"After all these years it is like we have a friendship with Kurt." That is how Mike Simpson of Neumann Brothers Inc. feels about the relationship he has with his Timberline dealer, Kurt Bangert. "Years ago Kurt Bangert stopped in here and we purchased Timberline estimating from him. At the time, we wrote our own programs in Cobol. We looked at the Medallion accounting system from Timberline but just didn’t think it was for us. Then they came out with the Gold product and we really liked that."

Mike carefully weighed his decision to purchase Sage Timberline Office accounting software. "We took awhile in deciding. Kurt brought out a computer with a sample database and left it with us for awhile. We kind of played with it to see what it could do, just to get a little bit of hands-on. We experimented with the software and continued over that time to talk to Kurt about what we saw and what we wanted to do. Bangert Computer Systems made the sales process very smooth."

Mike was impressed that the software could be so easily customized to meet the needs of his company. "Timberline Gold appears to be a pretty complex system. But, it is so capable of being customized. Much more so than just a regular canned software to where it comes out and you run it in the exact fashion that it comes out of the box. Timberline is more ground up. You have parameters but I would say those parameters are much more user defined than they are set up by whoever makes the application. That was very appealing to us because when you are used to creating your own programs and reports, sometimes you get a little scared to move to a so called canned program. You wonder if you would lose some of that. We saw a lot of flexibility with Timberline."

"Timberline is a good product and I think they had a good product even back when we bought it. It is better now with all the updates they have gone through. From back when we first bought the product, there have been some pretty substantial changes. Now it has more of the Windows look to it. Timberline is moving in the direction they need to move in to continue to work and support their customer base. I look at that and say that Timberline is an application where you have to keep up with them rather than them trying to keep up with you. That is a good feeling. Right now we are only running one company, but in the future we could run 5, 10 or 20 companies. Timberline would allow us to do that. We built Timberline to move towards the future."

Mike was impressed by the software’s all-around flexibility. "There are so many different setups in Timberline just for how your job set-up will look. You have options for numbering and cost codes and how you set up your general ledger. Timberline to me is a total quality management system. If you can dream something up, within reason you can always do it with Timberline."

"There are so many different tasks, from sorting data to writing different reports, that we use Timberline for. And, I’m not using half the tools that Timberline provides. Things that have taken hours and hours and hours before, now can be done so quickly. That is not to say that it doesn’t take some up front work, but it is well worth it."

Mike does suggest that companies be prepared to work in the beginning to customize the software. "Timberline is a product that if you are going to bring it on board, you want to take some time with it. If you take that up-front time, it is a system that can really pay off. The hardest thing I find is keeping up with Timberline Software Corporation. That is a good problem to have. Over the years I have seen others get software that they think will do the job. Then it becomes stale or stagnant and can’t serve the customers that grow beyond that level."

Mike believes Bangert Computer Systems has contributed to the success he has had using Timberline. "Bangert’s has always helped me out in the past when I needed assistance. They got me through a lot of stuff. I used to deal with them quite a bit more than I do now because I’ve had the software for years. I’ve called them my share of times. I know the number, let’s put it that way. I don’t have it quite memorized yet, but that is a good thing. If I had it memorized, I would be calling too much with too many problems."


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