PeachFuzz

We are often surprised to see how little attention some small business owners pay to the “financial report card” for their business, given how simple it is to get these key reports generated right out of Peachtree with only a little bit of “tweaking.” With the addition of the iLumen financial benchmarking tool built right into Peachtree 2010, there are even more handy tools available to measure business performance, with no additional work required beyond the usual data entry tasks.

Good financial reporting always needs to start with a good chart of accounts. If you haven’t visited this critical area of your Peachtree setup in some time, it’s time for you to take a closer look. Are the categories you are tracking the ones that make sense to you? Don’t just leave this to your accountant–you are the one that needs to ultimately make sense of these business indicators!

A recent Wall Street Journal article (Colleen Debaise, November 1, 2009) highlighted the three basic financial statements every business should review, and provided a good summary of their purpose. And of course all of these reports are readily available in Peachtree.

The Balance sheet, or statement of financial condition, is a snapshot, as of a specific date, of the financial condition of a business. It is a summary of the business’s financial situation. The balance sheet tells a business what it owns and what it owes. The Balance Sheet is divided into three distinct sections:

•  Assets are the resources that a business controls such as cash, equipment, buildings, furniture and money owed to the business such as accounts receivable.
• Liabilities are the debts or obligations of the business owed to others such as accounts payable, notes and loans payable, taxes, and payroll.
• Net worth, also called equity, is what’s left over, or assets less liabilities.

The Profit and loss statement (P&L) , or income statement, is an historical record that shows how much a business has made in revenues, how much it has spent on expenses, and the resulting amount of net income over a specific period of time (such as a week, a month, a quarter or a year). This statement tells a business how much it is making or losing, and if structured properly, which specific products or services, or groups of same,  are selling the best and where the business is spending too much on expenses.

The Cash flow statement shows how cash “flowed” in and out of the business over a specific period of time, and usually uses the same time frame as the corresponding profit and loss statement. A P&L may show a profit, yet the business may not be generating enough cash. Sales may be growing to new customers, but those new customers may be slow to pay, causing a cash shortage. Also, the business may be spending more on inventory in anticipation of growth, once again causing a cash shortage. Profitable businesses can quickly become “cash poor” and lose control of the business, as a result of too-rapid growth without the corresponding financial controls in place.

  All three financial statements together should be considered when evaluating the financial condition of a business.

And Peachtree makes it real simple to generate all three — as long as you start with a decent Chart of Accounts. If you haven’t reviewed yours in some time, maybe it’s time to take a fresh look.

Starting with the 2010 edition, all versions of Peachtree (Complete, Premium, etc.) now include the capability of configuring an automatic database backup routine. Many users running Peachtree from a networked server will already have some sort of automated, unattended, server-based backup system in place, and thus may well ask “why bother to create yet another backup?”

 Two reasons.

 First, have you ever tried to restore a tape backup file to your server? Chances are this backup system was set up, and is periodically tested and maintained – hopefully! – by your IT person or firm. Chances are also that you don’t really have a clue how to restore a file yourself, or an entire directory, from your backup media, thus requiring you to chase down your IT support resource in the event you need to restore your Peachtree data. By the time that occurs you have either been “down” for longer than you can tolerate, or additional accounting data has been entered into the system, meaning more redundant entry when the database is finally restored.

I still recount a “horror story” from over fifteen years ago, when a client dutifully changed backup tapes every morning, took them off-site every night, and never made an application-based backup. One day they corrupted their database and needed to restore from tape, only to find that the tapes were all blank. No one had ever verified what was being backed up, or tested the restore process to insure its reliability.

 Application-based backups should not be considered as a replacement for an unattended server-based backup system, but as an adjunct to such a system. Server-based backups typically write their data to some type of external storage device, so that if the server drive fails (the most common type of server failure, by the way), your precious data is available to you “detached” from the server drive. It is, however, so much easier to restore an application-based backup file, since the program takes all of the “techno-babble” out of the restore process and guides you through the restore right from within the application.

These types of backups can of course also be stored on external media (thumb drives, USB drives, etc.) but will run much more slowly if directly backed up to an external device. Better to first back up to a local drive, then drag the completed application-based backup file to the external media for secure storage.

 Second, do you really remember – or have the time – to manually run a backup every day? Can you routinely get everybody out of the system, on your schedule, so that you can run the backup? Probably the answer to one or both of these questions is “no”. Peachtree’s automatic backup configuration can eliminate these roadblocks to protecting your valuable accounting data.

