Personal Finance

SAP: An Executive's Comprehensive Guide

Crucial Help for Getting the Most from Today's Information Systems Technology Deciding what type of information systems your company will need to stay competitive into the twenty-first century is a highly complex and risky exercise. SAP: An Executive's Comprehensive Guide provides the information you need to assess your options realistically and make the most informed decisions possible. Written by a team of business, financial, and information systems professionals who have extensive experience with SAP system implementations at Fortune 500 companies, this book:
* Explores the strategic role of client/server enterprise computing now and in the next century
* Helps you to evaluate your company's long-term IS requirements
* Offers an impartial look at SAP R/3 strengths and weaknesses
* Outlines the costs and benefits involved in implementing SAP R/3
* Helps you decide whether SAP R/3 is right for your organization
* Shows you how to make SAP R/3 an integral part of process redesign
* Covers all key technical SAP aspects of concern to IS professionals

Implementing Sap R/3 : How to Introduce a Large System into a Large Organization, 2nd Edition

Frankness is a quality permeating the pages of Implementing SAP R/3: How to Introduce a Large System into a Large Organization. Mining nearly three decades worth of combined consulting experience, authors Bancroft, Seip, and Sprengel provide incisive and brutally honest insight into what it means to overhaul both business and computing practices with SAP R/3. The book focuses more on business and process reengineering than configurations or programming. Implementing SAP R/3 does manage to provide a balanced view of the technological components of the R/3 system. The authors take pains to explain what types of businesses it is best suited for, its failures and shortcomings, as well as its triumphs.

The explanation of R/3 that kick starts this book is highly approachable, detailing the philosophical and technical underpinnings of this system. The other three loosely constructed sections deal almost exclusively with the complexity of an R/3 implementation. Throughout these portions, the authors emphasize the importance of identifying and establishing project goals, a point liberally illustrated by various case studies. Additionally, a terrific glossary is tucked away in the final pages, as are four appendices. These appendices cover data-modeling and relational-database concepts, content and structure of the SAP data dictionary, and the development of Advanced Business Application Programming/4GL (ABAP4). --Sarah L. Roberts-Witt

QuickBooks Pro 6 for Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide)

You watched enviously as your friends and colleagues all switched to Apple's snazzy Mac OS X. Now you can too--now that your favorite Mac accounting program, QuickBooks Pro, has ended its five-year exile and is finally Mac OS X ready! Best-selling author and trusted Mac teacher Maria Langer ensures you won't be left behind as she uses simple step-by-step instructions and loads of visual aids to take you through all of QuickBooks' features. She begins by giving a detailed accounting of how to install and configure QuickBooks, including using its new Company Setup Assistant. She then shows you how to enter sales, make payments, work with transactions, take advantage of its extensive inventory tracking capabilities, use budgets, report results, print forms, and customize the program. Along the way, Maria discusses the accounting principles that guide the program's use and doles out plenty of tips and tricks to help users sidestep thorny issues.

SAP R/3 Administration for Dummies

Here's the scenario: Your company has just installed the world's most-used business software for client/server computing, SAP R/3, and you're in charge. You have enough program documentation to fill up an entire office, but you don't have the time to sort through all this paper and learn about Enterprise Resource Planning or the SAP System Landscape.

Here's help the fast and friendly way: SAP R/3 Administration For Dummies, a plain-speaking reference for the rest of us! To keep SAP R/3 running exactly to your company's needs and specifications, you need the straight-talking, user-friendly, laid-back style of this great reference book. SAP R/3 Administration For Dummies features help on what you need to know -- working in a three-tiered landscape, handling user authorizations, defining and scheduling operation modes, monitoring performance with the Computing Center Management System, using systematic guidelines for protecting security, and much, much more.

From understanding the basics of the SAP Business Framework to deciding which R/3 modules fit your business requirements, planning background processing, fine-tuning R/3 source code, enabling security, and troubleshooting common problems, SAP R/3 Administration For Dummies delivers the know-how you need without all the technobabble that can drive you to distraction.

Administering Sap R/3: The Fi-Financial Accounting and Co-Controlling Modules

QuickBooks Pro 2006 for Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide)

If anything can make accounting fun (or even just a little less painful) QuickBooks Pro 2005 can--especially if you get this no-nonsense task-based guide to it! While QuickBooks Pro 6 was all about going native (Mac OS X–native, that is!), this time out the focus is on ease of use. To ensure that you don't miss out on any of the many features that can streamline your accounting processes, trusted Mac teacher Maria Langer uses simple step-by-step instructions and loads of visual aids to get you up to speed on QuickBooks Pro fast. After providing a detailed account of how to install and configure the program, Maria shows you how to enter sales, make payments, work with transactions, track inventory, process payroll, report results, print forms, and more. Along the way, Maria discusses the accounting principles that guide the program's use and delves deeply into all of QuickBooks' newest features: one-click viewing of cash flow and unbilled hours, the ability to share QuickBooks data with Windows users, and more.

