Leading Edge Services are an accounting firm
based in Auckland. They specialize is providing accounting
services to schools, and their staff of 8 or so service
over 60 schools in New Zealand.
Leading Edge had developed a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet
for each client to enter monthly Cashbook data from
bank statements and check books. These were emailed
to Leading Edge where they were reviewed, coded with
GL Account codes, and restructured and exported as
a CSV (comma-separated values) file for import into
their accounting package. This was taking far too
much staff time, especially the GL Account coding.
And when Chart of Accounts structures changed or
new schools came on board there was major effort
involved.
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So Leading Edge Services
called us in. We designed a custom Cashbook database
for the clients to use, plus a Cashbook Review database
for Leading Edge staff to use, both using Microsoft
Access. Now all of the GL Account coding is done
by clients using drop down lists of their valid accounts,
and data moves around with a single button click.
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In 2005 Leading Edge changed their
core accounting package. The Cashbook Review database
needed to be export data to the new package – a
job that required only a handful of hours.
The new accounting package is called GreenTree, and
is particularly flexible because it is written in JADE,
an Object Database product that runs cross-platform
on Windows, Unix and Linux. In 2006, Leading Edge can
evaluate developing a web-based extension of GreenTree
to do the job of the Cashbook and Cashbook Review Access
systems, unifying everything and eliminating all import/export
steps.
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