 To use the new Peachtree automatic backup feature you run a small “utility” (from within the application, off of the File menu) to specify:

• what company to back up,
• where to store the backup file,
• what credentials you have to permit access to the company database,
• what additional components you may want the backup to include,
• and what to do in the event that a backup file with the same name already exists.

You save these settings in a “configuration file” (one for each company whose backups you want to automate), and then invoke the Windows Scheduler application, which is typically installed on all Windows-based PC’s.

 Windows Scheduler then takes over the process, asking you how often the backup should run, and what time it should kick off. The “no-brainer” setting for this are “daily, in the middle of the night sometime”.  Just be sure that it can complete its backup before your server based-unattended backup starts up, as the one could conflict with the other and prevent a clean backup from either source.

 If you are not yet running on Peachtree 2010, you can still use Windows Scheduler, in conjunction with some old-fashioned “batch files”, to more or less accomplish the same automated backup routine.  Not a simple task, however. You can start a fire with a flint and some straw, as well, but lighters are a whole lot easier. And “easier” usually translates into actually getting the job done reliably and consistently.

When it comes to backing up accounting data, reliability and consistency are the values you are looking for.

 Give us a shout if you would like to learn more about automated backups for Peachtree.

Starting with the release of Peachtree 2007, Sage Software replaced the database engine which manages the Peachtree application, moving from Btrieve Version 6.15 to Pervasive SQL (PSQL v.10 for the 2010 product). From the 2007 Edition through to the present 2010 Edition (the only Peachtree versions now supported by Sage), Peachtree is powered exclusively by Pervasive SQL. Both database products (Btrieve and Pervasive) are owned by Pervasive Software (www.pervasivesoftware.com), and are licensed to Sage for use with Peachtree on a “per user license sold” basis.

 So, what is this mysterious critter that sits lurking quietly beneath the surface of Peachtree?

 In overly simple terms, it is what is called a “database manager”, storing the data that users enter into Peachtree and “managing” the process of “locating and serving” the right information to users based on their activities in Peachtree (and their security settings). Pervasive manages the byzantine process of updating the Journal Header, the Journal Row, the Customer, and the Item tables every time a user enters an invoice in Peachtree, making sure that all the data goes where it belongs and is properly indexed so it can be located again when needed.

 Pervasive SQL, unlike its more well-known “big brothers” such as Microsoft SQL, Oracle, and MySQL, is designed specifically as a “low cost of ownership” self-administering database manager, with no dedicated Database Administrator (DBA) required, and no real technical knowledge needed to initially install and configure the product. In fact, the Peachtree installation routine makes all of the Pervasive installation and configuration settings transparent. This is a good thing, to a point, and fits nicely with the pricing model and target audience for the Peachtree application.

 However, veteran computer users should recognize that there is no such thing as “one size fits all” when it comes to configuring a database. Some Peachtree users hit the database very lightly, while others process thousands of transactions in many different tables within the database. Hardware and other “environmental” configurations can be vastly different from company to company, which can have implications for performance, and therefore for database configuration. Sage has to account for all possible variations in uses when setting up default configuration settings.

 Because Sage Software has no way of knowing in advance exactly how you plan to use your Peachtree system, or what your transaction volume will be, the only logical response from Sage for initial database configuration is to make the settings conform to a “lowest common denominator”, which addresses the published minimum hardware and overall “technology environment” requirements. That is really the only way to go to insure that the product will work “out of the box.” Keep in mind, however, that the Pervasive SQL engine can only work with what is made available to it, via its configuration settings, and the minimum, automatically-set system configuration does not necessarily insure an optimum setup for your specific accounting software needs.

 So, what is a user to do to wring a bit more performance out of this powerful-but-low-maintenance-oriented database manager?

 There are four factors to consider in “tuning” your Peachtree setup. Three of these are relatively straightforward, are independent of the Pervasive database itself, and can be addressed by most competent IT professionals. The fourth factor involves “performance tuning” for the actual Pervasive PSQL engine on the server, and is a little more involved (including modifying Registry settings on the server, which makes some folks get sweaty palms right away – for good reason).

Server Hardware
Don’t have a dedicated server? Get one. Peachtree doesn’t need a dedicated server to operate, but if the performance of your accounting system is a concern of yours, start here. Using a so-called “peer to peer” network for running an accounting product requires acceptance of lots of performance concessions, which most users grow tired of pretty quickly. Servers today are more reasonably priced than they have ever been.

