We own a copy of MAS 90 and have evaluated 5 other accounting applications. Some are good, some not so good. Maybe it's just us, but nothing really seemed to fit; and also required us to learn yet another framework or learn some one else's 1970's style spaghetti code. And there is the cost/royalty and mandatory annual subscriptions that our customers would have to pay. It just didn't seem worth the aggravation. We have decided to "roll our own".

We prototyped AR/AP and GL in 6 mos (without reports); and will now start to refactor the code. Since we are a small shop we can't work on this full time, but should have something to release to our customers in less than 12 months. We will build additional modules from there and should be fully featured in maybe two years.

I think the biggest problem we have had is defining the scope. You have to initially decide if you are going to build a simple app like QuickBooks or something heavier, like MAS90. Then be firm about it and don't change your mind.

Don Lowrey