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"AccountMate Software Helps District of Columbia Technology Firm Boost Ability to Provide Nation-wide Solutions for Public Housing Authorities
AccountMate's modifiable, 32-bit financial management software offers costeffective, GAAP-compliant, back end to ISSI's vertical solution for Public Housing Authorities.
When ISSI President Bhasker Agrawal was
considering a financial management software
package to serve as the back end of his Visual
HOMES software, he wanted a product that
could process public housing applications
quickly and effectively, and be easily
modified to meet the ever-changing
governmental requirements. The most
important criterion for Agrawal was the
product's availability of 32-bit, easy-tomodify
source code that would allow him to
save all the time and money it would cost to
develop a Windows-based, accounting
package from scratch to complement Visual
HOMES.
Agrawal quickly discovered that there were
precious few software packages available that
could meet these requirements. He was,
however, already familiar with Novato,
California-based AccountMate Software,
which had provided support for the earlier
DOS-based H.O.M.E.S. software product, and
had a policy of making its program source
code available for modifications. Based on
these factors, he decided to investigate
AccountMate's award-winning Visual
AccountMate system with its 32-bit Visual
FoxPro source code.
Visual AccountMate Fits Governmental Requirements Right Out of the Box
Agrawal's investigation proved very fruitful.
Here was a package that satisfied most of their
needs right out of the box. He loved the clean
source code and the fact that the majority of
Visual AccountMate's basic reports were
already GAAP-compliant. "It's great to find a
system that offers all the functionality we need
to comply with federal regulations. Now we
don't have to reinvent the wheel and develop
our own customized accounting system from
scratch to team up with our Housing
Management Software. The availability of
source code is great because it reassures our
users that they won't have to switch to another
vendor's product down the road. VAM is the
perfect complement to our Visual HOMES
package," said Agrawal.
The reporting functionality in Visual
AccountMate was also a very pleasant surprise
to Jerry Kravetzker, Director of Sales for
Visual HOMES. "The reports that our clients
submit to the government must conform to
HUD (Department of Housing & Urban
Development) guidelines, especially when it
comes to financial reporting. The beauty of
VAM is that most of the reports don't need to
be created from scratch to meet these
requirements; most of the standard reports are
HUD-compliant right out of the box, and
others require only slight modification," said
Kravetzker.
To take full advantage of Visual
AccountMate's superior features and
functionality, ISSI programmers have written
interfaces linking their Visual HOMES
modules with core Visual AccountMate
modules, especially General Ledger (GL),
Accounts Payable (AP) and Inventory Control
(IC).
For example, their Section 8 module, which
provides financial data for Section 8 owners
and landlords, their Low-Rent module, which
is a stand-alone tenants' AR module, and their
Fixed Assets Inventory module, all post data
directly to the VAM GL module. Their Work
Order module generates all the maintenance
work orders for public housing authorities and
links to VAM's IC module, which is primarily
used to track inventory on hand. Visual
HOMES also utilizes VAM's AP module for
maintaining vendor files, and links, with
VAM's GL to their GRANTS module. About
half of ISSI's clients use VAM Payroll as
well.
Both Agrawal and Kravetzker are confident
that the Visual HOMES/Visual AccountMate
tandem will provide ISSI with a steady stream
of satisfied clients well into the future. "With
VAM's stellar source code and tremendous
functionality, I feel that we can provide
superior customer service while having the
flexibility to quickly and easily make changes
to the software to accommodate any changes
in federal requirements," said Kravetzger.
In fact, when the decision was made to
develop and market their our client/server
version of Visual HOMES, it was a natural
conclusion to continue using Visual
AccountMate/SQL as an accounting support
tool. "We had already drawn up future plans
to release our own client/server version of
Visual HOMES to enable us to deal
effectively with larger housing authorities and
to reap the benefits of faster processing time
and multiuser capabilities. We're looking
good as we head into the next millennium with
AccountMate," said Kravetzker.
Company Profile:
Information Systems and Services, Inc.
(ISSI) is one of the Washington D.C. area's
fastest-growing information technology firms
and has been serving the information needs of
government and commercial clients since
1987. During this time, ISSI has acquired a
solid reputation as a provider of innovative,
cost-effective solutions, with a record of
strong and consistent client satisfaction. ISSI
products include: Internet Commerce
Solutions, Lotus Notes/Domino Solutions,
Visual Homes and World Trade Systems.
ISSI has earned the following distinctions:
Recognized by Washington Technology as
"Fast 50" Company: 1993 - 1995; 154th on
Inc. Magazine's "500 Fastest Growing Private
Companies in America": 1993 - 1995; 10th on
the Baltimore "Fast 40" Technology Firms in
1995; IBM Business Partner; Lotus Premium
Business Partner status: 1994.
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