse the roles: your company Blueberry Harbor will be purchasing goods from IMF Wholesale. To record this transaction first you will have to create a vendor, a vendor is a person or business that supplies goods or services to a company. To create a vendor, click on the vendor and purchases tab, then vendors and then new vendors. You will then enter the vendor information: * Vendor I.D. * Name * Address * Contact information This should be done for each individual vendor. Once the vendor information is entered and saved, you can edit this vendor anytime by selecting the vendor and purchases tab, then vendors, and then view and edit vendors. Select the vendor you would like to edit then change the appropriate fields.

Creating inventory is basically setting up the goods and services we sell. To set up inventory you have to click on inventory and services tab, then click on inventory items, and then new inventory item. Peachtree accounting lets you track inventory items in both purchasing and sales. When setting up inventory items the system lets you establish the general ledger accounts to update with purchases in sales. It will track the cost of goods sold, stock levels, sales prices and vendors for our items. In the maintain inventory items window enter the details of your inventory. To modify inventory that was entered, click on inventory items then on view and edit inventory, make the necessary changes and save.

Once your company has made a purchase and the vendor is entered, you will then enter your bill. Now you will have a balance due, when you make a payment to that vendor it will need to be recorded. To record payments to a vendor go to the vendor and purchases tab, click on pay bills and then click on pay bill. You will be prompted o select a cash account, after selecting the account a payment window will open, you can then select the vendor and amount you want to pay.

Once all your vendors and bills are entered there are numerous reports you can run to provide you with information regarding your vendors and accounts payable. To access these reports you may go to the reports tab then select accounts payable. The following reports can be generated:
1099 Vendor Report: * this report will provide you with 1099 vendor information with transaction amounts Aged payables * Vendors with outstanding invoices sorted by aging category
Cash Requirements * Bills you need to pay as of a date you select, which includes discount and aging information
Vendor Ledgers * Vendor transactions and balances
Vendor lists * Vendor’s contact person , telephone number, and tax ID
Vendor management detail * Invoices that are due with vendor terms and balance information

Reports that your company can run to provide you with information regarding key expenditure cycle information like purchases, inventory and cash are as follows:
Cash Disbursement Journal * Payments displayed in journal format
Items purchased from vendors * Quantity and amount of items purchased from vendors
Purchase journals * Purchases displayed in journal format
Purchases order journal * Purchases orders displayed in journal format
Purchase order report * Purchase order information including quantity ordered, quantity received and quantity remaining
Vendor transaction detail * Purchase by vendor with detailed invoice information

References Accounting Information Systems, 12th Edition. Pearson Learning Solutions p. 6 Rouse, M. R. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/Peachtree
Yakal, K. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2347250,00.asp