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Red Moon Solutions Fixed Assets Manager

800-224-1260www.redmoonsolutions.com

From the December 2009 Review of Fixed
Asset Management Systems

The
Fixed Assets Manager (FAM) system from Red Moon Solutions is a comprehensive
asset depreciation and management application that offers broad financial and
tax reporting capabilities, extensive tracking options and strong reporting
in a flexible and scalable package that is available both as a traditionally
installed program or as a hosted solution. The system can support any number
of business entities, providing multiple asset schedules and automated calculation
of all depreciation methods and conventions, while an audit trail helps maintain
the integrity of asset data.

Fixed Assets Manager starts at $1,000 for a single-user stand-alone system
that can support up to 1,500 assets with other options available. Red Moon also
offers a specialized version of the program that directly integrates with the
SAP Business One solution for small and medium enterprise clients, as well as
a tool for matching like-kind exchanges and a business intelligence analysis
tool.

NAVIGATION/EASE-OF-USE:
The program opens into a crisp and intuitive interface that resembles Microsoft
Office products and provides a Windows Explorer navigation menu on the left
of the screen, offering expandable selections for asset types, accounting information
and directories for each entity whose assets are being managed with the program,
with additional access to grouped assets, such as those in a location, division
or cost center.

An asset selection screen appears in the main window, with items initially
grouped by schedule type, such as ACE, AMT, and Federal tax. But when opening
an asset group or viewing the results of an asset search, the screen expands
into a columnar spreadsheet list that offers sortable asset summary data, including
descriptions, acquisition date, original cost and other information. This spreadsheet
view can be customized to display the information that users want in any specific
order. Users can also search assets by various other methods and have access
to numerous icons at the top of the screen for functions that include additional
search functions, navigating through assets and performing calculations.

During company and asset setup, FAM offers several wizards that guide users
through these processes, using well-designed data-entry screens that offer intelligent
entry features such as selection lists and calendars. Wizards are also available
for more advanced tasks, such as asset disposals, data import and reporting.
Existing assets can be copied for use as templates, allowing users to quickly
enter multiple similar items. The program’s menus and many of its windows
can be customized by the user, and an unlimited number of custom fields can
be added to asset records for grouping of reports, performing tasks and tracking
miscellaneous data. Detailed asset information screens use a tabbed interface
that allows users to quickly move between data-entry functions, accounting information
and transactions, or bring up a side-by-side comparison of all of an asset’s
books. Associated documents and files, such as invoices, maintenance records,
spreadsheets and images, can be attached to asset records.

MANAGEMENT FEATURES:
Fixed Assets Manager maintains a record of all asset life and transactional
histories that can be easily viewed on asset detail screens, and advanced search
capabilities, combined with the ability to add custom data fields, make finding
specific assets and running reports across those items easy. FAM supports GAAP,
IFRS and Federal depreciation standards, with automatic calculation of depreciation
for MACRS, ACRS, straight-line, declining balance, sum of the year’s digits,
amortization, zero depreciation and all other typical and historical methods.
More than 100 asset types are already built into the program and updated for
tax law changes, and users can create additional custom types if desired.

In another show of the program’s flexibility, it can support any number
of user customizable books per asset, with pre-built schedules already included
for Federal tax, AMT, ACE and Accounting. All calculations are performed in
real-time as data is entered, with users able to instantly see the effects of
treatment and data changes on a single screen that displays all books side-by-side.
Custom periods can also be created for financial purposes, with users able to
export data for journal entries.

The program’s asset disposal functions enable accurate tracking and
reporting of virtually any kind of asset activity, including splits, unsplitting,
sales, transfers, full and partial dispositions and bulk dispositions, in addition
to inter and intra-entity transfers. FAM’s depreciation projection capabilities
allow forecasting monthly or out to 60 years.

INTEGRATION:
Fixed Assets Manager offers multiple options for exporting asset data and depreciation
journal entries, including to Excel, CSV and text formats, enabling import of
the data into trial balance, tax and GL systems. The system is also certified
to integrate with the Vertex corporate tax solution, and a version of FAM is
available that offers full certified integration with SAP Business One.

REPORTING:
Fixed Assets Manager offers comprehensive tax and financial reporting, with
more than 40 standard reports that include depreciation summaries, adjusted
basis, period reporting and other options, with the ability to save reports
as sets, customize them using the built-in report writer, and perform advanced
analysis of data. The system also offers IRS Forms 4562, 4684, 4797 and 6252.
Output options include Excel and PDF.

HELP/SUPPORT:
Built-in assistance features include a traditional Help utility that offers
task-specific guidance, as well as numerous wizards and guides for performing
setup functions and other tasks. The Red Moon Solutions support website offers
FAQs, program updates and access to training options. Technical support is included
with system pricing and renewals.

2009 OVERALL RATING: