Corporate Profile
Headquarters
Castle Rock, Colorado

Type of Business
Consultants regarding, and manufacturers and retailers of, artwork to corporate clientele

Distribution Territory
National

Number of Locations
One

Number of Employees
12

Annual Revenue
$1 million

System Profile
Computer System
Dell (Intel^® Pentium^® processor)

Operating System
Microsoft^® Windows^® 95

Network
Windows 95

BusinessWorks Modules in Use
General Ledger
Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Inventory Control and Purchasing
Order Entry
Mailing Labels
Job Cost

Application
General accounting, estimating, sales orders, invoicing, receivables, purchase orders, payables and inventory control

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Right from the start, Craig Beeney found the bookkeeping and financial reporting requirements overwhelming. “Ours was just a small business starting out,” Beeney says. “The amount of time I had to spend just to keep track of our finances was unbelievable.” Beeney realized that bookkeeping might become his full-time contribution to the enterprise if he didn’t computerize. So Parker Blake went shopping.

In 1980, there weren’t very many choices for personal computers. Accounting packages for those machines were both rare and inadequate. As the PC industry grew, Beeney moved Parker Blake from one accounting system to another. He managed to make each program function, but he had to improvise with numerous sequential steps requiring time-consuming manual input. “With our previous accounting systems, I could usually make things work,” says Beeney. “The problem was that no one else understood what I had done. I needed a package everyone could use.”

Beeney’s frustration coincided with a major contract from Disney to place art pieces in hotels. Suddenly a truly comprehensive accounting system was more than just desirable; it became an absolute necessity.

He was thrilled to learn that BusinessWorks ran under Windows and provided the power to manage Parker Blake’s increasingly complicated books.

Beeney is still the in-house expert on the accounting software, but bookkeeping is no longer a full-time chore. The straightforward user screens enabled the rest of the office staff to use BusinessWorks, allowing Beeney to concentrate on other aspects of his business. BusinessWorks has eliminated Beeney’s need to create awkward work-around solutions.

The General Ledger reports, including income statements, balance sheets and statements of cash flows, have been very useful to Parker Blake. Beeney believes that the most important contribution of BusinessWorks is its ability to generate reports, especially a report that ranks client activity by size. “Some clients require more of our attention than others,” comments Beeney. “The reports available from the Accounts Receivable module show us the revenue on each client’s behalf. BusinessWorks is crucial in effectively budgeting our time.”

Analysis of Parker Blake’s bottom line hasn’t always been easy, notes Beeney. The company’s numerous income-generating activities vary widely in their profit margins. BusinessWorks has made it possible to examine each of these activities in perspective and analyze the contribution each makes to the total enterprise. The bottom line is what business is all about, but without adequate reporting, it’s only a statement of what a business has achieved in the past. BusinessWorks helps Craig Beeney decide where the business is going, by clearly showing how those achievements have occurred.

Because of this strong functionality and its contribution to the company, Parker Blake considers BusinessWorks truly a work of art.