Look for at least a dual-core processor, around 3 Gigahertz or better. Pervasive does not take advantage of dual processors yet, but if you run other applications from the same server (as most small businesses do), using dual processors will allow the operating system itself to manage some of the “load balancing” between the various apps.

Purchase the fastest disk drives you can afford. Disk access time can make a huge performance difference for a heavily input-output intensive application such as accounting. A “Raid 0” stripe array, while pricey, will allow much faster disk writes than a more “conventional” disk setup. Your money or your time…..

Server Memory
Server RAM is not terribly expensive, and is relatively simple to install these days. The question of “how much” RAM to install can be complicated, and the answer is generally dependent of what apps will run on the server. Of course no one ever has good answers to all of these questions when purchasing a new server, so there are two rules of thumb here.

1. Never buy less than 4 Gb of RAM for a modern server.
2. Always ask your server vendor about memory “deals” (2-for-1, additional discounts for larger chipsets, etc. etc.) and then purchase the most memory you can afford within the confines of  that “deal”.

Windows servers have some limitation on how much memory a user can address, but having plenty of memory will insure that there is always more than enough left for other server purposes after the user has maxed out the user-addressable memory available.

Network Environment
Many apparent database performance issues are actually a consequence of the network “infrastructure”, and these can really be the devil to diagnose. There are a few obvious things to consider here.

1. Network interface cards (NICs), routers, and network switches are all critical components of the computing environment, and it rarely pays to “skimp” on those components. Purchase high quality components from known manufacturers, and have them configured by knowledgeable IT professionals.
2. Don’t have your network cabling installed by your brother’s nephew (unless he is a competent IT guy).
3. Don’t use a wi-fi connection for a large database; wi-fi is neither fast enough nor reliable enough (with microwave ovens, cell phones, etc. interfering) to trust for accounting transactions.

 Configuring the Peachtree Pervasive Database Engine
This is the fourth and final piece to focus on to “tune” your Peachtree install for optimum performance. I will address this final piece of the puzzle in my next post on PeachFuzz.

With the release of Peachtree Quantum 2010, Sage has begun to clearly differentiate this higher end Peachtree product from its siblings in the Peachtree product line. Since its introduction, Quantum has offered a higher license count, better speed, and enhanced transaction processing capabilities. Now it has begun to offer some significant “Quantum only” features that users can easily see – and employ. Here is some background on two of these new features, and a brief mention of an important new release in the Quantum product line.

 Workflow Manager
With Quantum’s “Transaction Tracking” feature, users can now build a customized “workflow processing” model right within the accounting system.  For each type of Peachtree transaction (sales orders, vendor invoices, inventory adjustments, journal entries, etc.) users can define a series of “statuses” (typically chronological), and assign a user’s login ID to each status as the “responsible” party. As the transaction gets processed, and moves from status to status, the next person in line to handle the transaction gets notified that the previous status is complete and the transaction is ready for the next step. Notes can be attached to each transaction status, so that detailed information about the previous steps in the workflow process can follow the transaction as it moves from status to status, and person to person.

Sales orders are the obvious target for this kind of processing. When a quote is accepted, the sales rep (who perhaps does not have authority to create new orders) changes the status of the quote to “accepted”, which notifies the sales department that it can create the order.  Entering the order notifies the warehouse (or production) staff that an order for items has been placed, and they should pull the items. When the order is pulled,  the warehouse can notify the next person in the chain that the order is ready for shipping, and notify accounting that the order can be invoiced. All of this can happen automatically, in real time, within the accounting system, as work is processed.

Less obvious but equally useful tracking tasks will undoubtedly emerge as users gain more experience with this new Peachtree Quantum capability. Things like  

• notifying the CFO when all adjusting journal entries are complete so financials can be printed;
• letting the owner know that payments have been processed and checks are ready for signature; 
• checking with other users for items needed when preparing a blanket purchase order;
• advising the “next person in line” that a manufacturing transaction has been imported from your external production system and an order can now ship

We will be tracking new and creative uses for this very flexible new tool in the Peachtree Quantum product, and will report on the more innovative uses we uncover.

Customizable Dashboard
Peachtree radically overhauled its “Executive Dashboard” feature a few versions ago. With the release of Peachtree Quantum 2010, Sage gave Quantum users the ability to create their own customized “dashboards”, each configured as a separate tab on the “My Dashboard” screen.

