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Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

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    Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

    I'm public accountant and currently looking for a software as easy as Lotus Approach, but more powerfull and less limited (Approach is a great, but dieing product with no
    further development by Lotus)

    I have two questions:

    1. I'm developping applications for the german, french and italien market. What drawbacks have I to expect in doing this, regarding the capabilities of alpha five (Currency/Formatting)?

    2. Most of my reports are dealing with Balance Sheets and Profit & Loss accounts. Can the following report be done with alpha five?

    Profit und Loss Account

    Turnover
    less cost of goods sold
    = GROSS PROFIT

    less other costs
    = OPERATING PROFIT

    less interests und taxes

    = NET PROFIT / LOSS


    Any advice of how to convert best my applications to alpha five? Thank you.

    Matthias Kaelin

    #2
    RE: Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

    I think A5 supports the money formats. Download the trial and see.
    As far as the other stuff, if you know the accounting Alpha will do pretty much anything you want. Most accountiung is pretty basic math the trick is to do the math on the right thing.
    As you can see Alpha is not dying and with A5v5 coming in June should see a lot more exposure.

    Russ

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

      Matthias,

      There are some on this board who have developed accounting applications. You might want to contact them directly.
      Click on the blue word Search towards the top, enter the word accounting and you'll come up with several posts that you can research.

      kenn
      TYVM :) kenn

      Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

        The accounting will be no problem whatsoever for Alpha Five. You may have to invest some efforts in the area of multilingual accents. But these problems can be solved. Post any which vex you to the board.

        Verify that currency formats you require are supported. These may have been augmented in Version 5 but I haven't had occasion to check yet. I will try to do so tomorrow.

        If you plan a networked application with individual clients using machines with a range of code pages (e.g. French, German, Italian, English) be sure to test carefully. Here in Quebec there are are at least three commonly used code pages and I once had a problem with their interaction. If you stick with a single code page Alpha5 doesn't care which one. I think this would be an issue with most software and is in no way specific to Alpha Five.

        Bill
        Bill Hanigsberg

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Transition from Approach to Alpha Five


          I have done in the meantime some research and found the following:

          1. It's easy to do the desired report (P & L) as long as no intermediate result(e.g. GROSS PROFIT) is needed. One intermediate result (e.g. = GROSS PROFIT)can also be easily achieved by grouping the records accordingly.

          2. I didn't find however a way to get the report showing as many intermediate result as needed, not only ONE (e.g. GROSS PROFIT A N D OPERATING PROFIT). This capability is for this sort of financial reporting very important.

          3. The needed currency format (e.g. SwissFrancs) seems to be OK, althoug I get in some cases strange outputs (rectangles instead of the figures!) I will further investigate on this.

          I develop mostly for the Swiss market, so multilingual support would be a very welcome bonus, but not a must.

          Any idea of how to solve the reporting issue? Many thanks to everyone who have taken their time yet.
          My mothertongue ist (Swiss)German, so please excuse my bad English.

          Matthias

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

            Matthias,

            I believe you may have downloaded the trial version? IF so, try using sub reports. Sub reports can be placed side by side on the report and you should be able to do what is needed.

            kenn
            TYVM :) kenn

            Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

              What happened to the Euro?

              Comment


                #8
                RE: Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

                The rectangles on the report usuallty mean that there are not enough characters allocated to hold the field. just increase the report field size and you should see your results.

                Tom

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

                  Martin;
                  Switzerland is not part of "Euroland".

                  Duncan

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: Transition from Approach to Alpha Five

                    A rectangle will appear when there is not a particular character you are trying to use in the font you are using.

                    Comment

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