Advanced Accounting 5.1 (and the TAS 5.1 language in which it is written, both published by Business Tools, Inc.) is fully year 2000 ready as further outlined in this memo.

Advanced Accounting 5.1 (and TAS 5.1) was originally released during the fall of 1996 and has been fully year 2000 compliant since that time.

Users can tell if they have the 5.1 version in several ways. In the "DOS" mode, version "5.10" will show in the lower left hand corner of the screen when the menus have been loaded. In the "Windows" mode, the phrase "Advanced Accounting 5.1 for Windows" will appear in the upper left hand corner (and since there was no Windows mode prior to 5.1, the existence of TP5WIN.EXE would indicate the presence of the 5.1 version). Another way to determine the version release is by the date of the TPC50.EXE file. The original TPC50.EXE was dated 8/11/96. Anything prior to this date indicates a prior version.

Prior versions of Advanced Accounting and TAS (i.e. prior to the 5.1 version) are not fully year 2000 compliant. The issue relates to "short" dates, i.e. dates in the format XX/XX/XX. In versions prior to 5.0, a date such as 01/01/00 would not be treated by the system as a date in the future. The 5.0 version (originally released in March of 1995) was intended originally to be year 2000 ready however a problem was later identified in connection with "even" numbered months in the year 2000 itself. This problem was rectified in the 5.1 version.

"Short" dates are used throughout the system in Advanced Accounting 5.1. Systems prior to version 5.1 will function in the year 2000 however various internal problems would ultimately result. For example, the system would not "think" that a date such as 12/31/99 preceeded a date in the year 2000 itself and therefore a user would not be able to post something into a prior year (i.e. into 1999). Further certain reports such as customer statements would not show transaction dates in the correct order. Users of the 5.0 version would have further difficulties within the year 2000 itself.

There is no data file conversion for "short" dates themselves for users at the 5.0 level; 5.0 users can literally copy their existing data into a 5.1 system and their existing data will then be automatically fully year 2000 ready.

Advanced Accounting/TAS 5.1 implements a "century" as the period 1920 to 2019. A "short" date entered into the system as "01/01/20" would therefore be interpreted as January 1, 1920. A date entered into the system as "12/31/19" would be interpreted as December 31, 2019.

Advanced Accounting/TAS 5.1 will further correctly handle the leap year date of Tuesday, February 29, 2000. (TAS versions 4.0 and 5.0 will in fact also both interpret that date as a Tuesday and will accept it as a valid date however versions 4.0 and 5.0 have other shortcomings such that they are not fully Y2K compliant as previously noted; Advanced Accounting/TAS 3.0 as well as prior versions will NOT recognize 2/29/00 as a valid date and will interpret a 2-29-2000 system date as 3-01-00.

The 5.1 version of Advanced Accounting was also updated to correctly handle the first day of a new period which is not specifically a Y2K issue but is generally related. In an Advanced Accounting 4.0 or 5.0 system with a fiscal year starting date of 01/01/99, the date of 01/01/00 will be interpreted not as being a part of the subsequent year but instead will be treated as if it is a date in the current fiscal year. The actual date will read as 01/01/00 in the detailed trial balance file, but postings will occur in January of 1999. Again, this issue is not specific just to the year 2000 and could potentially impact users of the versions prior to 5.1 when the number of days from the fiscal year start date to the fiscal year ending date was within 365, instead of 364, days.

Custom programs developed in the TAS language prior to version 5.1 may potentially be "made" year 2000 ready by using "long" dates (e.g. in the format XX/XX/XXXX). As noted, Advanced Accounting 5.1 (and prior versions) utilizes "short" dates throughout and users can only become fully year 2000 compliant by upgrading to the 5.1 version.