This is not a wind up. Jason Carter asked my opinion about the results of CPA Technology Advisor’s assessment of five popular ‘high- end accounting packages.’ Sage AccPac 500 ERP achieved a ‘perfect five star‘ rating. Jason does an excellent job eviscerating the credentials of those who undertook the assessment.
Ever eager to grab any decent publicity, Sage US (You really must smack these guys around Ralph) put out what Jason describes as a ‘nauseating‘ press release. Even Sage must realise this is cynical. Jason comments:
It is good press for Sage, who put out a nauseating press release that read “Sage Software Flagship Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Beat All Comers with Perfect 5-Star Overall Assessments.” I guess they thought that had a better ring to it than saying “We’re excited to announce that one of our top resellers that did more than $1 million in business with us last year likes the products they sell better than the products they compete against.” But that would have had an inconvenient element of truth to it.
It’s much worse than Jason says. For a start, the detailed evaluation makes outrageous claims which are not evidenced:
Accpac 500, supporting unlimited users.
Excuse me? Did I read unlimited? Concurrent by any chance? No freakin’ way. Plenty of other limp claims are made like:
Security in the system is very strong with the ability to restrict activity by function. A nice security feature is the ability to remove modules, tasks, reports, etc., from the screen if a user is not authorized.
Anyone still awake or has this been consigned to the dustbin of bad memories? In the 15 years I’ve spent independently reviewing accounting software, I have never, ever come across perfect software. It doesn’t exist. Even those surveyed found weaknesses. Such as:
Competitive Disadvantages:
• No manufacturing module (only available as an add-on from third parties)
• Brand recognition is weak despite the strength and popularity of the product in many markets
• No workflow; no dashboard
All this at a time when other surveys in the same title assert that 79% of resellers are engaged with manufacturing companies and that most of their business comes from CPA referrals. Duh??
Jason points out the margin of error at 24% due to the sample size. One correspondent points out a more serious problem:
In addition, the CPA Technology Advisor can’t seem to do math correctly. That’s bad for anyone with “CPA†in their title.
The true “Overall Score†for MAS500 is 4.83 and Dynamics GP is 4.58. The CPA Technology Advisor’s level of precision to the tenths place suggests rounding those scores to 4.8 and 4.6 respectively, a 0.2 difference. Only by rounding to the nearest 0.5 did they show a wide difference in the Overall Score of 5.0 for MAS500 versus 4.5 for Dynamics GP, a 0.5 difference. By abusing their own level of precision, the CPA Technology Advisor more than doubled the difference between the two products from 0.2 to 0.5.
It seems this is a “CPA†team worthy of auditing Enron. Should a CFO feel comfortable with cooked books before the software is even licensed?
It’s hard to disagree with this view. More important, professionals who know their stuff are not that easily fooled. If this is the start of flacking software in the US then I pity those gullible enough to be taken in. It’s an embarrassment. A lesson to anyone: Always check the credentials of those offering glowing reports of software or services.
Whenever I talk about clients of mine, I always disclose the nature of the relationship. It is then up to readers to determine for themselves whether my words are BS or rooted in reality. One thing I never do today is sell software or implementation services. That would preclude me from being even vaguely objective.
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