If anything can make accounting fun (or even just a little less painful) QuickBooks Pro 2005 can--especially if you get this no-nonsense task-based guide to it! While QuickBooks Pro 6 was all about going native (Mac OS X-native, that is!), this time out the focus is on ease of use. To ensure that you don't miss out on any of the many features that can streamline your accounting processes, trusted Mac teacher Maria Langer uses simple step-by-step instructions and loads of visual aids to get you up to speed on QuickBooks Pro fast. After providing a detailed account of how to install and configure the program, Maria shows you how to enter sales, make payments, work with transactions, track inventory, process payroll, report results, print forms, and more. Along the way, Maria discusses the accounting principles that guide the program's use and delves deeply into all of QuickBooks' newest features: one-click viewing of cash flow and unbilled hours, the ability to share QuickBooks data with Windows users, and more.

SAP R/3 Implementation: Methods and Tools (SAP Excellence)

Before use, standard ERP systems such as SAP R/3 need to be customized to meet the concrete requirements of the individual enterprise. This book provides an overview of the process models, methods, and tools offered by SAP and its partners to support this complex and time-consuming process. It begins by characterizing the foundations of the latest ERP systems from both a conceptual and technical viewpoint, whereby the most important components and functions of SAP R/3 are described. The main part of the book then goes on to present the current methods and tools for the R/3 implementation based on newer process models (roadmaps).

Quicken 2001 for Macs for Dummies

Put your New Year's resolutions about financial organization into practice while the task of computerizing all your money transactions is still manageable. Quicken 2001 for Macs for Dummies explains how Quicken 2001, the popular personal-finance program from Intuit, can help you monitor your money situation and make better decisions about saving, spending, borrowing, and investing. This book, which is meant for someone who's up to speed with the basics of personal finance, but not very familiar with computerized accounting, focuses on Quicken's operation rather than on the figures that the program tracks. Author Stephen Nelson tells you how to record purchases and sales of mutual fund shares, for example, but doesn't attempt to argue for or against that kind of investing.

Nelson's instructions for using Quicken's numerous features are detailed, yet easy; they're typical of the Dummies series. He's chosen to back no-frills instructions--"Enter the check amount"--with explanatory text that deals with questions of formatting (Do I include the dollar sign?) and how to deal with unusual situations. This book would be better if Nelson had included advice on accounting for unusual transactions, such as options redemptions and short sales of shares, but what's here is more than adequate for someone with a couple of bank accounts, a mortgage, a credit card or two, and some simple investments. --David Wall

Topics covered: Intuit Quicken 2001 for Mac OS, for people who haven't used the program before. The author explains how to account for transactions in checking, savings, and credit accounts. He also shows how to keep track of home equity and mortgages, as well as investments in stocks, bonds, and funds.

From balancing a checkbook to preparing our taxes, Quicken 2001 For Macs For Dummies enables readers to get the most out of this powerful financial software. The book highlights the latest updates to Quicken while still covering al the basics. Absolute beginners to Quicken can refer to sections on installing the program and establishing basic accounts. Experienced Quicken users can refer to the book when calculating interest rates or preparing financial security for the future. The book also provides hassle-free instruction on the latest features for tracking loans, mortgages, and investments such as stocks and mutual funds. Special tips are included on bookkeeping without fear, surviving an audit, and banking online.

Quicken 6 for Macs for Dummies

Keeping track of your money and your bills has become much easier over the past few years thanks to Quicken, one of the most popular personal financial programs available. To get the most out of Quicken's rich array of features, however, you need Quicken 6 For Macs For Dummies, 2nd Edition. Here you find explained all of Quicken's features -- including the TaxPlanner module, the QuickReport feature, and QuickMath. Best of all, with Quicken 6 For Macs For Dummies, 2nd Edition, you get the sound financial advice of author Stephen L. Nelson so that you can be as savvy with your finances as you are with your computer.

Quicken 2000 for the Mac: The Official Guide

Quicken 2000 provides users with a compact dashboard with which to track bank accounts, bills, investments, and budgets. It's grown considerably from its checkbook-register roots, and Macintosh users who want help getting the most from Quicken will appreciate the documentation Quicken 2000 for the Mac: The Official Guide provides.

This book consists largely of straight feature explanations--what to click when, what data to enter into which boxes, and what procedures to follow to achieve specific results. You'll find clear statements of how to account for specific events, such as stock splits and payments, to creditors. The book's coverage doesn't extend far beyond the standard uses of Quicken's features, though. You won't find anything about the tricks you can use to track the values of equity options with the program, for example.

On top of its software documentation, this book provides a personal-finance primer that explains such things as how to reverse home equity loans work and what fees to expect when closing on a mortgage. There's also some advice on reducing debt and saving for major expenses. The author provides paper worksheets in this section, along with some in-depth explanations of how to use Quicken's reporting features to gauge your monetary health. --David Wall

Topics covered: Setting up accounts, recording transactions, reconciling your records with statements, using online banking and bill-paying features, and making sound money decisions.