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Frequently
asked questions...
The most common questions asked about Chreos follow.
What is Chreos ? (top)
Chreos is the latest 32-bit Windows accounting software packaged produced
by Wild Software Ltd. It is a modular accounting package which is ideal
for small and medium sized businesses. Modules available include Clients,
Creditors, Inventory, Point of Sale, General Ledger, and Branch. New modules
are added from time to time. Please check with Wild
Software to see if Chreos has the functionality you require.
What is unique about Chreos ? (top)
Chreos has been designed "from-the-ground-up" to be flexible.
You can choose the modules you need to run your business effectively,
set up each module exactly how you need it, and even have custom components
written to suit your business. It has several key
benefits which will put you in the driver's seat to higher productivity
and greater profits.
What operating systems can I run Chreos on
? (top)
Cheos is a native Windows operating system that will run on all current
Microsoft operating systems including Windows 7,Windows Vista, Windows
XP, Windows 2000. Chreos also runs on all current Windows Server OS platforms.
Chreos may run on Windows me/98/95. However these operating systems
are no longer supported by Microsoft and Chreos is not activly tested
or maintained for these operating systems.
Who can I purchase Chreos from? (top)
Chreos can be purchased from Wild Software Ltd, You can call Wild
Software on +64-3-377 0495 or email on sales@chreos.co.nz.
How can I get support for Chreos ? (top)
Wild Software can guide you when choosing the support options which
best meets your needs. Support for Chreos is available through the software
creators Wild Software (phone +64-3-377
0495).
Who supports Chreos ? (top)
Chreos is supported directly by the creators, Wild Software. For
more information on Chreos support options, click
here.
Who will install Chreos ? (top)
A Wild Software trained Support Engineer can install the software
at your site(s) if requierd. Chreos is relatively easy to install.
Who can train me to use Chreos ? (top)
A Chreos Certified Trainer can work with you to produce a training
plan that best reflects your needs. Plenty of documentation is available
Can I get Chreos customised to suit my requirements? (top)
Yes! If you need Chreos to perform a specific tasks (or tasks),
simply discuss your requirements with Wild
Software (phone +64-3-377 0495).
What else should I know about Chreos ? (top)
Why is Chreos so flexible? (top)
In the design of Chreos, Wild Software have considered several issues
facing most businesses and have built the software to meet these needs.
As a result, Chreos lets you run your business the way you want to.
There are three key areas where Chreos excels at providing this flexibility:
- Select the modules you need
- Customised fields
- Customised reports
- Customised plug-ins
Select the modules you need
Because Chreos is modular, you can build your accounting software
to suit your needs (without paying for features that you will
not use...)
Customised Fields
You can define and control many customised fields within Chreos.
For example, there are many categories you
can use (and even define yourself) when you are setting up stock
or creditors. Want to add a pick list to help you define your
clients by age, location, or business type? Not a problem...simply
create a new pick list and away you go. Setting up user definable
fields gives you the power to extract information from Chreos
the way you want it.
Customised Reports
Chreos ships with all the standard reports most businesses would
need. From stock take reports to aged debtor analysis; profit
& loss reports to stock movement reports. However, if you
want a custom report which gives you information in the special
way that you need it to effectively manage your business, it can
be quickly and easily produced. What's more, Chreos has a very
easy to use report manager which lets you add (or remove) reports
as you see fit. Keep the options simple by only including the
reports you need in the system.
Customised plug-ins
One of the strongest points of Chreos is its ability to be customised.
Wild Software has developed a unique method of producing customised
plug-ins for Chreos which let you do almost anything you can think
of.
Many accounting packages either do not offer customisations or have stopped offering customisations. This is because with the technology used by most
accounting software packages, adding a feature requires the actual
source code to be modified. This results in a different version
of the software for each user who has had a customisation written.
Many software companies were not able to keep up with the support
demands of such a large number of different versions. Also, when
the software package was upgraded, an enormous amount of work
was required to rewrite or test each custom version for each client.
The problems encountered by many software companies caused them
to stop offering customisations.
