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ReesNews
This Issue
Rent your business softwareRees Software & Systems Ltd has conducted a
market survey and found that renting our business software is the
preferred option for our clients; provided that the rental is set at a
financially attractive rate and the rental agreement offers the
flexibility that most businesses require. Given the information gathered, our rental policies were constructed.
Extensive research has been undertaken to formulate a software rental price. The rate obviously had to be based on the modules each individual client used and it should contain a component of telephone support costs. The rental rate was set at 3% of the module price per month. This would make a single user base system (which includes debtors, stock, invoicing, quoting, POS, bill of materials, letter writer, fax writer and comprehensive reporting) rental price $45 per month, GST-exclusive. RENTAL BENEFITS Flexibility Ease of Acquisition Upgrade/Update Freedom Financial Benefits We have crunched the financial figures for you; take a look: (For simplicity, the figures following do not take into account time value of money) Software Purchase (without a later upgrade). Software $5,000 This equates to $259 per month over 2 years or $173 per month over 3 years. The rental cost would be $150 per month. That’s a cash saving of $2,446 over two years and $815 over three years! However this picture does not reflect the cash advantages of the software upgrades available under the rental. The purchase price (based on the above scenario, with one upgrade every two years): The Net Cash savings are: Combine these cash savings with the advantage of 100% tax deductibility of the rental payments, again using the figures from the first scenario. After Tax Expense Purchase Rental Total After-Tax
Saving Clearly the financial rewards of rental over straight purchase are extremely tempting, especially when you consider the alternative uses you can put the cost of software investment towards. How much stock would $5,000 but? How long would it take you to sell this stock (stock turn)? What is the profit in this stock (margin)? Imagine $5,000 buys stock that would be turned over every 3 months, with a 5% profit margin. By the end of one year this $5,000 investment has compounded into $6,077. Over three years this would be $8,978, what would your business software net worth be? What about existing clients who have purchased
our software? What’s in this for us? Our aim is to continue to produce a product of excellence; that meets with the business requirements of today and tomorrow. We want to eliminate the hassles that companies face in making a major commitment to a software program by having our package so attractive in both features and flexibility that it is near impossible to look elsewhere, yet at the same time ensure that the decision does not affect the operating Cashflows that are vital to any business. Call us today to discuss our ReesEasy Rental Packages. Obsolete SoftwareIn line with our new Windows generation software development and the technological changes over the recent years, it is no longer viable to retain the source code for the Easy software product range. The products in question are Easy Billing, Easy GST Cashbook, Easy Invoicing, Easy Stock, Easy Panel & Paint and Easy General Ledger. As we mentioned in our last newsletter (February 1999) the code has be archived. This effectively means that if you get a corruption in your Easy program it will not be able to be fixed by a programmer, you will have to restore from your latest backup and that we are not in a position to provide assistance with support and tuition of these software products. Tips & TricksMultiple Cashbook ‘Alt’ keys Set Selling Prices Computer EquipmentFrom 1 April 1999 we have removed ourselves from the hardware sector of the company industry to focus on our core business: software development and design. This decision was not taken lightly; however the importance we place on our software program has made it vital that we make our ReesEasy product the hub of our business (no pun intended). We have taken the opportunity open to us to concentrate solely on our ReesEasy software and its expansion into the Windows environment, as well as adding numerous features into our already impressive list of functionality’s currently available with ReesEasy. We will honor any warranty issues that arise from computer hardware purchased from our company. Should you have any problems please contact our offices. 0800 number and support policyRemember that we have a 0800 number for sales and support. The number is: 0800 REES EZ (0800 7337 39) All helpdesk calls will be charged on a time-related basis in six-minute blocks, at $90 per hour. The exception is support for the General Ledger; which is charged at $120 per hour. After-hours support is available; however, it will be charged at $180 per hour, with a minimum charge of $60 per call. ReesEasy 2000Since the release of Windows 95/98 and Windows NT 4.0 there has been a dramatic shift away from DOS based programs to Windows. The need to change accounting/data entry type systems to Windows has not however been so urgent and these types of systems have been the last to be updated. Inevitably the marketing tide and user demand has forced vendors of accounting systems to convert to Windows. ReesEasy had its beginnings in 1983 with custom developed invoicing/debtor packages. From this period ReesEasy has evolved and was enhanced until the latest version was released in February 1999 as version 11. ReesEasy version 11 is a Dos based program using Dos extended technology which allow it to make full use of all available Windows memory; which releases it from restrictions that other DOS based products suffer from. It has also been fully optimised to run on Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows Terminal Server. ReesEasy version 11 is a very sophisticated accounting/business suite and lacks nothing that other high-end accounting systems have – except it is not a true Windows 32 bit program. Although we have not been heavily pressured by our existing client base to produce a Windows program we are aware of increasing resistance form potential customers to purchasing a DOS based program. The urgency to complete our Windows program was recognised in 1998. Since 1995 we have purchased all of the most popular
