RE: Accounting Packages -- MIDRANGE-L

It depends on what you need:
        Can you live with the canned package? I mean NO modifications?
        Do you want to interface other aspects of the company to G/L and 
Payables?
        What time frame are you looking at to get this installed/your old data
converted over?
        What is the budget for all of it?
        How complex is your organization; multiple companies with a parent, USA
only, international, or one site?

   These are just the tip of the ice berg to ask not only yourself, but
upper management too so that you can
   answer these questions today and in five or ten years.  The big boys out
there for packages are not cheap to
   purchase, install, or maintain(if you so have the need to do so).

Basically these are the ones I have used along with some thoughts:

Lawson - not only have I been at companies that used it, I worked for them
many years ago; so keep that in mind -
                at that time; I hope they have changed policy since then; a 
programmer
could make a program change and
                submit the change to the customers as a paper patch(no one did 
any quality
assurance testing)
                Over all not a bad package last time I worked on it, but I feel 
they have
spent too much energy and
                time on bells and whistles that most companies just do not 
need, or will
not take the time to figure out
                how to use them.  Interfacing is not bad, and customer support 
at one time
was a tricky thing because of
                multi-platforms (reps where working on S/38's attempting to 
support UNIX,
AS/400 and S/36 - hopefully you
                got a support person that could keep it all straight from the 
hardware
side of things)
                not my first choice.

JDE   - I have been at a couple of different companies that have this; from
the users view point, very powerful,
                very flexible.   IF you want to modify any code; watch out, 
anyone
with less than 7 years in the field
                is going to get lost and frustrated with the code; that amount 
of user
flexibility comes at a very high
                cost when working on the code "in-house".  Interfacing can be 
tricky;
unless it was just not policy or
                maybe the other companies that I worked at had lost the 
manuals; I was
given none...

Infinium -      I am somewhat biased with this one(I do not work for them, never
have) but the documentation is great, the
                code in "most" cases can be handled by a 4-5 year person; 
though they too
have some rather "odd" things
                in their code to allow for user flexibility.  Their help lines 
are well
equipped for users and techno-weenies
                alike.  Interfacing is as easy as following the technical 
manuals.

From a cost stand point, last time I priced these three out, Infinium was
the best buy, with JDE being the most expensive
on the front side and the back side, with LAWSON being closer to JDE in
price but not as high on the back side(referring to after implementation).

Research, research, research...

Ask for demos, ask for references that are in your area, and wheel and deal
on the price; above all, READ or
preferably write out your contract VERY carefully to protect your company
and yourself.


HTH

Mark A. Manske
[mailto:mmanske@minter-weisman.com]
Sr. Project Lead
Minter-Weisman


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Debbie Panco
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 10:32 AM
To: MIDRANGE
Subject: Accounting Packages


We are looking into purchasing an accounting package.  Our main interest is
for general ledger and payables.  Can anyone recommend some good packages
for the AS400?  What about JD Edwards?  Any info you can provide would be
helpful.

TIA

Debbie
UCFS / Systems Analyst

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