 Users can select from a list of  over thirty “modules” of information to include on a dashboard, and can then filter the information displayed based on the type of information selected (based on date,  customer type,  open purchase order, employee pay type, etc. etc.). These tabs are “user-specific”, so each user can configure his or her own dashboard with just the information required to manage his or her work.

 Combining the “Customizable Dashboard” with the previously described “Workflow Manager”, users can create a tab detailing accounting system transactions by their tracking status. This approach will display what transactions are at what status within your system, and give a very powerful picture of your company’s “pipeline”, showing where resources are tied up, what bottlenecks are creating problems,  who is handling too many transactions, etc. etc.

 Users can also add a tab called “My Peachtree Inbox”, which will display all of the transactions currently assigned to them. From this tab the user can easily mark transactions as processed and assign them to the next person in the chain, without leaving the dashboard.

 Peachtree Quantum Manufacturing Edition (QME)
This July Sage announced the first of its “specialty” Peachtree Quantum editions, with this initial release focused on manufacturing. The Quantum Manufacturing Edition (QME) combines the power and flexibility of Peachtree Quantum with the comprehensive inventory and production management capabilities of MISys, a very well regarded, value priced manufacturing product that has been in use by small manufacturers for almost 30 years.

 TriStar just completed the certification training required to sell and support this manufacturing product, and are anticipating our first implementation of QME in September of 2009. We’ll have a lot more to say about the new QME product in a future blog posting.

Here are a couple of tips on Peachtree capabilities that have been present for the last couple of versions, but we find few clients either use or know much about.
Notes
Sometimes a line item on a customer invoice or a vendor’s purchase order needs explanation, or some additional detail to clarify some part of the order. Peachtree gives you an easy way to do this by using the “Notes” button, found on the toolbar for the transaction you are entering.

 Clicking the “Notes” button on a sales order, invoice, purchase order, or vendor invoice will open a multi-tabbed window. Typing into the “Customer or Vendor Note” tab will allow you to enter a message up to 2,000 characters in length, and will allow you to print the note on the form, either prior to or following the line items on the form. You can provide a lot more detail on your invoices by putting it into the notes field, rather than trying to add a series of “comment” lines as individual items.

 If the note is for “internal consumption only” (perhaps alerting your A/R or A/P clerk to monitor this invoice closely), type the note on the “Internal Note” tab, instead. It will stay with the transaction, but will not print on the form.

 BE CAREFUL WHEN PRESSING THE ENTER KEY. Pressing “Enter” saves the entry and closes the window. Text entered in the Notes window will wrap automatically. If you need to create a new paragraph but stay on the same note, press CTRL and ENTER at the same time to move to a new blank line but keep the window open.

 Unfortunately, Notes are “transaction-related” (i.e., attached to the record) and not “line item” related I.e., attached to a specific item), so if you need to enter a note for a specific line item and not for the record in general, you still need to use the “Comment” approach to place the message in the proper spot on the form.

 Attachments
Attachments in Peachtree work just as the name suggests: you can “attach” any electronic file (spreadsheet, photo, PDF file, Word document, etc.) to either a Peachtree transaction (e.g., an invoice, a journal entry, etc.) or to a “master record” (customer, vendor, job, etc.). Have a photo or a graphic of a particular item you are ordering? Attach the photo to the order. Need to justify a general journal adjusting entry? Attach the letter from your accountant to the entry. Want to show support for your Peachtree budget? Attach the Excel worksheet to the budget.

 A couple of “tips and bewares” when working with attachments:

1. You have to first save the record before you can add an attachment; Peachtree doesn’t know the record is there, and therefore can’t add the attachment, until you first hit the “Save” button. Then you can add the attachment to the saved record.
2. Once a file is “attached” to a Peachtree record, it exists independent of the “original” file (Peachtree makes a copy). This means that you can give the attachment a different name than the original, or can even delete the attachment, without effecting the original file. It also means, however, that any changes made to the “original” file after attaching it will not be reflected in the attachment; once attached there are two separate files, each with its own independent existence. If you need to change the original and reflect the change on the attachment, make the change, save the original, delete the attachment, and re-attach to the Peachtree record.

In one of the shortest lived posts we have ever made, we need to now retract our earlier statement about the Peachtree 2010 link with Timeslips being “non-functional.” Don’t know why it would not work yesterday, and don’t know why Sage Tech Support confirmed for us it would not work, but this afternoon we were able to configure the integration, run a transfer register, and verify that the Timeslips transactions match up in Peachtree exactly as they are supposed to.

