When I first began my engineering career in industry, I remember hearing and reading about something called MIS. I came to know that this three-letter acronym stands for Management Information System. Not being in upper management, I didn't get involved in any such systems, nor did I understand the need for them. Now that I need to keep my own company operating smoothly, I realize how important a management information system can be.

For a new micro-company, the management information system is probably the brain of the owner/operator. When the enterprise is small, the required information may be contained in the monthly bank statement, a file folder containing the payables, another containing pending orders, and a daily visual inspection of the inventory level, if inventory is involved. As the enterprise grows, so does the need to keep better track of what's going on.

When Technacraft started to grow, I looked around for database management software that was low cost and easy to use. I settled on Alpha4, a DOS-based DBM package that seemed to fit the bill. We are still using it and at our level of business, it still does an adequate job. It keeps track of our customers, orders, invoices, receivables, and I am able to generate reports easily. These reports give me information on who owes us money and for how long, how many units shipped this month and this year so I can compare it to past years, how many of each style are on order and how much of critical inventory is required to build our backlog. I find myself running these reports every day. It only takes a couple of minutes and really helps me spot trends and potential shortages.

At the beginning of the year, I bought Peachtree accounting for our accounting package. We do our payroll on it and it generates great tax and payroll reports. I'm slowly putting our vendors and inventory on Peachtree and hope to have it keep track of inventory and re-order times. Like most of this type of software, it will import data from other DBMs and my Alpha4 software will export data to it. Getting to the level of integration I want is a slow process, but achievable. Since I can do the work myself, I can save money, but since I'm really busy, it will take longer than I would like.

Once you start to grow and things seem to be getting a little crazy and out of control, it is time to learn about the low-cost, sophisticated software that is available to you. It will become an invaluable tool for you to keep track of things. MIS needs only to be of the appropriate size and sophistication for your business. It's not just for the "big guys".