ADOPTION OF NEW ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE PACKAGES: ISSUES RELATED TO THE EASE OF CONVERSION

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1 Page 1 of 5 ADOPTION OF NEW ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE PACKAGES: ISSUES RELATED TO THE EASE OF CONVERSION ABSTRACT J. DOUGLAS FRAZER, MILLERSVILLE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Consultant recommendations for adoption of accounting software packages are constrained by large startup costs for the business and exposes the business to a number of risks. Considerable client time and effort result from software conversions and override even the most pressing need for change. Such changes are likely in the modern environment of rapidly changing technology, constant development of competing products offering substantial improvement and capabilities, and the natural growth of companies who expand beyond their present accounting software. It is useful to know what conversions, and import/export options may be available. This paper presents some initial discussion of the features available for a number of 'low-end' accounting packages that allow some of the work of conversion to be assisted by such software solutions. INTRODUCTION The small business person is often faced with the dilemma of choosing between the present accounting software and some more attractive competing product. This tension exists because there is a tremendous investment in the existing system in terms of training and accumulated records, yet the business is tempted by the new package that offers increased capabilities. The increased capabilities might be flexibility in the design of the chart of accounts, new and expanded grouping options, reporting flexibility, general ease of use and compatibility with a new public accountant's system. The inevitability of this dilemma results from a number of forces on the small business. The increasing power of computers makes a computer upgrade likely and is a natural time to consider upgrading the software. The increasing computer power encourages software developers to expand the capabilities of their packages, and the competitive package may be far ahead of the accounting package presently in use. The increased use of the Windows interface, the Macintosh-based systems and other user-friendly interfaces makes newer systems more attractive, and eases future training time. Business specific reasons for the dilemma stem from growth of the business and personnel issues. As a business grows it is normal for the present system to be tested in its ability to handle an expanded number of accounts, larger data files, and in its ability to answer more sophisticated management questions. As businesses experience turnover in their accounting and bookkeeping personnel pressure will develop for upgrading the hardware and software as new employees are asked to work with outmoded equipment and software. THE CONVERSION PROBLEM The adoption of a new accounting software package requires certain time consuming and tedious procedures to be performed. In the case of an existing business these procedures represent tasks that

2 Page 2 of 5 must be performed while performing all the regular work required by the present system. The new chart of accounts must be established. The new chart of accounts may be identical to the existing one, but more likely the new system will have increased capabilities. These increased capabilities are assessed and built into the new chart of accounts. Therefore this step requires some executive level time, in addition to clerical. Historical information must be entered into the new accounting system. Prior year data and beginning balances must be converted to the new chart of accounts and entered. This step requires clerical time. All detail records for subsidiary systems such as customers, suppliers, inventories and personnel must be entered. This step requires a large amount of clerical time. Conversion of accounting software normally requires running both the old and new systems in parallel for a sufficient period to assure the business of consistent results. If the conversion is not taking place at the beginning of a fiscal period the current journal needs to be brought up to date. Therefore, the journals need to be entered from the beginning of the fiscal period to the current date. For an interim adoption the accounting department would therefore have two systems running currently, plus they would be doing the year-to-date data for the new system. Accordingly, the accounting department experiences a tripled workload. Personnel problems are also created because at the same time that the workload has been increased the accountant or bookkeeper is trying to learn a new system. An important element for consideration during any conversion is the risk associated with the change. If the new system is established manually or when software solutions exist (see the next section) care is exercised and significant time is required to assure accuracy. Software solutions alleviate some of the need for concerns arising from human error, e.g., incorrect or invalid entries. While consistency is improved with software solutions it is also possible for data to be corrupted because the data structure was not completely understood. When a recommendation is made to adopt a new accounting system the consultant usually is called on to help estimate the time involved to accomplish the above tasks. This estimate should not be understated, and it adds to the cost of conversion it is largely responsible for the inertia in accounting system adoption decisions. ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE CONVERSION OPTIONS Accounting software packages could be designed to assist significantly in the conversion process, and the existence of such facility contributes to the ease or frustration of adopting a new package. Accounting packages that offer import/export or conversion functions should be carefully considered as aids in adoption decisions. The most straightforward adoption of a new accounting software package is possible when the new package offers a conversion option. These conversion modules are familiar to user and are commonly offered as software becomes available in successive versions. The succeeding versions are made compatible with prior versions through a conversion process which allows the upgrade of the

