2012 Review of Red Moon Solutions LLC – Fixed Assets Manager

Strengths

• Available as installed or an online hosted program
• Strong reporting capabilities
• Able to integrate directly with ERP systems and with Vertex for corporate tax
• Ability to easily integrate with other compliance solutions such as CORPTAX and Thomson ONESOURCE
• Many customization options
• Comprehensive depreciation calculations
• Entity consolidation functions

Potential Limitations

• Moderate in-system help features

Fixed Assets Manager (FAM) from Red Moon Solutions is a comprehensive depreciation and asset management system designed for entities with complex asset taxation needs and is used by companies in the Fortune 500 and Global 1,000. The system can support any number of independent or inter-related entities with unlimited groups, departments, locations and assets, providing extensive consolidation capabilities and unlimited books per asset. It supports all common methods of depreciation as well as custom treatments. The program is available either as an installed program or an online hosted solution.

Basic System Functions: 4.75 Stars

FAM is easy to use, and offers free online tips and tricks, multiple wizards and guides during initial setup that help with creation of companies, departments and groups. For asset entry, it offers import from several formats, as well as manual entry options that include the ability to use standard templates, create custom templates or duplicate companies and assets.

The program’s primary interface is intuitive and offers pull-down and icon-based navigation menus across the top, while a three-paned screen provides an expandable navigation menu and access to asset lists and books for the selected company. From the asset menu, users can quickly see and access assets by department, as well as functions for filtering by group, location or other organizational structures. The program displays asset lists on customizable spreadsheet screens that provide summary information.

Many areas of the program can be customized by users based on their security access rights, including navigation menus and asset data views. FAM allows the creation of unlimited user-defined fields for tracking any data, including GL numbers and cost centers.

Asset detail screens open to show all books, and provide tabbed access to in-depth book views, periods, accounting information (user-defined fields), transactions, ITC, UOP, advanced data, attached images and files, and notes. Changes to convention, method, life and other data, or asset disposal actions are automatically calculated across all affected data.

FAM can be used to manage any number of entities with unlimited assets, as well as entities with multiple subsidiary units, and any number of staff can access the program at the same time, with security features preventing overwrite of data.

Core Asset Management Feature: 4.75 Stars

Fixed Assets Manager provides extensive support for all depreciation methods and conventions, and has built-in calculations for MACRS 150/200, ACRS, straight-line, modified straight-line, declining balance, sum-of-the-year’s-digits, units of production, zero depreciation and amortization for intangible assets. Each asset can have any number of user-defined books, with customizable preconfigured books provided for Federal tax, AMT, ACE and Accounting. The program can also recalculate prior depreciation, and supports mid-quarter, full month, mid-month, actual month and half-year conventions, plus support for short years and 52/53 week years.

FAM includes the most recent bonus depreciation and Sec. 179 limitations for 2012 and previous years, as well as auto limits and variable business use. Its database contains more than 100 asset types based on the IRS’ classes for depreciation, and users can create custom types. Asset depreciation can be projected out to 60 years.

The Fixed Assets Manager system supports multi-part assets and can handle all asset life events, including mass and partial asset transactions, splits and unsplitting, retirements and transfers, and offers wizards that help with these functions. Consolidation functions allow merging of asset bases of companies or groups. For asset audits, the system offers asset lists and location management options, but it does not provide barcode or RFID integration.

Reporting: 4.75 Stars
The reporting options in Fixed Assets Manager are impressive, with more than 40 pre-built reports for depreciation, projections, acquisitions, disposals, adjusted basis, net book value and reconciliations. A built-in report writer offers good customization of reports, which can also be saved to Crystal reports, Excel, CSV and text formats. Additional custom reporting is also available and standard functionality within the product. Forms 4562, 4684, 4797 and 6252 can be printed from within the program.

Integration: 5 Stars
The system includes an import utility that can be used to pull data from Excel and CSV files and most financial programs. It also has a diagnostics tool for ensuring the accuracy of asset additions, disposals and transfers. FAM has the ability to integrate with many ERP systems and compliance products, and is certified to integrate with the Vertex Domestic Compliance corporate tax program.

Help/Support: 4.75 Stars
Fixed Assets Manager includes a traditional help utility, context-sensitive help and right click menus, as well as several wizards and guides for asset disposal and creation functions. The company’s online support options include FAQs, a knowledgebase, file sharing functions, program updates and links to tax and accounting resources. The installed version of the program works with all modern Windows network environments, and the online hosted version allows you to access via regular Internet connectivity. Live phone and web-based support is included with the software license, with customers having a personal account representative. There is also an extensive online Knowledgebase and online “Tips and Tricks” that are included in the regular license fee. This allows customers to have what they need at their fingertips.

Summary & Pricing

Fixed Assets Manager is a comprehensive deprecation and asset management solution that offers the most extensive calculation and forecasting capabilities on the market. It includes extensive tools for asset disposals and transfers, Sec. 179 expensing and bonus depreciation, and allows unlimited books per asset. It is primarily designed for mid-sized and large enterprises, including Fortune 500 caliber organizations that have extremely large and complex asset bases distributed across multiple subsidiary units, locations and departments. Pricing is based upon the size of the asset base and the number of users. A mid-range network solution that accommodates two users and up to 30,000 assets costs $4,500 for the first-year fee. Pricing for small businesses starts at $1,000 for the first year fee.

2012 Overall Rating: 4.75 Stars