Introduction > About ManagePLUS

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How Does ManagePLUS Work?

Here are the basic steps for using ManagePLUS:

1.	Choose an accounting period—the range of transaction dates you want to work with, such as this fiscal year, or last year, or last month.

Refresh QuickBooks lists and transactions. Have ManagePLUS refresh its copy of your QuickBooks lists (Accounts, Classes, etc.) as well as transactions from the accounting period you're working with. (To refresh a list you just click on a Refresh button in the list's window.) You only need to refresh a list or a range of transactions if you've changed them in QuickBooks.

3.	Associate extra information with the QuickBooks lists in ManagePLUS.

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You can associate units of measure with accounts in the Chart of Accounts list, for any accounts where a unit of measure makes sense. This lets ManagePLUS appropriately label quantities on reports with "lbs.", "gallons", "pallets", or whatever. Associating units of measure with accounts also controls some of ManagePLUS' advanced quantity handling features.

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You will probably also want to associate management quantities with some items in your QuickBooks reference lists, such as Classes. A management quantity is a physical quantity (usually related to the amount of production or consumption of something, in some area of your business) or dollar amount, for which you'd like to have per-unit revenue or expense information. Things like the number of pounds, or bushels, or tons, or acres, or pallets of production for a class; the number of labor hours used for the activity represented by a class; etc., are all examples of management quantities. ManagePLUS uses them to provide per-management-unit statistics on reports, as illustrated in the report examples below.

Analyze transactions "visually". ManagePLUS lets you do quick, report-like analysis right in the Transactions window (i.e., without actually preparing a report). You just drag the transaction column headings into the groupings you want and make a few mouse clicks to get a detailed custom analysis of your records, sorted and grouped by any transaction column(s) and any date ranges.

5.	View reports. The information you associated with QuickBooks lists in step 3 lets ManagePLUS reports provide a much richer array of management information than QuickBooks can provide alone. (See the report examples in the next section, below.)

Use reports for "what-if" analysis if you like. ManagePLUS builds most reports in its own internal spreadsheet, fully populated with all the formulas necessary for complete recalculation when you make changes. With your actual accounting numbers as a starting point you can change numbers however you like, to test their effect on profits and costs..."How would my fuel cost per unit change, if fuel prices rose by 50%?"..."If we could raise production by 10% for this class, how would it affect net profit for the class?"...and so on.

There's a lot more you can do, but these steps illustrate the basics.

ManagePLUS Reports Can Give You...

Here are some farm business examples of information you'll find on a ManagePLUS report:

•	Enhanced quantity information and quantity reporting capabilities.

•	Per-unit management information: costs and revenue per unit sold, per pallet shipped, per acre, per pound, per hour of labor, per bushel...or any other unit you want to use as a reporting basis.

•	Greatly expanded reporting for QuickBooks classes, including lots of automatically-produced statistics and information, beyond anything QuickBooks offers for class reporting. Every business that uses classes can benefit from using ManagePLUS!

•	Many other features and report combinations.

The current release of ManagePLUS focuses mostly on QuickBooks Classes, but "stay tuned for more"...future releases will provide similar kinds of reporting for QuickBooks Items, Customers/Jobs, etc.

If you want to get started with ManagePLUS right away go to the Quick Start Tutorials.

Design Philosophy

Here's the basic idea that drives every design decision in ManagePLUS:

ManagePLUS Design Philosophy...

ManagePLUS should give you the maximum management information possible from the records you already keep, before suggesting that you change accounting practices or procedures to obtain a higher level of management information.

For you as a ManagePLUS user, this means several things:

•	ManagePLUS is not a full-fledged managerial accounting system; nor is it intended to be. But if you believe that mining whatever relevant management information exists in your records is a step in the right direction, ManagePLUS is a tool that can help.

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Because it is not a full managerial accounting system, ManagePLUS lets you avoid the high levels of accounting expertise and transaction detail that comprehensive managerial accounting requires, yet still have some of the benefits. ManagePLUS helps you get part of the way there, without as much work.

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ManagePLUS bridges the gap between getting little management information from your accounting records and getting "everything possible".

Some people see managerial accounting as an all-or-nothing proposition, believing it must be implemented all at once—as a complete system—and that it would require such monumental changes in their day-to-day accounting habits and work flow that it wouldn't be feasible: "...not in a business the size of ours. Maybe someday when we're bigger, or when we can hire a full-time accountant...". But "someday" may never come, so why miss out on getting at least some useful management information from your records right now?

What if you could gradually "grow" your accounting system and record keeping procedures over a period of time, to yield higher and higher levels of management information?

What if you didn't have to tackle the job all at once, but could expand your accounting procedures whenever you see a need for more management information about some part of your business?

What if you could wait until the potential value of the information was so clear, that there would be little question of the payoff for the extra effort required?

But because ManagePLUS makes the process easy and doesn't require that you conform to rigidly structured accounting procedures, it lets you "go slowly" on building management information practices into your record keeping system. It lets you make accounting changes as your information needs dictate, without requiring an all-at-once change in how you do your accounting.

By helping you get more information from the accounting records you already have—and by letting you get started right now—ManagePLUS lets you have immediate success on the road to better management information. And minor successes and benefits may encourage you to do more, as you see your incremental efforts paying off in terms of better information.

•	As you reach toward higher levels of management accounting detail, you may be surprised to find ManagePLUS "growing" along with you.

Over time, the features of ManagePLUS will move toward providing the same kinds of information you can get from a more comprehensive managerial accounting system, but with shortcuts to make the job easier in many cases—especially if you're in a small-business accounting environment.

As a registered ManagePLUS user, you may take advantage of new features as we introduce them in updated program versions. Typically you may download several upgrade releases of the program, often over the course of a year or more, before a significant version change prompts us to charge an upgrade fee.

Specifications & Requirements

ManagePLUS has the following computer hardware and software requirements:

•	Works with Pro, Premier, and Enterprise Solutions editions of U.S. QuickBooks, versions 2003 and later, as well as many UK and Canadian QuickBooks releases. (Support for Australian QuickBooks is planned for the future.)

•	Requires Microsoft Windows XP or later.

•	15 mb hard drive space.

•	Display screen and mouse.

•	Printer (optional) for printed reports.

This list may change as new ManagePLUS versions are released. An up-to-date list of requirements can always be found on the ManagePLUS Downloads page of our Web site.

ManagePLUS is a trademark of Flagship Technologies, Inc.

QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit.