                             One-Write Plus
                          Review by Judy Litt

        For most small business owners, accounting is a four letter word.
I'm no exception. Although I took an accounting course in college, that was
in a different galaxy far, far away. The purpose of accounting software is
to make accounting easy for the non-accountant, you and me. One-Write Plus
almost lives up to that purpose.
        Installation was relatively painless, but I ran into trouble the
first time I tried to run the program. One-Write Plus is a DOS program, and
requires at least 512 K conventional memory free to run. If you're like me,
with a fully loaded computer, chances are you won't have that. I had to
disable both my scanner and CD-ROM drivers in order to run the program. This
means that I need to set up two autoexec.bats: one if I want to run
One-Write Plus and one for regular work. This is a major annoyance to me,
but others might consider it only a minor inconvenience. One-Write Plus will
run under Windows.
        A rather strange custom: you must call an 800 number in order to
register the program. If you don't, you are limited in the number of times
you can use it; approximately twenty-five.
        I'm a by-the-book learner: I like to work through manuals and
tutorials, but first I generally open up a program and start to play around
with it. Playing around didn't get me very far, so I turned to the manual
next. The manual is clear enough, but to my mind it doesn't explain basic
accounting terms and principles enough. In short, I didn't find the manual
to be much help in learning One-Write Plus.
        One-Write Plus ships with an audio tutorial. There are four lessons
on the tape (although there is room for much more). These lessons will teach
someone who doesn't know the first thing about computers or accounting how
to be off and running with One-Write Plus. However, these four lessons
(which take about half an hour) only skim the surface of the program. Having
the tutorials on tape makes it more difficult for you to return to the areas
you need more help with.
        At the beginning of the tutorial tape, you're promised information
on how to get more tutorial tapes for free. You get this information once
you've finished the entire tape. It turns out that you can only receive the
rest of the tutorial tapes for free if you enroll in one of the Premier
support plans; the cheapest costs $139.95. You can, of course, purchase the
tutorial tapes for $39.95. I take exception, big time, to a company that
makes you pay to learn how to use its program. There is no tutorial in the
manual. There are sample files included with the program, but no on-line
tutorial; those sample files are for use with the tutorial tapes.
        One-Write Plus comes with a lot of useful information all set up for
you. There are thirteen general business types already defined for you; each
has a different set of accounts already set up for it. You may also define a
custom type of organization, and add or delete accounts as needed. There are
three different types of invoices already set up: inventory, service, and
professional. You do not have the ability to truly customize those invoices.
        One-Write Plus works like most accounting programs. There is a
general ledger; you can enter sales and bills to pay, and then record those
transactions when they actually occur. You can write checks, budget, and
memorize transactions. There is a payroll feature. You can generate a number
of reports, including financial, payroll, vendor, and customer reports.
        One-Write Plus is distributed by NEBS (New England Business Service,
Inc.). Not  surprisingly, NEBS also distributes a number of printable forms
that can be used with the software (these are already in the program).
        I think One-Write Plus is probably a wonderful program for someone
who is somewhat familiar with accounting. If all the audio training tapes
were provided free of charge, it might be a wonderful program for any
business. I do think they're missing the boat by not providing a Windows
version. The bottom line? I don't think One-Write Plus is long for my hard
drive.

                          NEBS Software, Inc.
                        20 Industrial Park Drive
                            Nashua, NH 03062
                             (603) 880-5100

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