Not so with
Wild Software! They have employed a unique and advanced server
technology which allows them to write a customisation as a 'plug-in'
to Chreos. From the users perspective, the modification appears
to be seamlessly inside Chreos itself (this could be a new menu
item, form, or even a complete module). However, technically,
the customisation is actually a separate program that "latches-on"
to Chreos which means that the Chreso source code is not modified
in any way. The benefit to you of this is that you can always
be assured that your version of Chreos is exactly the same version
as all other users. If a patch to Chreos is released, you can
safely apply it to your version in the knowledge that your customisations
will continue to work as is.
Further, Wild Software have a software engineer dedicated to supporting
these customised modules. Therefore, as Chreos evolves, you can
be confident that your customisations will continue to function
optimally.
When you combine the built-in flexibility of Chreos, its powerful internal reports (and
ease with which custom reports can be written), and its unique ability
to accept custom plug-ins, Chreos becomes a very powerful and flexible
business tool!
What is file sharing? (top)
In a file sharing environment all data is stored on a central drive and
each machine on the network treats that drive as an extension of itself.
Users see it as just another lettered or named drive. The file server
(the machine that actually has the physical drive) manages the data
to the extent that it blocks two users updating the same part of it
at the same time. Apart from this the processing power of the file server
machine is unused. Each other machine must download the data over the
network, run queries and make and return changes over the same network.
The advantage is that there is no additional software needed to manage this
beyond having an active network.
The disadvantages are that the file server has processing power that often
sits idle, the level of network traffic can become intense with the
network bottleneck slowing down all users, and updates not always rapidly
filtering through to other users. In addition there are potentially
major data corruption problems if the network connection is lost while
transaction are being processed.
Chreos does not use file sharing.
What is Client/Server? (top)
Client/Server is a much more recent technology that moves the processing
of transactions to an application (known as the server) running on the
same machine as the data. Users on other machines (known as clients)
connect to the data via the server rather than directly. The server
responds to requests from a client to run queries and send back the
records that match the requirements and to make all changes to the data.
Because the client only gets the records it needs rather than all the data,
the amount of network traffic is significantly reduced. In addition,
because one program is in control of all data updating (editing and
adding new records), and because this is all happening on the one machine,
not over the network, the risk of data loss or corruption if the network
connection is lost is minimised.
Client/Server also has some disadvantages. Where data is required for viewing, there
is a small delay while an answer set is produced and sent in its entirety
to the client. And then if another client makes changes to the data
that the answer set is drawn from, the changes are not apparent to the
first client until another answer set is re-sent.
Chreos uses an optimised Client/Server technology.
Chreos Client/Server (top)
The Chreos Client/Server solution takes the best features of Client
Server and File sharing to optimise for speed of data access, and speed
and reliability of data updating.
The Chreos Server program processes all transactions and strategic data
changes. This gives fast, reliable performance with the additional benefit
of the client becoming free for other use even before the data has finished
processing.
When, for example, the user produces an invoice in Chreos Client, only the
information required to save and verify that invoice is sent to Chreos
Server. This is inevitably a minimal data set keeping network traffic
very low. Chreos Server then takes over the control of the changes and
sees that the data is updated. Meanwhile the user on the client can
go on to the next activity (like entering another invoice or a sales
order).
Another aspect of the Chreos Client/Server solution is the use of a special
technology that allows the client to only pull down over the network
the subset of data that it needs immediately. If a set of 10,000 records
is to be viewed on the client machine but the screen can only show 20
records at any one time, Chreos Client will receive just the initial
20 records which means it starts displaying data quickly.
The rest of the records are retrieved in small parcels as and when needed.
Where a complex answer set is needed, the server responds to the client
request and produces the data and then this technology takes over for
sending it to the client.
A third feature of the Chreos Client/Server solution is robustness. Once
a transaction has been sent to the server for processing, if the client
or network fails, the transaction will still be processed. If the server
fails it will complete the processing when the system is up and running
again.
While Chreos Client/Server is optimised for, and included in, Chreos (which
avoids the need to purchase separate third party database licences)
it uses the industry standard TCP/IP protocol for communications which
makes Chreos easy to install on most networks. Also, this use of TCP/IP
makes Chreos ideally suited for use in many web based applications.
How can I get more information on Chreos ? (top)
Contact Wild Software for more
information and pricing.
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