CDS – Past, Present and Future

Custom Data Systems, Inc. was founded by Mark Breen in 1989. Larry Austin joined Mark in 1993. Over the years, our customer base has grown to 39 state CPA societies. By focusing on CPA societies we have developed Association Management applications to meet the needs of our customers and assist them as they provide valuable services to their members.

AM.NET is the latest version of our Association Management software. AM.NET preserves the features that made AM4 successful while offering major improvements in both usability and functionality. AM.NET includes the most comprehensive on-line help we have offered. Most CDS customers now have AM.NET installed and CDS is ready to move forward with installations at the few remaining states still running only AM4.

CDS views our relationship with our customers as a partnership and we recognize that our customers are also our most valuable resource. Development efforts have been based on feedback from users. In the past that was accomplished using less formal user-group input. More recently two groups have been formed to facilitate the process.

In late 2005, the CDS Advisory Board was formed. The Advisory Board consists of state society representatives from large, medium and small states and its members are both society CEO's and staff. Loretta Doon, CalCPA CEO, is currently serving as chair of the Advisory Board. CDS regularly updates the Advisory Board with status reports and future development priorities and receives valuable feedback used in making strategic decisions for allocating resources.

In 2009, the CDS Advisory board created a Key Users Task Force. This is a group of experienced AM system users and has a more operational focus. To date, the Task Force has provided CDS with detailed feedback on AM.NET dashboard development and new "summary" tabs that are being added to the Names, Firms and Events modules. Linda Wedul (MN) and Heidi Turley (PA) are the co-chairs of the Key Users Task Force. The Task Force is currently working on prioritizing specific projects for development during the remainder of this year and for 2011. Going forward, CDS will remain focused on our customers. Direct and personalized service is the foundation of our business. Our customers have access to all of our staff resources. Communication has been enhanced with our AM.NET Works Newsletters, Facebook page, Twitter account, Blog and our recently updated and re-launched web site at www.cds-am.net.

This is a time of rapidly changing technology. CDS recognizes the reality of the current business environment and it is not surprising that our customers consider all their options when making decisions on how to best serve their members. CDS will continue to provide quality, customized and cost-effective software. We will adapt to the changing business environment over the long term and focus on delivering excellent and responsive customer service.

Larry Austin, CEO
Custom Data Systems

A new VP at CDS

CDS is pleased to announce the promotion of Phil Sayers to the position of Vice President. Phil joined CDS in February of 2006 and has made critical contributions towards the completion of the AM.NET project. His has a broad range of IT expertise in the areas of software design and development, database programming, and computer networking.

Phil and his fellow employees represent the next generation of leadership at Custom Data Systems.

CDS – who we are

Custom Data Systems is:

Larry Austin, Chief Executive Officer
Mark Breen, President
Phil Sayers, Vice President
Steve Dingus, AM.NET Development, Communications, Training and Support
Kelly Sutherland, Support, Training and Documentation
Dib Oglesby, AM.NET Development
Brian Alexander, AM.NET Report Specialist
Leena Kunthara, AM.NET Development
Julie Brown, Administration

Names Summary tab

AM.NET now provides a way to quickly access key information about a person: the Summary tab. The Summary tab contains several widgets. Each widget displays a snapshot of a person’s data related to a specific area. Continued ...

Web site launch

Custom Data Systems launched a new web site at the beginning of the month. We hope our redesigned site makes it easier to find the support, news, and resources you need: www.cds-am.net.

Photos in AM.NET

AM.NET uses an improved method of storing and retrieving images compared to AM4. AM4 stored image files in a specific folder on the system server. The system required that the image file name have the same ID number as the person’s ID number in AM4. Continued ...

System Preferences

In Release 30 CDS migrated the system preferences routine to AM.NET. Instead of separate tabs for each module, as in AM4, System Preferences now displays a tree view for accessing each preference. Continued ...

ZIP Code file maintenance

You can now update the ZIP code table in AM.NET by selecting Utilities > Routines > File Maintenance > ZIP Code File Maintenance. AM.NET uses the ZIP code table in several ways.

First of all, when you add or update an address, AM.NET checks to see if the ZIP code in the address matches a ZIP code value in this table. If it does, AM.NET automatically updates the chapter, county, and city codes of the person or firm with the chapter, county, and city codes of the matching record in the ZIP code table. This saves time, prevents errors, and streamlines the process of editing names and firms records.

Second, when you enter a ZIP code in an address AM.NET automatically populates the city field of the address with the matching value from the ZIP code table. Again, this saves time and preserves data integrity by reducing errors due to typos and misspellings.

Finally, if a locality charges a tax, you can store the tax rate here and AM.NET automatically calculates the additional tax during relevant transactions.

Great Events in history

Events File Maintenance now has a History tab, enabling users to view which fields have been changed, their old and new values, who changed the values and when. Like the History tabs in Names and Firms File Maintenance, this allows users to audit changes and perform necessary research if there are questions about why a user changed a value.

Help

Remember that Help is now available in AM.NET. If you need help, select Help > AM.NET and AM.NET redirects you to the AM.NET Help Web site where you will find help for AM.NET modules, routines, and reports.

Other stuff

There are several other enhancements in release 30.