MAS 500 Wins Accounting Software Survey for Fourth Year!

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Hammond, LA (March 31, 2004) – K2 Enterprises today announced that the results of their 4th annual reseller/consultants accounting software survey show Best MAS 500 leading in the Enterprise Accounting Software category for the 4th year in a row. In the Small to Medium Enterprise Software category, SYSPRO was the leader for the 3rd straight year. In the Small to Medium Business Accounting Software category, ACCPAC Advantage Series Small Business Edition was the leader, while MYOB Accounting Plus led in the Entry Level Accounting Software category for the 4th straight year. The objective of the survey was to determine the level of satisfaction that resellers/consultants have with the accounting software programs that are in wide use today.

The survey was conducted between January 1st and February 29, 2004. A total of 2,435 responses were received by the cut-off date from every state and thirty five foreign countries, including Antigua, Australia, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom, Venezuela and Zambia. Many resellers/consultants support more than one program and multiple responses were allowed.

While the results of the survey are not statistically valid and do not attempt to define the actual market share of each vendor, they do reflect the opinions of a significant cross section of the reseller and consulting community who sell, install and support accounting software. Readers should note that the survey is a reseller/consultant survey, not an end user survey.

The survey was divided into four sections. The first section asked for information about the responding firm. The second section rated the accounting software on ten different factors, including Stability, Performance, Flexibility, Ease of Use, Feature Set, Reporting, Integration with Microsoft Office, E-Commerce, Third Party Software, and Technical Support. The third section rated the accounting software by module. The fourth section provided each respondent with an opportunity to make general comments about the accounting software products they were rating.

MAS 500’s impressive score of 4.53 out of 5.0 on the ten rating questions made them the leader in the Enterprise Accounting Software category. They were followed closely behind by SYSPRO at 4.51 and then Southware Excellence Series with a score of 4.35. In terms of responses, SYSPRO was the leader with 147, followed by ACCPAC Advantage Series Enterprise Edition with 138, and MAS 500 with 68.

In the Small to Medium Enterprise category, SYSPRO was the leader with a score of 4.51 followed by Best MAS 200 at 4.49. OPEN SYSTEMS TRAVERSE was third at 4.38. SYSPRO drew 158 responses, followed by Microsoft Business Solution Navision with 78 and Best MAS 90 with 73.

In the Small to Medium Business Accounting Software category, ACCPAC Advantage Series Small Business Edition was the leader with a score of 4.34. BusinessVision 32 Standard Edition and Softrak Adagio tied for 2nd with a score of 4.24. Next was BusinessVision 32 Small Business Edition at 4.18. In terms of responses, Business Works Gold led with 58 followed by BusinessVision 32 Standard with 52 and ACCPAC Advantage Series Small Business Edition with 43.

In the Entry Level Accounting Software category, MYOB Accounting Plus led with a score of 4.11 followed by MYOB AccountEdge at 4.05. In third spot was Simply Accounting Pro at 3.88. QuickBooks Pro led with 157 responses followed by Simply Accounting Pro with 152 and Simply Accounting Basic with 137.

In every survey, you always find some gems and this year was no exception. The average respondent carried out between 6 and 10 new accounting software installations in 2003 and they are forecasting about a 10% increase in the number of new installations in 2004. Staffing stayed constant in 2003 and is expected to rise an average of 10% in 2004. As you might expect, the economic climate and acquiring new clients were the biggest challenges facing the respondents in 2003.

62% of the responding firms had an increase in revenue in 2003 and 84% expect to increase their revenue in 2004. Who said you can’t make money supporting accounting software? Three of the responding firms are billing more than $250 an hour for their services. Lack of client commitment was the major reasons when problems developed in an accounting software engagement.

The winner of the draw for a copy of Microsoft Office 2003 Professional was Susan Campbell of Softrac LLC in North Yarmouth, Maine. Val Steed, the CEO of K2 Enterprises selected response 1759 and that was Susan’s number.

K2 Enterprises will release a comprehensive report of the survey results in May. The 2004 Accounting Survey Report will provide a detailed insight into the accounting software used by small and medium sized businesses and the results will be presented in text, graphical and tabular formats. Plus, for each accounting program, there will be a sample cross section of the unedited comments provided by the respondents. In addition, the report will contain a detailed feature set analysis on each program with over 800 different comparative points per program. Separate appendices in the report will cover accounting software selection.

For further information, check out www.eaccountingresearch.com,www.k2e.com, www.accountingsoftwareworld.com.