VISUAL BOOKS™ ACCOUNTING SYSTEM

Visual Books is a complete windows-based accounting solution that is fully integrated with Henning Software's Visual EstiTrack™ manufacturing software. Visual Books seamlessly integrates your manufacturing and financial data. It consists of five separate but integrated subsystems including Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Banking, Payroll and General Ledger.

What makes Visual Books unique is its simple to use user interface. Visual Books, as the name denotes, has a visual orientation that draws the user through the accounting process, beginning on the first menu page with large buttons for each function. Visual Books uses an innovative graphical navigator, with some menu screens having embedded buttons in flow-chart-like diagrams. These diagrams show sequences of operations or relationships between accounting processes, such as accounts receivable, posting customer payments, checking account deposits, and customer records.

"Though Visual EstiTrack has import-export capabilities with a variety of popular accounting packages," states Rich Henning , "our customers encouraged us to add an accounting capability to the shop management system. Many of our users already successfully transfered accounting data, but didn't feel it was the best arrangement. Our customer base was quite adamant in asking for a fully integrated accounting option to Visual EstiTrack. And they wanted one having the same visual simplicity and user friendliness of our flagship product."

WHAT DOES VISUAL BOOKS INCLUDE?

Visual Books includes General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Payroll functions. Add these to the inventory, sales analysis, order entry, bill of materials, routings, estimating, purchasing, and scheduling capabilities within Visual EstiTrack, and the Henning system offers an extended Manufacturing Enterprise System (MES) for small- to mid-size job shops and manufacturers. The seamless interface further reduces redundant administrative activities in the payroll area, since Visual EstiTrack collects operator time via bar coding on the plant floor. Users can eliminate time cards by passing the collected time back into the accounting program's payroll section. Visual Books accommodates multi-departmental and multi-divisional companies.

"As year 2000 (Y2K) issues caught the attention of our customer base," Henning recounts, "we found increased demand for adding a totally integrated accounting package." Many manufacturers still use DOS-based accounting software and they let us know what they wanted. Like Visual EstiTrack, whose development was customer-based and which developed and expanded as customers found they required new or expanded capabilities, customers also directed Visual Books' development," according to Henning.

Visual Books consolidates the shop's vendor list -- there's only one software vendor to call, "and they know Henning will respond to their calls. Software users have learned that a single source software vendor can preclude much finger-pointing when problems arise," Henning continues. "I think our customers appreciate our availability and constant efforts to keep them operational. As a result, they pushed us quite hard to add the accounting modules.".