development tools and some lesser-known products; to evaluate them and
determine their suitability for developing our Windows product. In early
1997 a product called Alaska Xbase ++ (www.alaska-software.com) came to
our attention. This was a ‘clone’ of our current development language
but with extended features that made it a true Windows development
product. It contained full object orientation, graphical development
tools, and was a complete 32- DESIGN GOALS In developing a Windows version of ReesEasy it was important to get the way the system operated, from a user’s point of view right. The background processing and business rules used were very simple to transfer to Windows, as very little change was required. Rather than follow the leader and develop a program that looked and worked like a Microsoft Office program we decided to survey a sample of our clients and determine what they really liked about the existing DOS ReesEasy. The overwhelming response was that they liked the simple layout of the screens and ease of use and they emphatically did not want to be forced to use a mouse. Therefore we took this as our design goal: Provide a ‘clone’ of the DOS version with the optional use of the mouse but also have access to all the Windows advantages such as “Printer Drivers” etc. The added advantages of this minimalist approach would be;
TECHNICAL DETAILS To make ReesEasy 2000 as fast and efficient as
possible to use, the reference point for minimum hardware was set at
Pentium 133 with 32 megabytes of ram, Windows 95 and a video card and
monitor that must display 800 x 600 resolution. We have set this minimum
to enable most clients to be able to upgrade to ReesEasy 2000 without
needing to replace their entire computer systems. As our minimum hardware is quite low in today’s computer hardware market it has meant that where the program speed is unacceptable the program code has been carefully optimised. In some cases we have developed code which goes directly to the Windows Application Programming Interfaces to get maximum speed and access specific Windows resources. A large number of our client’s still use dot matrix printers for printing invoice, packing slips, purchasing order etc. We made sure that they could continue to use these with no loss in printing speed and designed into ReesEasy 2000 a pass through printing mode to avoid the Windows printer drivers’ graphical conversion. EXPECTED RELESE DATE The final expected release date of ReesEasy 2000 is dependent on receiving and testing the “Service Level 2” patch for Alaska Xbase ++. We are aiming to install the first test sites (including our own in-house system) in the fourth quarter of 1999. General release is expected in the 1st quarter 2000 after the Y2K issue has been and gone. BackupsWhat are you using to back up? Zip drive, tape drive, CD writer, or floppy disks? How often are you backing up? Does your backup have an automatic compare? Do you have a procedure in place to ensure al users are logged out of software you wish to back up before backup commences? Again and again we hear stories about backups. Even the most sophisticated, robust backup system is of no use if a workstation is logged in and holding a file essential to your complete backup. Backing up onto 16 disks is also not a good safe practice. While you may not wish to invest in a more suitable backup device all you need is for your 8-year-old computer to breathe its last breath and you’ll realise the few hundred dollars you saved in a reliable backup could have saved you weeks, or even months of re-keying data. Let’s face it, a tightrope walker doesn’t need the safety net until it is too late to put one in place. Why put your valuable business data at unnecessary risk? This year you will have received several mailouts regarding your requirements for Year 2000. Are these requirements really any different from your obligations tomorrow? Get your backup checked out by a computer technician Don’t wait until it is too late and then find your safety net has a large hole in the centre of it. Looking for a Payroll Package?Try our ReesEasy Pay out for size. It handles multi-pay periods; departmental analysis, student loans, child support and all those other evil pay deductions (like tax!), unlimited employees, history to 9 years, IR filing. You name it, it’s most probably in our payroll. Sound good? Well here’s some even better news, it’s FREE! The only upfront cost to your business is the installation and training. ReesEasy Pay is subject to an annual license fee to cover taxation and other government legislative changes of $195 plus GST, payable in February each year. This annual license includes telephone support, within reason. Why not try out our payroll for the rest of the year and see how great it is? Con on, what have you got to lose? Year 2000 and your softwarePlease note all users of the following software will require a Year 2000 update to enable you to continue to use your software next year. Without this update your software will stop on 31/12/99. Most users of this software have upgraded over the past 18 months, however there are still users left to make the upgrade. The affected software types are:
To upgrade this software, please send our company a copy of your product registration form (found under 28.2 of your Easy Program) and a cheque for $112.50 per software type. We will return to you a tax invoice, new registration number and an update disk with instructions.
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