officially launched Small Business Manager in December '02. It is an affordable and robust accounting package for small business with yearly volumes of 1 to 10 million dollars. It is fully compliant with "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles". There is no chance of a one-sided G/L entry. All entries are traceable to the original document.  It has an SQL Server back end, so there is no practical limit to the amount of data that can be stored or manipulated.  It integrates with all the MS Office products: Word and Excel as well as MSN Messenger, MapPoint, and Microsoft's huge business Web portal - bCentral. You can put up an, inexpensive, eCommerce store on bCentral and have it talk directly to Small Business Manager. This way all inventory adjustments are synchronized as well as all sales orders.

Microsoft provides the tools to customize Small Business Manager. They are free to MS Certified Partners for SBM (we are certified). These customizations can be loosely joined to the SBM system so that upgrades won't wipe them out. The SQL back-end database for SBM is completely available for developers. For example, the standard SBM invoice does not allow printing of the note field. They do allow a 200 character comment, but often that is not enough.  Using the tool, Continuum for Visual Basic a custom invoice can be printed, including the long note field. For example: using Continuum we wrote a custom Work Order application for an engraving business that integrates into SBM; allows entry of detailed specifications; prints a complex, custom work order form; and posts the financial data into SBM, so it can track receivables. Click here to see a Windows Media Player, screen cam of that application: EngraveYard. We finished another custom application for a tree spraying service (May '04). This one automates their routes and billing. Click on PRINCE TREE if you want to see a video of that one (You ought to, because it is very good). And  (June '04) we have a video of a customization which calculates landed cost against sale price for each line item. This way our client can know his exact gross profit on any line; on any invoice; on any range of invoices. Click on LEATHER TRENDS if you want to see that one. In July '04 one for Traffic Safety Service of New Jersey automates repeat billing of rental invoices, but the invoices can be fairly complex, having multiple lines with different rental periods and different monthly or weekly rates. Click on Traffic Safety Services for that video. As of October '04 we cranked out a customization for a money transmit business that copies all the accounting information out of their line of business application into Small Business Manager. It is a Sybase front end which captures all invoicing, payments, vouchers, vendor payments, bounced income and reversed payments out. This gets pumped into SBM so the client can know their financial position daily, instead of waiting 3 months for their accountant to enter the information, Zoha. That link takes you to the video. In December '04 we finished an application for an agency that books entertainment. That uses Microsoft InfoPath 2003 as a front end to Microsoft SBM Accounting. The bookings are done in InfoPath; the reports and bulk billings are done in SBM. Either application can view and use the other's data. The receivables and corresponding payables for each booking are linked to that booking or job. InfoPath is a tool that uses pure XML, so it is very flexible. Here's that video, Center Stage Entertainment.

Here are links to 2 more customizations, which are described pictorially in MS Word documents:
Books For Less needed custom warehouse reports with a pivot table of ISBN numbers and all the corresponding locations. SBF is not set up to do multiple bins per item, but we did it using the lot numbering facility of SBF and then doing custom pick lists and reports to facilitate storing and picking of orders.
W. Moore Profiles needed the ability to generate purchase orders automatically. Each week they order hundreds of items and they don't want to do it manually. Here is that customization.

We find that this accounting package (Small Business Manager) is comparable to most mid-range accounting packages in terms of functionality. It has all standard modules integrated: Sales Order, Purchase Order, AR, AP, Inventory, and GL. Each module has so many features. It even supports Kits, Serialized or Lot Inventory, and multi-level pricing.. Here is a link to find out more about SBM.

SBM is priced at approximately 1/5 the price of mid-range (Dynamics, Solomon, SBT, Accpac, MAS200, Macola...) packages - at $2200 for a 5-user package. Payroll is $500 extra. MS requires a support contract of an additional 18% for the first year. That allows for all upgrades, 2 support incidents, and some training on the Web. We would supplement that if necessary.  As of July 2003, MS raised the user limit to 10 and changed the pricing to $995 for the 1st user and $400 for each additional user. There is an 18% support contract/enhancement/upgrade charge on top of that. Still priced very close to what it was before. They are coming out with version 8 in January '05, which will have a full report writer, as does Great Plains. SBM is a stable product. We installed and trained about 15 new accounts in the past year and no complaints. In fact one of our customers has gotten so good at the program, he is now working with us as a trainer.

SBM is easy to customize. Microsoft has even given us wizards that write the customization code. That translates into cheaper customization costs for end users. We find this the best value of any accounting package we have ever seen in our 18 years of intensive experience with computerized accounting for PC's.