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Quick-XL |
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Quick-XL was invented, developed and is marketed by:
Howard Rose Associates, Inc. |
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| A word about how Quick-XL came to be. By its author, Howard Rose | ||
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I have been a software developer for about 40 years and had retired a few years ago. At about that time, the gentleman who is now my son-in-law came to me and asked for my daughter's hand in marriage. (Yes, though it rarely happens these days, there are still some men who have the class to do such things.) He is an auto mechanic by trade (nowadays, they are called auto repair technicians). As it happened, about a year later I was looking for a place to invest some of my savings and could think of no better way than to purchase an auto repair shop so that he and my daughter might have something to build over the years that could provide them with a lifetime income. I and my wife agreed to work in the business for the first couple of years in order that he (my son-in-law) could learn how to operate the business. The previous owner's wife had worked in the business on a part time basis to keep track of the books and generally manage the office functions. She was a bit of a technophobe and kept track of accounts receivable on ledger sheets that she purchased at some stationery or office supply store somewhere. Frankly, I was surprised to see that ledger sheets even existed in this day and age, but there they were. She was very proud of her "system". She instructed my wife on how to make entries on the ledger sheets, pointing out which color ink was used for which type of entry and how to total every day both vertically and horizontally and how to cross check everything. I, of course was determined to change that system. Ledger sheets indeed! I would use Excel. I soon found that my wife didn't like using Excel, primarily because, at the time, she was computer illiterate. To get her to use Excel instead of the ledger sheets, I had to make it simple to use and then point out that the totals that she had to laboriously compute on the ledger sheets would be automatic if she used Excel. So, I developed a form on which the accounts receivable entries could be made. The software that operated the form inserted the formula that produced the totals for each new row while the formulas that produced the totals for each column were managed by Excel. That solved the problem. Eventually, she learned how to do other things like search the spreadsheet for specific invoices, (something that was difficult with ledger sheets) and so on. Now, she has joined the ranks of the formerly computer illiterate. Several times after that, she asked me to develop other forms for her as she found more and more uses for Excel. Eventually, I got bored working in an auto repair shop. I know nothing about automobiles, except how to drive them (and my wife would even dispute that). My one love, computer programming (nowadays they call it software engineering) was calling me. I thought about the forms I programmed for my wife and realized that this could be the germ of a new product. I searched the Internet to see if there was any competition. I only found one, but it was brain-dead. The guy was giving it away for free, which was about twice what it was worth. I decided that if a general purpose form could be developed that was really user friendly, it could make the basis for a much needed product. I also realized that even though Excel is pretty much ubiquitous, it is only being utilized in a small fraction of its potential applications. So, I began developing Quick-XL. Actually, it is more accurate to say that it Quick-XL developed itself. It gave me the ideas, I just wrote the code. Now, it has come to a point that it is time to share it with others. So, if you haven't already, get a 30 day free trial and see how well you like it.
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Copyright(c) 2008, Patent Pending all rights reserved. |
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