Red Hat Linux offers MANY advantages in addition to the benefits it brings to ICommander. See more about that on the Computer and Network Support page.

ICommander also gives you the ability to actually redesign your chart of accounts with its unique chart rearrange function. You specify the current account number and the new number and ICommander does the rest. Not only does ICommander convert the current records, it also converts history records to reflect the changes to the chart.

You may also create a user-specific or department-specific (like SALES-DEPT) system selection menu which allows users to view only those systems available to them. Access to "hidden" ICommander system selection menus may also be used to vary what is available to particular users.

All the software needed for this interoperability is standard on Redhat Linux. Your investment consists of a single PC running Linux. The cost of the Linux Server will be about the same as adding another Windows PC to your network. The only additional cost is adding an inexpensive but very capable terminal emulator (Anziowin) to each PC that accesses the ICommander Systems.

If several workstation access ICommander from a remote location, the Anzio Print Wizard Server software may be installed on a single remote PC that then "listens" for print jobs sent from the Linux Server and directs any received to the appropriate printer automatically. The ICommander user simply sets the Anziowin or Print Wizard remote printer as his or her default printer (or chooses it via the ICommander Printer Control Utility) and presses P to Print.

Vim provides non-case-sensitive search facilities and is extremely fast with exploration of reports of several hundred pages being almost instantaneous. Vim [also known as Vi] is the standard text editor on Linux. Because of its speed and capability, we also install it on Windows workstations to provide its capabilities outside of ICommander.

There is also the option to output virtually any ICommander report as a web page that may be viewed using your browser with the option to retain the temporary web page created (or to route it to your ICommander Intranet to make available to those who do not access ICommander itself).

ICommander also provides an several options to convert any report into a PDF File. This also allows users to provide ICommander reports to managers and others who do not have access to ICommander and Vim so they can use the readily available Adobe Acrobat Reader for on-screen exploration or selective printing of pages. This also works very well when a report needs to be attached to an email.

While there are some systems specific to business or governments, the General Systems (G/L, A/P, A/R, P/R for example) are the same for all users. Each system is adapted to your particular organization type by setting applicable options in the systems' master control files. These options are selected specifically for your organization by ICommander staff familiar with your organization's needs and in consultation with you.

The design and functioning of ICommander does not include any restrictions on the size of an organization. However, ICommander at present is not suitable for large multi-national companies.

Each ICommander Accounting Application System took two or more years of personal effort to build and implement with the CPA firm's clients acting as both guinea pigs and beneficiaries of the results. It was always the intent to develop ICommander to be available on a broad scale someday. It was not until 1996 that Ken realized that someday was now. This realization was due to the implementation of ICommander at a large oil and gas well-servicing company with multiple locations that was not a client of the CPA firm. This implementation led to the development of additional systems including software to handle the export (or downloading)/import (or uploading) of transactions from remote sites.

The development concentration for several years has been to design and build extremely flexible accounting application systems. ICommander, as it exists now, incorporates the benefits of both the most recent ICOBOL programming language functionality and the dramatic increases in computing power that have occurred over the last several years. These benefits contribute to ICommander's longstanding underlying structure and flexibility plus a myriad of new features that benefit users and make it feasible to support ICommander on a broad scale.

The long time it has taken to start to let the world know about ICommander reflects the extent of effort involved in its development. It also reflects the philosophy that widespread implementation would not be attempted until its developer was satisfied that a large user base could be supported in the same professional manner as the original small group of ICommander users.

The Internet is inherently insecure but ICommander overcomes this by use of an encrypted "tunnel" through it. We also provide extended access restrictions and validations to assure the integrity of your accounting and other information.

Additionally each application has options for users to create reports, tab-delimited files (for spreadsheet import), or as web pages by free-form selection from all fields available within a particular data file. These options are simple menu choices that allow users to select fields, specify selection criteria, select sort fields, and set column order. The tab-delimited files created are fully ready for simple import into spreadsheet software such as Excel, Lotus, Open Office, and others. The files created automatically include relevant totals and are arranged in such a manner that the entire spreadsheet can have all columns automatically formatted with about six mouse clicks.

Specifications may be stored with user-defined names for automatic re-use later. An option to exclude documentation and sort header lines is available to enable the output file to be imported into database applications such as Access. The ICommander Free-Form Data Extraction facilities provide all of the benefits of an expensive third party package but with no effort by users to define files and fields.

You may also add your own personal manual sections to the ICommander Manuals to tailor the documentation to your specific use. Such additions are made available for user access just like the standard documentation. Subsequent ICommander updates will not disturb your personal additions. Shortcuts to specific documentation may be added. You can add personal shortcuts to menu choices that contain notes to yourself or other users on the use of the menu options.

Selected reports may be flagged for automatic archiving. This is especially useful for very long "audit trail" reports that you need to have available at some future date but for which you do not need a current printout. The ICommander File Manager and Linux File Server capabilities enable using ICommander for managing all types of documents to get you very close to the "paperless office".

Existing customers who were using ICommander on Windows were converted to using it on an ICommander Headquarters Linux Server over the Internet. The ICOBOL runtime system used by ICommander continues to support Windows and various Unix systems but our concentration is on Linux.

Custom programs are created upon request. Estimates of time and fees will be provided before work is begun. ICommander Corporation reserves the right to incorporate all or parts of customized systems into software available to other customers. See more about our Customization and Tailoring Services on this web page.

ICommander Corporation strives to insulate users from the inherent underlying complexities of ICommander. Properly implemented, those complexities enable it to function very simply for each customer. The philosophy of ICommander relating to not forcing users to become programmers likewise applies to not forcing users to become system integrators. Customers that have staff members in place who can handle much of the implementation process can use the ICommander Corporation staff as a resource while others can have the ICommander staff coordinate all phases of implementation.

Our Customers Only Intranet has a link to a web site that enables downloading a temporary version of the Anziowin Terminal Emulator and Security software that is used to access ICommander. That is to allow customers to explore applications they may not be presently using or to test out some features of an existing system they have not used before.

Please contact us, if you would like to try out ICommander via the Demo Server. We will first give you temporary access to our Customers Only Intranet along with some guidance on accessing the Demo. We keep only a small number of Demo Companies online regularly but have a number of industry-specific Demo's we can activate when needed. Please let us know the nature of your organization when you email or call us to arrange for the Demo.

What you will find different and better than your typical Windows entry screens where you are often forced to use your mouse is that we have preserved all the advantages of character-based legacy entry screens at the same time. This greatly increases the speed of entry, especially for high-volume transactions.

You may use the mouse where it is beneficial for selecting a menu choice, entry field, etc. and for Copy and Paste when needed. You may also use a Toolbar that duplicates many ICommander functions which may be more rapidly accessed via shortcut keys that we encourage users to learn and use. Printing to laser printers is also fully graphical now but we have preserved the ability to print to actual line printers or to lasers using line-printer formatting.

ICommander is also now fully integrated with an Intranet on Linux Servers. This includes automatic publishing of accounting information in many forms as web pages. ICommander is used to manage and maintain the Intranet content and enables providing a browser interface to information shared between ICommander and the Intranet.

Graphical yes--typical no.