Working with teams

Slash Accounting Costs software uses innovative technology to allow you to collaborate with your team and advisors, anytime, and from anywhere in the world.

It does this by combining the best features from online accounting systems with those of standalone programs running on your computer. By doing this it eliminates the shortcomings of each and provides you a truly robust, time-saving and cost-effective accounting solution.

The major limitations of standalone and online systems are:

Standalone programs running on your computer:

  • Often only works on one computer. This can make it difficult to share your records with your accountant. This is particularly important when you need contined access to update your records and run your business.
  • Usually have no way to keep automatic off-premises backups. A hardware failure could cause you to lose all your records. Beeping backups is expensive and a chore — that's why its often not done.
  • Usually do not support both Windows and OSX operating systems
  • Can only be accessed from the computer on which the software is installed.
  • It is often expensive, complicated and time consuming to upgrade the software

Online accounting systems:
 

  • They are slow. The time wasted sending and receiving data online is a direct cost to your business.
  • Ongoing monthly fees. These are often significant. You have no control over cost increases in the future.
  • You can't access ongoing backups so you have no way of auditing for database corruption.
  • You cannot be 100% assured of the privacy of your data.
  • "Automated data feeds" don't really save you time.
  • What happens when you want to cancel the service?
  • Internet not available — how do I run my business?

Slash Accounting Costs software — how the Teams feature and automatic backups work to eliminate ALL these problems ...

Slash Accounting Costs software has none of these limitations. You install copies of the Slash Accounting Costs software on as many computers as you wish (Windows or OSX). Each computer has a copy of the one database. A master copy of the database is also kept secured on a web server.

Internet based file-locking ensures that only one person can change the database at any time. Each team member works on a copy of the database on their computer. All database copies automatically synchronize with other users via the web server. Synchronization occurs after you have closed your copy of the database — so you have none of the performance issues associated with other online solutions.

The web servers use Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) for storage replicated across multiple data centres. All transmission of file data and metadata is SSL encrypted. All files stored on servers are encrypted (AES-256) and are inaccessible without your account password. Because Slash Accounting Costs files are also encrypted and password protected you are 100% assured your data will remain private — even if all these other protections were to fail.

There is no cost penalty for the size of your team since the software is free — you only pay for each database license. There is currently no cost for 2GB of web storage.

Any files you place in the folders designated by our software will be replicated to the web server and made available to all team members (if you chose to share with them). The storage can be used for backup files and other essential tax records such as electronic copies of invoices sent and received.

So lets look at these limitations in detail and see why eliminating them is so important...

Most are self-evident, so we will only consider the following:

 

Won't I have a problem if the Internet is not available?

You don't need the Internet to work on your local copy of the database. So if you urgently need to create and print an Invoice to record a sale you can. Unlike an online service, your business doesn't stop.

Opening your database without an Internet connection simply means you can't establish a file lock to tell other users you are working on the file. Without a file lock someone else can change their copy of the database so that, when your Internet connection is re-established, you may overwrite their changes. This is only a problem if they change something — furthermore there are simple procedures you can follow to prevent this occurring.

Every update to the web server is fully logged. The changes you and others make are always available to be restored if required. Every time someone closes their copy of Slash Accounting Costs software you have a "virtual backup" - additional to backups you and your team specifically make. Even if file-locking were to break down (because of an Internet failure) you can be assured of restoring the most significant copy of conflicting changes.

Online program? — don't expect it to be fast.

Internet based accounting programs are slow compared with a program running on your computer. Even a semi-reasonable database running on your computer can search and return thousands of records in the same time an Internet program returns ten.

That just the nature of the Internet — even if you have a super-fast connection. The whole design focus with Internet based programs is tailored around making a slow process appear acceptable. Poor Internet transfer speeds effect everything — searching a record, entering a transaction, printing reports.

The irony is that some of these online services try and sell you "simplifying your data" as a benefit. They have to do this to disguise the speed issues, and in the process require you to make unnecessary queries that waste your time. Remember an hour saved a week represents 6 days saved per year and typically $2,500.00 for an average business.

Slash Accounting Costs software is blisteringly fast in searching and displaying large record sets — which is absolutely essential if you are running a business.

Online programs and backups of your data

Backups provide a valuable function apart from protecting you from hardware failure. Backups provide you with a snapshot of the state of your accounts at any time. You should take backups of all important events e.g each end of year tax return, each BAS return.

The problems with online solutions is that you effectively only have the current database. Sure they take multiple backups etc. etc. but that's not the problem. These are only protecting the current copy — effectively there is only one copy. The only way you can report on past events is by querying the current database for that date range.

There is no facility to obtain backups of important events and to open these in a second copy of the software so you can compare this with the comparable search of your current database.

If you have a progressive database error (possible but unlikely) or one of your team members incorrectly made a change you have no way of easily finding this.

Backups don't simply record your transactions. A lot of the data in accounting systems is often overwritten e.g. changes in customer and supplier records, item pricing etc.. Without periodic backups all this information is lost.

Vendors of online solutions will say "It doesn't matter — ensure you take all your reports as you go". There are three problems to this which a tax audit may reveal. Firstly you need to be able to access every record — bad luck if you forgot to run one of the reports. This can't happen if you have a full database backup. Secondly running extensive reports is time consuming and costly — and you still have to store them securely anyhow. Finally there is no facility to backup essential supporting information.

Slash Accounting Costs gives you the ability to run multiple copies of the software and compare the results from multiple backups on the same screen.

Online programs and your privacy

Online programs cannot 100% assure you of the privacy of your data. Your data may be stored and transferred encrypted but at some point there will be staff members who have access to the information. It is their storage, their databases and they have to be able to maintain it — even though it is your private information. Google Wikileaks or Julian Assange to see how insecure online information really is.

Slash Accounting Costs software gives you an extra level of protection. Since your database is encrypted, and you control the access password, the major risk with online storage is eliminated. Even if someone gains access to the web servers/databases, your information is not accessible to them without the access password. This removes the major risk to your privacy.

"Automated data feeds" don't really save you time

Some online solutions offer automatic downloads of bank transactions to save you entering them. This is equivalent to downloading an importing the transactions into Slash Accounting Costs software. On face value this would appear to be an advantage. In reality it is not for the following reasons:

Standalone programs are often difficult to update

Yes and No. Slash Accounting Costs software is modular and designed for automatic updates. The application kernel automatically manages all updates. All libraries are digitally signed and matched to the current version of the database. This means that opening past backups is never an issue — no matter how much Slash Accounting Costs continues to develop in the future you will always be able to open old backups.