Sorry about raising anyone’s anxiety levels. In the words of Rosanna DanaDana, “never mind…..”

This is a quick “heads up” to alert anyone who may be using Peachtree with Timeslips: as of this time Peachtree 2010 does not have a functional link to Timeslips. If you install Peachtree 2010 and then attempt to connect your Timeslips database to Peachtree via the TALPro link between Timeslips and Peachtree, you will be unable to see any of your Peachtree companies from within the Timeslips TALPro setup screen.

We encountered this issue internally yesterday, and were able to confirm with Peachtree Tech Support this morning that “at this time” the Timeslips TALPro link is not functional with Peachtree 2010. Sage expects to release a “link utility” for Peachtree 2010 at about the same time that they release Timeslips 2010 (early to mid-July), at which time, according to Support, “some” (?) earlier versions of Timeslips will be able to link to Peachtree 2010.

For now, our advice to anyone running Timeslips and Peachtree with the TALPro Peachtree link active is to not install Peachtree 2010 yet. By all means purchase the Peachtree upgrade (to capture the upgrade discounts available) but let it “age” on the shelf for a while until we have a functional link between the two products available from the manufacturer.

We’ll post an update here as soon as we have successfully installed a link between Peachtree 2010 and Timeslips. Stay tuned.

In tough economic times (like today) establishing a reasonable budget, and sticking to it through these choppy waters, can mean the difference between navigating successfully to better economic times ahead and crashing on the dangerous financial obstacles all around us. Over the past couple of versions Sage Software has seriously beefed up Peachtree’s budgeting capabilities, especially in the Peachtree Premium and Peachtree Quantum editions. Just in the nick of time….

 For virtually everyone, Microsoft Excel is the “tool of choice” for designing and calculating budgets. Its “columns and rows” orientation make it the ideal tool for interactive, “what if” calculations. Excel, however, is not the best tool for maintaining a budget and tracking performance against “actuals”. Doing this essential step in Excel requires a lot of extra re-keying, or some complicated exports and imports. Fortunately, Peachtree plays quite nicely with Excel-based budgets these days.

 In Peachtree Premium and Quantum, you can establish as many different budgets as you need, and can select any budget to print on your financial statements to facilitate comparisons (Peachtree Complete allows only one budget). Any single budget can reflect up to four years of data: the two currently open fiscal years, plus one year prior to the earliest open year and one year following the latest open year.

 Budgeting can be performed for all of your accounts or for any range of accounts, using filters. Especially handy is the filtering available by account “type” (income statement accounts, expenses, etc.), or by account “segment” (Premium and higher only) to create department-level budgets. An existing Peachtree budget can be easily copied to a new budget, and recalculated using various formulas to test the new assumptions.

 The best thing about Peachtree’s budgeting capabilities, however, is how easily it interfaces with Excel. Import and export buttons are conveniently situated on the budgeting screen toolbar, making it a snap to get your budget data into Peachtree, and equally easy to get it out again for further work in Excel. TIP: When building your budget, first set your filters in Peachtree, then export a “blank” budget to get all of the relevant accounts quickly and easily into Excel, along with all the appropriate period column headers.

 Once you have your “baseline” data (accounts and periods) populated in Excel, do all of the normal budget construction directly in Excel, then when the budget is completed send the data back to Peachtree via a CSV file, which is simple to create in Excel (Save As…).

 It is also pretty easy to manipulate some of the budget data directly in the Peachtree budgeting screen, by using the “Autofill” button on the toolbar to complete a row, or by using the “Quick Action” buttons (Copy and Adjust) accessed via a right click of the mouse anywhere on the cell grid, to modify amounts by a fixed dollar amount, a percentage, or to round to the nearest dollar, hundreds, or thousands.

 Peachtree budgeting also works nicely with Peachtree Alerts, to automatically send a message to a selected user when any account is over budget for either a specified period or for the year-to-date budget.  With the Peachtree’s capabilities to handle attachments to records, you can even “attach” the original Excel budget to the Peachtree budget as a fool-proof “source document” audit trail.

 Peachtree won’t necessarily help you generate more income, but it can provide the tools you need for creating a good roadmap to follow – and monitor – through the twists and turns of a troubled economy.