3 Page 3 of 5 database. This paper does not address the conversions to successive versions because it is almost universally performed by conversion modules provided by the new version. This paper is concerned with competitive upgrades. One highly marketable option for software developers to consider adding to their product would be conversion modules along the lines of the conversion options available in word processing programs at this time. Microsoft Word is attracting WordPerfect customers (and vice versa) by offering file compatibility. One example in accounting software is Peachtree Accounting offers a conversion module for users of Quicken. According to their editor they are considering other conversion options. Such a conversion option would reduce, but not eliminate the time required to perform the conversion steps outlined above and therefore reduce the overall cost of converting. An alternative to conversion modules is careful use of export and import functionality existing in the accounting software packages. This functionality takes two forms, 1) export functions designed to output fields of the database and 2) export functions designed to output text for spreadsheet analysis or word processing. If the accounting package can export elements of the database then a conversion requires certain specific fields. For example, are the chart of accounts, beginning balance, prior year balances, budgetary information and the current year journals available for output? If the software allows export to spreadsheet programs or text to word processing programs the same information is necessary. These export functions may add control characters for formatting the output. These additional characters are easy to clean out of the data, but are a problem that needs to be understood. Also troubling are the additional spacing that is added to format the output to a wordprocessor. These spaces can be converted or eliminated but they increase the complexity of any conversion using this option. The final step at this point is to use the import function of the new accounting package to import the various elements. To accomplish the importing of the elements the consultant needs to understand the format expected by the new package. Often some data manipulation is required by using a text editor. The author has found spreadsheet programs helpful for this purpose in some cases. Users comfortable with Microsoft Excel or Lotus will be able to do conversions such as account number conversions or the breakout of multi-value fields. The ease at which the data in one system can be made compatible through import/export to the new package is highlighted in the following section. EXAMPLES OF IMPORT/EXPORT CAPABILITIES This paper offers some preliminary discussion of conversions to and from the following software: Quicken, Pacioli 2000, DACEASY, and Peachtree. As the following discussion will detail, using software to assist in the conversions between various packages is only cost effective if the consultant does a number of them and therefore has developed this area as an expertise, or the software application themselves encourage importing/exporting or conversions. At this point, utilizing software to assist in conversions is very limited. The following detail discusses the import and export functionality available through the four packages chosen for this initial review.

4 Page 4 of 5 Quicken Quicken is reasonably open for export and import. Since its export facility is well developed consultants should find ways to convert Quicken accounts to most others, limited only by the new package's ability to import. Quicken can export and import any of the following: Transactions from one account Category list and class list Account list Memorized transaction list Budget Amounts All transactions and lists are available for export and import: All balance sheet accounts Account list Category list Class list Memorized transaction list Pacioli 2000 There is no routine procedure for importing to Pacioli Accounting. Exporting from Pacioli Accounting is made possible through the report generator and an option to "print to file." Delimiter choices are available for fields and text. Report options include: Chart of Accounts Accounts: History Budget Actuals Receivables and Payables DACEASY Export and Import is not available through routine procedures. Recommend export through a "Print to File" utility. Reports would include all general and subsidiary journals and statements. Peachtree Accounting Peachtree offers their customers, without charge, a conversion module from Quicken. Peachtree can also accommodate some input from a comma delimited file through its client write-up facility. Input is possible for chart of accounts, balances and payroll. It requires some ingenuity if the initial file is Lotus rather than Peachtree. CONCLUSION The conversion process is complicated by the absence of straight conversion modules in the competing software packages, with the exception of the Quicken/Peachtree conversion. The assumption that users will remain with their existing software package or are willing to undergo excessive conversion costs in terms of time spent to reenter data are both incorrect. Business users should not have to remain with old technology, clumsy interfaces or chart of accounts structures when more useful and modern approaches are available.

5 Page 5 of 5 The software developers can respond in one of two possible ways to attempts to use the import and export functions to alleviate the lack of straight forward conversion modules. one solution is to make the import/export function method irrelevant by providing good conversion modules. This approach will be market driven and is highly likely given the experience with word processing and spreadsheet programs. The result will be that attempts, as described above to circumvent the lack of the conversion modules will be short-lived and replaced with much more elegant solutions. The second approach for the developers would be to limit import and export functions and to frustrate the attempt to convert in this way. This extreme case is already extant in the software packages that offer no export or import except for some limited reporting functions, The alternative solution, faced with the problem of software developers and their resistance to the required innovation is third party developers. Accountants should expect database translators comparable to the development of the translators for word processing or spreadsheet systems. Software which does not allow users to export and to essentially leave for improved software should receive little support by consultants in software recommendations. It is preferable to offer a client flexibility when it exists. At the present time, conversion from one accounting package to another is not a user-friendly task. Some limited conversions are possible, along with more sophisticated use of the import/export functionality, but the results are limited. REFERENCES (1) Benke, Ralph Jr., DACEASY Accounting: College Edition, version 3.1, South-Western Publishers, Cincinnati, (2) Nelson, Stephen, Using Pacioli 2000, Que Corp., (3) O'Brian, Stephen K., et. al., Peachtree Accounting: Made Easy, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, Berkeley, 1990 (4) Peachtree Complete Accounting, 2nd. ed., Peachtree Software, 1992 (5) Quicken-Version 5, Intuit Software, Menlo Park, 1991