NewViews
NewViews is accounting software that is developed and distributed by Q.W.Page Associates Inc., a privately held company based in Aurora, Ontario, Canada. NewViews is noted for its integrated, non-modular approach, which enables the total financial cycle to be updated instantly as each transaction is added. It also allows users to customize nearly every aspect of a set of books. This flexibility comes with a trade-off, however, as NewViews is perceived to have a long learning curve, and to require an investment of time and effort to create a customized accounting solution. In a software review published in InfoWorld, NewViews was compared to "going to a tailor and handing him a bolt of cloth and a pair of scissors."
History
NewViews was first launched in Canada in September 1985 at the Toronto International Software Show. In November 1986, shortly after its U.S. launch, NewViews was awarded PC Magazine’s Award for Technical Excellence at Comdex in Las Vegas.NewViews was considered a radical departure from other accounting software programs. It was described by some as revolutionary, by others as making the dry business of accounting exciting and fun.
It dispensed with separate modules and organized accounting documents into an integrated hierarchical structure that was updated in real-time. It also allowed users to view and edit accounting documents in much the same way they could view and edit data on a spreadsheet.
After a lengthy delay, the multi-user version of NewViews was released for Microsoft Windows in 2005.
A custom standalone Nonprofit Housing / Subsidized Housing edition was released in 2014. This custom version has additional features specific to Housing such as automatic Rent-Geared-to-Income calculations, Work Order management, Personalized Forms and Notices, etc.
Features
General structure and approach
The current NewViews interface is modeled on File Explorer. Accounting data in a set of books is organized in a tree or hierarchical structure called the NewViews Database Explorer. The Database Explorer is used to navigate between four main levels of detail: reports, accounts, transactions and distributions.NewViews does not rely on accounting modules, as is typical of other accounting software programs. Instead, reporting structure is controlled by the way accounts are totaled on reports. An account can total to another account on the same report, or to an account on any other report. The ability to total an account on one report to an account on another report is the foundation of integration in NewViews. For example, the change to retained earnings on the income statement can be totaled to the retained earnings on the balance sheet to reflect this relationship. Total amounts from subsidiary ledgers and schedules can also be totaled directly to controlling accounts on financial statements or other subsidiary reports. In this way, NewViews can be set up to accommodate standard subsidiary ledgers as well as highly customized reports that are specific to user needs.
Transactions can be added through journals, or directly to account ledgers. When transactions are added directly to the account ledger, corresponding journal entry is created automatically. Account totals are updated instantaneously as each transaction is entered, modified or deleted. As each account total is updated, the change ripples forward through the report arithmetic. In this way, the entire set of books is updated in real-time. Historical data for all accounts are retained indefinitely, and can be viewed on a yearly, monthly, quarterly, biweekly, weekly or daily basis.
All changes to a set of books are recorded in an audit trail that is stored within the database; it can be viewed by users with access rights but cannot be modified.