BusinessVision Differentiators

You will find that many systems cover the basics fairly well but there are differences between them that can be crucial. Our analysis was conducted a few years ago for a seminar presented at the Financial Technology Show. We will endavour to provide an update to our analysis in the near future.

Target Market

Small and medium-size companies with $1 - $50 Million in revenues.

Sage

According to Sage, it is the #1 PC-based vendor of accounting and business solutions in the world with worldwide revenues of $815 Million US, profit of $12 Million US in 2002 and 3.1 million installations.

Price/Performance

BusinessVision is targeted to companies with more demanding requirements than can be met by entry level systems such as QuickBooks and Simply Accounting. BusinessVision competes in functionality with higher end systems such as ACCPAC or MAS-90, but at half the cost. For example, BusinessVision offers rules-based pricing that starts with customer specific pricing if defined, then a discount matrix by product and customer levels, followed by a price by product. BusinessVision includes a wide array of modules including Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Inventory, Order Entry, Point-of-Sale, Sales Analysis, Payroll, Bank Reconciliation, Purchase Order, Purchase Analysis, and Job Cost.

Real-time processing

The general ledger is always up-to-date without the need to run any batch process.

Integration with contact management systems

BusinessVision provides 2-way synchronization with Outlook, ACT, Goldmine, and Maximizer.

Point-Of-Sale

BusinessVision is one of the few accounting systems that includes POS.

Customization

Customization was one of BusinessVision's shortcomings in the past. Now BusinessVision offers CustomPack which includes WorkBook that can be used to customize the system to meet unique requirements of many industries and businesses - adding up to 50 new fields to each major module. These custom fields can be used in reports or for searching information to find the right customer for example.

Scalability

There are 4 different versions starting with the limited version for very small companies extending up to companies that require 15-100 simultaneous users on the SQL Client-Server Edition.

All in one package

With Business Vision, you get it all the main modules whether you want them or not, which has benefits especially in maintaining 1 version of the system.

Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports is the leading generic report writer, and BusinessVision uses Crystal for all reports and forms such as an invoice. Crystal reports also have the advantage of being easily able to transfer the report to Excel without manipulating the data.

Multiple Forms

When you generate a form such an invoice, you could simultaneously generate multiple versions of the invoice - one for accounting and one for shipping with prices not included.

Accounting segmentation

In December 2002, BusinessVision made significant enhancements to the system including a general ledger account number with 4 segments and a total length of 24 characters. Now, you can use BusinessVision's financial report writer or F9 (popular Excel-based financial report writer) to slice and dice operations across region, division, product line...

Allocation

Allocation allows you to distribute 1 account across multiple accounts on a % basis.

Multi Currency

BusinessVision also calculates realized and unrealized gains and losses without overly complicating the system.

Document Linking

You can attach any number of documents to customers, suppliers, and inventory items.

Mail Merge

You can easily generate letters or email based on dollar values or based on a specific item sold to your customers. This can be effective in marketing campaigns.

eCommerce

BusinessVision also provides a fully integrated website and web-shopping solution.