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Wind2 Financial Management System
Wind2 Software
Architects may be completely at ease revisiting interventions or contextualizing gestalts, but many are dumbstruck at the mere mention of debits and credits. Yet accounting is essential to running a design practice. Besides the financial statements required by bankers and the government, architects need tools to transform time-sheet data into accurate invoices and to monitor project progress against the available fee. Solo practitioners and small firms can accomplish these tasks with generic small-business software such as QuickBooks Pro from Intuit, but larger firms need more elaborate software designed to account for project-based professional services. In recent years, mergers among software vendors have narrowed the choices for architects, with Deltek Systems acquiring many of its former competitors. Among the survivors, Wind2 Software stands as a long-term innovator, initially bringing A/E accounting to Windows, then to the Web, and now to the arena of professional services automation, which integrates project and practice management [RECORD, August 2001, pages 137-138].
Wind2's Financial Management System (FMS) offers all the bells and whistles of financial reporting and project accounting. The latest version is Web-enabled, both for time-sheet entry and for viewing reports of project and firmwide financial performance. The recent acquisition of A/E Award! (now Wind2 Award!) marketing software from Infomax, and the addition of optional document management, human resources, and asset management, enable Wind2 to expand beyond its accounting role to be a central repository of information for an entire firm. Any architect whose practice is outgrowing QuickBooks or who is looking to switch to a different accounting...