A Review of
Solomon IV
By J. Carlton Collins and Geni Whitehouse, CPA

The following article is designed to walk you through some of the look and feel and functionality of Solomon IV . The objective is to provide prospective purchasers the opportunity to learn a little bit about the product before taking that next big step of contacting a sales representative. Hopefully, this information will help you pre-qualify the product and determine whether it is a reasonable candidate for consideration.
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Solomon IV Product Tour

Inventory Replenishment

Recent additions to Solomon IV in the 5.0 release make the product worthy of a second look for distribution companies.  

New inventory replenishment capabilities are reflected in the screens below.  This screen shows how to set up the inventory replenishment parameters for an inventory item stored at the LA site.  

Once the parameters have been established, you can view the replenishment values for that item. 

Landed cost details, which are crucial elements of item costs for  international companies, can be added to inventory items in a variety of ways as shown below:

Project Controls

Solomon IV is well known for strong project costing which is designed specifically for Engineering, System Integrators, Research and Development, Consulting Services, Architecture and General Contractors. There are eight modules designed to address the various needs of project managers.  These modules include: Project Controller, Advanced Allocator, Analyzer, Time Keeper, Project Billing, Communicator, Contact Management, and Project Budgeting. These modules are discussed briefly below.

The Project Controller module controls the processes for integrating project data with Solomon ’s other financial and business applications.  Projects, tasks, account categories, budgets and allocation rates and rules are set up in this module. A flexible project structure can be established with up to 12 segments of information. Allocation rules along with user-defined validation rules for each segment can be set up.

Foreign Currency

The Currency Manager maintains currency tables, and manages currency revaluation and unrealized gain and loss processing. The currency tables allow you to enter an unlimited number of different currencies and rate types. Using the combination of currency and rate type, you can store an unlimited number of different exchange rate amounts for a particular currency and effective date.

When multi-currency processing is enabled, the Currency Selection button and the Currency View button on the Solomon IV toolbar are available for data entry screens and processes. The Currency Selection button allows you to select the currency to be used for the screen or process, and you can view or override the default currency rate obtained from the rate table. Use the Currency View button to toggle the representation of monetary amounts between the amounts entered in the selected currency and the equivalent amount in base or domestic currency.  

In the Currency Manager Setup screen you can specify the default rate type and effective date values to be used in retrieving default rates during data entry and processing. Transaction amounts and account balances are stored in both the currency used for entry and the base or domestic currency equivalent. You can designate asset and liability accounts which represent foreign holdings as foreign denominated accounts. Base currency balances in foreign denominated accounts can be revalued as often as necessary using the Currency Manager General Ledger Revaluation process. Realized Gain and Loss transactions are generated automatically when documents entered in a foreign currency are paid. Unrealized Gains and Losses on open documents can be calculated and reported as often as desired, using the Currency Manager Unrealized Gain/Loss report.

Using the Financial Statement translator shown below, you can create an adjusted set of books in your local currency in accordance with GAAP requirements, and then translate your statements into your parent company’s reporting currency. Translated financial statements can then be sent to your parent company for consolidation, comparison, and financial reporting.

Resulting statements comply  with the Financial Accounting Standards Board Statement 52, Foreign Currency Translation. They also comply with the International Accounting Standard Board Statement 125.

eVoucher 

Part of the Solomon Desktop, this tool allows remote users to maintain vendors and enter vouchers for expenditures.  

If the Solomon Project Controller and Multi-Company are installed, eVoucher allows you to assign a project, task or an employee to an AP line item.  When used in conjunction with Solomon Multi-Company,  eVoucher can also be used to input vouchers for inter-company transactions.

Field Service Management

Solomon IV features four modules in the Field Service Management area.  They include Equipment Maintenance, Flat Rate, Service Contracts and  Service Dispatch.  The dispatch board displayed below shows some of the features available with this product, which is designed to automate service call processing and to help manage field technicians.  The graphical view shown below makes it easy to determine which technician has available time to address the next service call that comes in. 

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