Smith case history

“Microsoft has given users business software at a small business price,” says Microsoft Small Business Specialist Mark Smith. “Without the existence of Office Accounting,” he says, “this wouldn’t be possible.”

Hoosier Energy Associates, Inc., a wholesale geothermal distributor located in Warsaw, Indiana, had a problem. It had 22 years of financial data on its peer-to-peer network. The company had been using DacEasy and Excel, and it wanted to get all of the data off of its homegrown system.

Several people were working with the software daily. It was taking roughly 45 minutes to produce a quote, and there was much duplicate data entry. There were separate contact lists, and a great deal of work was being generated by hand. They were producing errors.

Client Benefits Partner Benefits
Save time on regular and repetitive tasks Comprehensive solution sale of integrated software
Integrated business applications and processes Raised business credibility by consulting on business processes
More accurate and up to date business information Higher rates and more profitable clients

Mark Smith, of Bourbon Computer Solutions in Bourbon, Indiana, came in and presented the benefits of using Microsoft Office Accounting, based on its integration and the strength of its accounting program. He worked with Microsoft Partner DP Dynamics, who handled the DacEasy conversion while Smith’s group handled the Excel conversion. It was a challenging task, but with Office Accounting and DPDynamics it worked.

Smith saw Office Accounting’s potential from the start. He saw a multi-role and multi-user product that used open database architecture, based on SQL server. He could see that down the road, he wouldn’t be locked into someone’s proprietary file format. He saw the value of the data mining made possible and Office Accounting’s role in total business process integration. So he continued doing installations.

“The people who work with the product every day fall in love with it,” he says, “especially people who aren’t familiar with the business process. The freedom to adapt the account structure is absolutely phenomenal.”

Most of his clients were already using Small Business Server and Outlook, so the conversions to Office Accounting and integrated CRM have been seamless. There’s been no learning curve. And Office Accounting lets people do things the way they want, Smith says.

Smith has found that clients are happy with the business reporting in the program, and really aren’t asking for much customization from outside the program, though some owners are already doing some business and intelligence reporting in Excel.

Bourbon Computer Solutions currently has 15 clients on Office Accounting, two integrated with Point of Sale. And Mark Smith sees those opportunities increasing as he moves clients into new, integrated systems.