THE CHALLENGE

For 10 years, Weyerhaeuser Insurance Services had been using an off-site service bureau for all accounting, financial and insurance data management. In 1996, the rapidly growing division of the century-old Weyerhaeuser Co. decided to bring its systems in-house in order to improve productivity and cost-effectiveness.

Concurrently, the firm shifted to the Microsoft Windows 95 environment on a Windows NT network. Weyerhaeuser selected insurance agency management software that was compatible with its Microsoft SQL Server environment. Although the insurance application provided capable insurance management functions, Weyerhaeuser found its financial components underpowered. The software’s reporting, general ledger and vendor accounts payable sections lacked many of the capabilities that the company had sought.

THE SOLUTION

Weyerhaeuser conducted a careful assessment of high-performance accounting software applications. “We evaluated MAS 500 and two other accounting programs, and concluded that MAS 500 from Best Software was the best fit for us,” says Weyerhaeuser’s Lewis. The decision was largely influenced by the system’s accessible architecture, which enabled rapid development of bridges to integrate its General Ledger and Accounts Payable modules with Weyerhaeuser’s insurance management software.

Lewis also notes that the design integrity of MAS 500 and its compatibility with the Windows 95 operating platform weighed heavily in the company’s decision. “MAS 500 is newly designed in Visual Basic 4.0 as a native 32-bit application, and is SQL Server-based,” he says. The other accounting software packages that Weyerhaeuser found unacceptable were developed for 16-bit Windows 3.1.

The product’s 32-bit technology allows Weyerhaeuser to take full advantage of Windows 95 capabilities. “MAS 500 is built for Windows 95, not Windows 3.1, so it is much more efficient. It is highly stable, bridges with my other systems, and keeps our accounting department happy,” observes Lewis.

While installation of some client/server accounting software systems traditionally consumes months, MAS 500 was brought into service at Weyerhaeuser in a remarkably short time — less than two months. The project went smoothly for two reasons: its true client/server architecture and its development by means of industry-standard Microsoft tools. MAS 500, which is designed to be truly Microsoft-compliant, integrates with other programs within the enterprise because it’s native to the Microsoft SQL Server environment. With MAS 500, emerging technologies can be easily integrated as customer needs change.

Evelyn Moran, Weyerhaeuser’s controller, praises the suite’s reporting capabilities. “It provides greater flexibility and data export capabilities,” she says. “MAS 500 includes the powerful FRx financial report writer, which I use to design my own reports easily.”

She says the product has given her the ability to integrate accounting and insurance data, which never was achievable through the service bureau. “MAS 500 lets us take full advantage of other Microsoft Office products like Excel and Word, for example, which significantly increases our data exchange capabilities,” Moran explains.

Greg Lewis adds, “MAS 500 is far and away the best solution we could have chosen. It will be Weyerhaeuser’s accounting foundation for years to come.”