The latest version of Small Business Manager, software to help small businesses track their finances and business processes, features better integration with Office and tighter fiscal control.

Introduced in late 2001, Small Business Manager (SBM) helps small businesses manage their finances, track inventory, and manage business processes, such as purchasing, sales, and payroll. Designed for businesses with 25 or fewer employees and less than US$5 million in annual revenues, but starting at nearly US$1,000 for a single-user license, SBM is significantly more expensive than other more popular small business accounting products, such as Intuit's QuickBooks. Thus, Microsoft must convince small businesses that SBM offers enough extra functionality to justify its price tag.

With this goal in mind, SBM 7.0, released in Dec. 2002, has concentrated its improvements in the following areas:

Integration with other Microsoft products. One area in which Microsoft has a natural advantage is its ability to integrate SBM with other Microsoft products, particularly Office. For example, in SBM 7.0, new wizards help customers import data from SBM into an Excel spreadsheet for manipulation and analysis, and let them create letter-writing templates in Word (e.g., form letters to notify customers of overdue invoices).

Tighter fiscal control. While all accounting programs help businesses balance their books, SBM 7.0 has new features that help track important business events and processes as they happen. Examples include a daily cash flow calendar, automatic reminders for important events (such as when an invoice comes due), and real-time inventory tracking.

New sales and purchasing features. SBM 7.0 also boasts new features for managing sales tasks (such as entering orders, processing invoices, and creating shipping documents) and purchasing tasks (such as creating purchase transactions, placing orders "on hold" for approval, and updating inventory costs). This is designed to keep SBM ahead of competitors, which are expanding their products in similar ways: for example, QuickBooks Premier 2003 added the ability to track sales orders.

Availability, Pricing, Resources

SBM 7.0 is only available through Microsoft Business Solutions resellers. A single-user license costs US$995; a license for up to five concurrent users is US$2,495. An optional add-on for managing payroll is available in the United States for US$500.

For more details about SBM 7.0, see www.greatplains.com/solutions/product.asp?report=LNavProdNameSBM&Type=Product&Category=Small%20Business%20Manager&TermValue=Small%20Business%20Manager. A detailed price list is at www.greatplains.com/solutions/document.asp?Type=Product&Category=Small%20Business%20Manager&TermValue=Small%20Business%20Manager&Link=solution/smallbusinessmanager_pricing.htm.