Software Design has released a suite of accounts programs for the cassette-based Dragon 32 and 64. The software consists of three cassettes, one for Daybook, one for Cashbook, and one for Sales and Purchase Ledgers. The author has provided separate versions tor 32K and 64K machines on either side of the cassette, rather than testing how much memory is available from within the program, presumably to save memory. Indeed the whole philosophy behind this software seems to be memory conservation.

The general presentation is, to say the least, poor. The cassettes are supplied with brown paper inserts and the instructions(!) are computer-printed on a sheet of this brown paper. The instruction sheet states that "Having purchased a computer accounts program it is assumed that the user has some knowledge of both", and you'll certainly need it!

Once the Basic program has loaded a very short piece of machine code is then also loaded and the main menu is displayed. There are 10 options available in all of the programs. The first programs which should be used are the cashbook, to enter credits and debits, and the daybook. Option 1 is used to enter new data, simple form fill techniques are used to enter the name, date, reference, discount, cash, bank and so on of each record. The error checking is very limited, and if the amounts entered do not balance the message 'Incorrect Entry' is displayed.

Having entered the data, option 2 allows you to search for a particular record by the name, date, or amount. In the Ledger program it simpfy displays an alphabetical list of all the account names. The search seems to work quite efficiently for a Basic program.

Option 3 allows you to 'browse' through the records, using the arrow keys to scroll entries up or down. This option uses the Dragon's display quite well with a simple windowing method. The record currently at the top of the screen can be viewed in full, or edited if required. The editing procedure is rather clumsy; each field is displayed and given a number, the user then enters the field number to be changed, and the whole field is re-typed.

Selecting the sort option allows an alphabetical or date sort to be performed on the data. This can take quite a while with a lot of data in the machine. Records can also be printed out in form suitable for your accountant to comprehend.

One of the best features of the set of programs is that files are transportable across from the daybook and cashbook to the ledger program via the save and load options, which saves a lot of unnecessary typing. As with most of the options, pressing ENTER to any prompt will return you to the main menu, useful if you select a particular option by mistake.

A lot of effort has obviously gone into this software, and indeed it seems to have all the facilities necessary to "computerise" the accounts of a very small business or individual. It seems a shame that the software is spoilt by being so un-userfriendly simply to save memory. It is not fair to assume that the user will be familiar with computers or even accounting to that extent. The instructions are wholly inadequate, even rambling on about how strings are stored within the Dragon's memory (very interesting to a business user!) when nowhere near enough has been said about the progams themselves.

All this is not to say that the software is not useful. If you are prepared to work out how to use the programs largely for yourself, and have a cassette based system, then this suite of software will serve as an introduction to computer accounting.