Say hi to Corona, a new software application for Mac OS X for managing a checking account dedicated to a cash-basis business.
What’s interesting about Corona is that its files can be opened by any common spreadsheet software that imports tab-delimited data. Corona can also open exported information from spreadsheets and databases, a feature designed to make transaction data easy to share between software applications.
For record keeping, Corona facilitates transaction entry and bank reconcilement, it helps you find items in the transaction data, and quickly gleans monthly detail by account, according to author R. Charles Flickinger. Corona also provides monthly or total reports for income and trial balance. All of the application’s queries and reports can be printed or saved as files on disk.
“Corona was created because in more than 16 years experience performing general ledger accounting with a computer, I had yet to find an accounting software that delivers the ability to easily share transaction data between the software applications commonly used for business,” Flickinger said. “Learning to use spreadsheets and databases to produce accounting reports is also not an easy task. Corona eliminates these issues and keeps transaction data available for these other software programs.”
Eighty to 90 percent of the transactions of a business are eventually recorded in the banking account, so this first version of Corona is specifically for maintaining records of a business or personal checking account, he added. Future versions will offer journals for sales, purchases, general entries and payroll.
“What really made Corona possible was the work everyone is doing at REAL Software,” Flickinger said. “REALBasic had such a low learning curve because of it’s similarity to JavaScript, that most of Corona was complete before the REALbasic demo version’s four weeks had passed. The online Language Reference provided with the REALbasic demo is first-rate, it was like having a helpful friend always there to answer a question. And because REALbasic easily builds Windows applications, there will be a Corona for Windows available very soon.”
Corona is offered on a 30-day evaluation and can be downloaded directly from the Corona Web site. It’s built for Mac OS X, but will also run on Mac OS 7.5 through 9.1, if the CarbonLib extension is loaded.
“There are definite plans to release upgraded versions of Corona that will provide a more complete accounting solution for business,” Flickinger said.