Ballantine Announces Smart Tools Project Manager Software Special Edition for QuickBooks Pro and Premier 2002 Users

Business Wire, August 26, 2002

Business/Technology Editors

CARLISLE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 26, 2002

New Smart Tools(R) Project Manager software delivers easy-to-use

project management and data sharing with Intuit's QuickBooks 2002

products

Ballantine & Company, Inc., recognized specialists in project management desktop software and member of the Intuit Developer Network, today released Smart Tools(R) Project Manager software, designed to provide architects, engineers, contractors, consultants, managers and other professionals -who also use QuickBooks Pro 2002 or QuickBooks Premier 2002 products -with a tool to easily and quickly plan and budget projects or estimate and schedule client work and proposals. Smart Tools(R) Project Manager is a special edition of Ballantine's popular desktop project software.

Smart Tools(R) Project Manager is considered the best alternative to complex and expensive project software. It uses a familiar worksheet where all project information, dates and costs are entered. A presentation-quality Gantt chart schedule is automatically plotted from this data with the click of a button, and users can easily customize their Gantt charts and project reports.

With Smart Tools(R) Project Manager, users can designate planned or actual activities as critical, link activities for automatic date adjustment, and compare plan time and cost variances. Project data can be sorted and filtered by fields such as activity, date, and project code. Data can be imported from and exported to spreadsheets, databases or for use in other project management software. The reports generated by Smart Tools(R) Project Manager also can be exported as HTML documents for the web.

"Smart Tools(R) Project Manager is the best choice for small businesses looking for an easy-to-use, economical and feature-rich project management software that also shares data with Intuit's QuickBooks Pro or Premier 2002 products," said Ann Ballantine, President and CEO of Ballantine & Company

Link to QuickBooks

Smart Tools(R) Project Manager offers integration features that enable easy data exchange with Intuit's QuickBooks Pro 2002 and QuickBooks Premier 2002 software.

"The Intuit Developer Network strives to help the best and brightest developers solve the business management challenges that small business owners face every day," said Esther Kruijver, director of the Intuit Developer Network. "We are pleased to be able to work with innovators like Ballantine to offer small businesses specialized applications that will work with the QuickBooks 2002 products. The data integration with Smart Tools(R) Project Manager and the QuickBooks 2002 products is an example of how increased efficiencies in managing financial data can give business owners more time to oversee other parts of their business."

The link between Smart Tools(R) Project Manager and QuickBooks Pro 2002 and QuickBooks Premier 2002 products enables users to:

-- Send data between programs rather than maintaining data in

more than one place.

-- Create an estimate in Smart Tools(R) Project Manager and then

easily transfer it directly to QuickBooks' estimate producer.

-- Directly access the QuickBooks item list, which includes

standard materials, labor and pricing, to speed project

planning and eliminate duplicate data entry.

-- Add new projects in QuickBooks, or update item list

information to QuickBooks.

As an added safeguard, when item data from Smart Tools(R) Project Manager is shared with QuickBooks, it is tagged so that the user does not accidently change existing accounting information saved in QuickBooks.

"Smart Tools(R) Project Manager is the second special edition product Ballantine has released since joining the Intuit Developer Network that features data integration with QuickBooks software," said Ballantine. "It is part of effort to provide our small business customers with a convenient link between our software products and the popular QuickBooks 2002 products."

Highlights of Smart Tools(R) Project Manager

Worksheet Flexibility

Smart Tools(R) Project Manager offers project managers the flexibility to customize the project worksheet that is used to plan and manage projects.

-- In addition to twelve standard activity, resource, time and

cost columns, users can add up to four user-defined text,

date, currency or number columns.

-- The worksheet columns can be rearranged to reflect the user's

project logic.

-- A freeze frame feature splits a large worksheet into two

sections that scroll independently.

-- Commonly used activities or cost items and pricing can be

added to a drop down selection list that is available to any

project. This saves users time and improves the accuracy of

the worksheet by eliminating the need to manually re-enter

frequently used activities or items and pricing.

-- Smart Tools(R) Project Manager data can be imported from and

exported to spreadsheets, Microsoft Access data bases, or text

files. Microsoft Project 2000 databases can be opened in Smart

Tools(R) Project Manager and Smart Tools(R) Project Manager