Products: The Account Book (V3), and The Invoice Program
Supplier: Apricote Studios, 2 Purls Bridge Farm, Manea, Cambs. PE15 OND. Tel. (035 478) 432
Price: £27.95 each, or £49.95 for both, inc. VAT, p&p.

Available in all disc formats, this software will work on all Acorn/BBC machines, except for the Electron (no mode 7), and is tube compatible. The additional requirements are an Epson compatible printer, a monitor (monochrome or colour), and any disc drive, other than one single sided. The packaging is fairly basic - just the disc(s) and manual in a plastic folder. Whatever programs you buy, the same manual is supplied, so that if you buy the Account Book, you can also read about the Invoice Program. The manual itself consists of 42 pages, 28 of which deal with the Account Book. Currently, it is photocopied from a rather dotty original, but a printed version is promised shortly.

An earlier version of this was reviewed in Beebug Vol.7 No.5 p.54, so I will just summarise its features for the benefit of newcomers, and mention the modifications. Any small business needs to keep records of income and expenditure. It helps if the recording process allows you to check bank statements, and keep a track of any cash-in-hand. Account Book performs all this and more. After making a working copy of the disc, and booting up, the program asks what number and type of disc drives you want to use. I have one double sided drive, and replied accordingly. Various files were then created on drive two (the other side of drive 0), a somewhat lengthy, but once only, process.

Let me say here that the approach of both manual and software is to make the whole installation and operation process as transparent as possible to the user - the manual gives the commands to format a blank disc and backup the original to create the working copy. Just in case you are unsure, it even tells you how to boot the disc, and suggests adjusting the contrast and brightness on a monochrome monitor until you can see the copyright message. This shows the thought that has gone into both packages - you don't need technical knowledge to use the software. These are programs for any small business, not just one selling computers!

Sales and payments are recorded in an easy-to-understand way, and any money received or invoiced is entered in the sales book as paid or unpaid. Any payments made (including money paid into the bank) or bills received, are recorded in the payments book. At the end of your financial year, all paid items are then printed out, together with any other relevant reports, ready for your accountant. It can also produce detailed sales and payment reports, trial balances, and profit and loss graphs.

The modifications made since the last review were mostly suggested by Apricote's customers, and widen the areas of usefulness of the program. They include more on-screen prompting for VAT entries, extended reporting facilities, covering searching for cheque and invoice numbers, receipts, dates, wildcard searching and sales label totalling. In addition, it is possible to reconcile payments and receipts with bank statements. In seven years as a Church Treasurer, I struggled with a combination of ViewSheet and a commercial program. I have now found the software I needed to do the job simply and easily! Indeed I understand that Church Treasurers, and Doctors, use this program, as well as more conventional businesses. The main limitation is that it only deals with one bank account. Perhaps provision for a second account might find its way into a future version?

Upon booting up this disc, the first question asked is whether you will be using it in conjunction with the Account Book. A positive answer produces a prompt to change discs whilst data is read across. You don't have to use the two programs together, they can stand alone, but they work as an integrated package - invoices automatically being entered into the Account Book once you have printed them out using the Invoice Program. With two double-sided drives, keep the Invoice Program in drive zero, and the Account Book in drive one.

Once set up, the look and feel are those of the Account Book, and the first job is to enter your company details into the utilities menu. If you don't enter a VAT registration number, the program makes the logical assumption that you are not VAT registered, and modifies the printouts accordingly. If (when!?) the VAT rates (15%, 0%, and exempt) change, you can modify them.

The next thing to do is to set up the first invoice number - handy if you've been in business for two years before buying the program - and any pre- or post-fixes you want to use. After that, back to the main menu, press Return to select the Invoices Menu, move the cursor down to Stock Presets, and enter up to 100 stock lines or standard messages (see figure for examples).

The square brackets, [ and ], signify a calculated total. This can be called up later and incorporated into an invoice, leaving only the number of items to be added, along with the closing bracket ]. When printed out, the correct total will appear for the number of items sold. This number of items need not be an integer - useful for those selling half a tonne of wheat, or 2.5 hours of music tuition.

Other facilities include entering standard messages which appear on the invoices, e.g. the names of directors and advertising slogans. In addition, overdue messages can be entered and automatically printed on statements prepared subsequently. The preset intervals are 28 days apart, but these can be changed if desired. As if all this were not enough, there's a 700 entry database of customers names, addresses, and other details.

Producing invoices and statements is very simple, and satisfying - a really professional job can be done, as shown by the example included. All the details can be standardised, or tailored to individual customers; you can even tell the software the code your printer uses for the pound sign - although this feature only applies to invoices, on other printouts it gives CHR$(96). The cure for this is to set the printer to the UK character set, and type #'s.

On the topic of criticisms, it really is hard to find any major ones. After printing the customer database, the printer is left in condensed mode, and has to be reset manually. Oh yes, and the contrast between the pretty mode 7 colours used for the menus, and the mode 3 black and white screens used for data entry is a bit severe. Whatever you could want, this software does it, even printing labels or envelopes for posting off your invoices!

As you may have gathered, I am very impressed with these programs. I must also mention the excellent after-sales service given by Mr. Pain of Apricote. It includes free telephone help, and minor software modifications. More substantial changes are charged for at a nominal rate, and updates offered to existing customers for £3 per disc. In addition, a version for business studies classes is shortly to be released. I think the best testimony to these programs is that Mr. Pain uses them for his own business. In the words of his advertisement, if you buy these packages, "you will not be disappointed".