Everyone wants their software to perform faster, right? Working with a specific application, however, and getting it to run faster on a network can be as much art as science. Here are five general tips for what you can do to improve the performance of Peachtree on your system if you are encountering poor performance. Some of these things are easy to do and can be handled by users, and some should be “tweaked” carefully and left for your “IT Specialist” to diddle with.

1.  Tweak your anti-virus settings – Most anti-virus software allows you to define “exclusions” to virus checking. You should “exclude” the folder where you installed Peachtree on your local drive, as well as the folder and all subfolders on the server where your Peachtree data is stored. This will not likely put your computer in harm’s way; we have not heard of any malicious software ever infecting a Peachtree .DAT file.
2. Free up local hard drive space – You should try to make sure that you have three times the size of your largest company database or 1 Gb, whichever is greater, available as free space on your local hard drive. If Peachtree needs to create a Windows “swap” file, this is where it will be parked. Running a “disk defrag” on the local drive to optimize the available storage space can also help in some situations.
3. Edit your Peachtree global settings – There is a section on the “General” tab under the Global Settings menu that allows you to set up “smart data entry” rules. While enabling these settings can be handy and make the system more convenient to use, they can also contribute negatively to performance. Unchecking all of the checkboxes in this area may improve speed.
4. Disable Events- This is an area of Peachtree that we find hardly anyone uses, but it may still be “activated” on your system. To turn this off (which can improve performance) click on Tasks, then Action Items, then click on the “Options” button on the Action Items menu bar. From the Options menu select the Transactions tab, and uncheck any of the boxes that are checked off in the “Create Event” column.
5. Avoid duplicate transaction reference numbers – Peachtree allows you to use the same “reference number” (e.g., vendor invoice #, cash receipt ID, etc.) as long as you do not use it for the same “master record” (vendor, customer, etc.). However, using the same number over and over (e.g., “cash” for all deposits) causes the application to work harder when searching and storing information. Keeping all of your “reference numbers” unique to the greatest extent possible can improve performance. It can also make life much more pleasant in the unhappy event that you ever need to export and re-import your data; the import will sometimes reject duplicate reference numbers.

 Of course the most significant contributor to system performance is the size of your Peachtree database, and within that database the single biggest contributor is the Journal Row (JRNLROW.DAT) table within the database. This table holds ALL of your Peachtree transactions, and each time you search for a transaction record the system needs to read through that entire table to find the requested record.

 So, how big can this file safely grow to before performance becomes an issue? There is no hard and fast rule for this (still more art than science), but our general “rule of thumb” is to begin thinking about maintenance to your database when the journal row table approaches 150,000 total records, if you are using any version of Peachtree except Quantum. The more powerful Quantum product can gracefully accommodate three to four times that number of records without causing significant performance “degradation”.

 You can review the record count for all of your Peachtree tables by selecting Help | Customer Support and Service | File Statistics from the top menu bar within Peachtree.

 Once you have determined the overall size of your Peachtree database and viewed the record counts for the individual tables, you can make a judgment about purging some data. Purging is the process of physically removing selected records from the system, to shrink the overall size of the database. It can, however,  be a time consuming and technically daunting task, since there are any number of “gotchas” that can impede or abort the purge process.

We have assembled a set of instructions for performing Peachtree database purges on our website, which you can review by clicking here. In some circumstances it is more cost-effective to use an outside data repair service to fully purge records that are no longer needed in the system. And in all cases, it is good practice to make an “archive” copy of the database before starting a purge. Peachtree Premium makes the archiving process easy, but Peachtree Complete users can create “manual” database archives.

 Carefully following these “best practices” for Peachtree data storage will help you to get maximum performance from your Peachtree software.

Special Upgrade Pricing Offered

We are pleased to announce that TriStar Data Systems is now a “Platinum-level” Certified Consultant for Peachtree (and Timeslips, too!)

This status gives us greater visibility in the Peachtree and Timeslips user communities, better access to product support and management at Sage Software, and allows us to better serve our Peachtree and Timeslips customers.

In celebration of this newly achieved status, we are offering a special discount of 5% below the lowest quoted price from Sage for Peachtree 2010 and Timeslips 2010 upgrade licenses, through June 30, 2009. For customers already receiving upgrade discounts via your TriStar Support Plan, this discount will be applied on top of your normal software discount.

If you have had any inclination to upgrade your existing system, you will never find a better price than what we are able to offer right now, as a result of our Platinum status. To qualify for this special discount, you must place your software order through TriStar, and all orders must be received by close of business on Tuesday, June 30, 2009.