Peachtree News
Peachtree release 2008 has been available since June this year and this is Peachtree's 2nd year using the updated Pervasive database. The 2007 release of Peachtree was the most significant upgrade in many years and you'll be pleased to find that with the 2008 release, the kinks related to such a major upgrade have been ironed out.

Because of using the updated Pervasive engine, the new Peachtree handles larger amounts of data. For example, I talked to a company recently that is sending out 1,000 invoices/week using Peachtree Premium 2007. This is a bit much for Peachtree 2007, but the new Peachtree Quantum can handle this quantity of data. Here's the breakdown.
- Peachtree 2006 does well with file sizes up to 100 Meg.
- Peachtree 2007 and 2008 do well with file sizes up to 600 Meg.
- Peachtree Quantum does well with file sizes up to 1.2 Gigabyte.

If you're a Crystal Reports user, be careful because some reports need additional programming to work with the 2008 release of Peachtree. In fact, if you intend to use Crystal reports, but have not started yet, you may want to upgrade to the new release of Peachtree before beginning to use Crystal.

Capitol Data Accounting News
We've just written a couple of new Income Statement reports in Crystal. They aren't published in the portfolio section of our website yet, but if you want to see them just let us know and we can send you a PDF so you can see what they look like when running the Peachtree sample company data. Both income statements involved changes to the way the standard Peachtree Income Statement figures the % column of the report. The flexibility of Crystal allows us to create just about any kind in income statement you can think of.

On another topic, some people have asked why our manual tax table publication will not be sent out until December 23rd. This is because the 2008 federal with holding information is not available from the IRS until mid-December. As soon as the IRS publishes their figures for the new year, we'll take that information and use it to update our own publication - and will email it to our subscribers at that time.

Peachtree Tips
With Peachtree r2007 and 2008, the main Peachtree window is no longer a plain grey with commands listed across the top of the screen. Instead, these newer versions of Peachtree use a main window that is filled with icons, lists, and charts. Many people are very happy to have all this extra information right at their finger tips, but others find this to be information overload and prefer a relatively clear main screen.

For Peachtree 2007 and 2008, creating an uncluttered opening screen is achieved as follows. Click on Business Status / Make This the Default Page / Customize This Page / Business Status Layout. Now, in the SHOW column, remove all checkmarks except the line that says "Find a Report". Now click on OK and you're done. You have a new main screen that will be much cleaner with few distractions.

Alternatively, if you have the latest release of 2007 or any release of 2008, you can use the HIDE command that is in the top left corner of your opening Peachtree screen. Simply click on Hide and you'll have a blank opening Peachtree screen until at some point you click on Unhide, also at the top left of your opening screen.

Accounting Tips
More on Debits and Credits. Instead of referring to General Ledger or Trial Balance amounts as Dr and Cr, they can also be referred to as simply + or -. It this is being done, the convention is that Debits will be positive (+) and Credits will be (-).

Specials
Contact us by email or the form below to schedule a one hour Peachtree telephone Help/Tutorial session for $60.00. Our Peachtree Certified Consultant and Accountant, Jim Vogt, will spend up to one hour with you troubleshooting and/or learning about any part of Peachtree that you like. Mention this newsletter in your note to us. Offer is valid until 1/15/08. click here to contact us.