JDEtips Delivers 2006 Tax Updates for J.D. Edwards Apps

Published: March 7, 2006

by Alex Woodie

It's been more than a year since JDEtips (also known as Klee Associates) rolled out its third-party maintenance program for users of the J.D. Edwards World and EnterpriseOne ERP applications now owned by Oracle. Company president Andy Klee says business has been good. Several customers say JDEtips' service has been good, too.

One of the most important elements of any third-party support offering are the regulatory updates. Tax laws change from year to year, and unless a company wants to pay Oracle's maintenance fees to get these updates, they will need to figure out how to hack the changes in themselves, or pay a third-party provider like JDE Tips and others to do this for them.

To this end, JDE Tips recently unveiled its set of W2 and 1099 updates for tax year 2006, an important milestone for the Cedaredge, Colorado, company. JDE Tips currently has about a dozen customers on full maintenance and another dozen signed up for JDE Tips helpdesk service, according to Klee. On average, the third-part support saves the companies 50 to 75 percent off the cost of maintenance fees they would pay Oracle for an equivalent level of support, which can translate into tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At least one JDEtips customer says the support is better than the current J.D. Edwards administration at Oracle. "JDEtips support is better than the support we received from JDE/PeopleSoft/Oracle, not to mention the cost savings," says Karen Collins, a business analyst with Decorative Concepts. "Not only have they been helpful with software problems, they even gave us some ideas on how to fix a problem that we caused ourselves."

Another JDEtips user, Tony Leone, vice president of information systems with Lincoln Property Services, says the transition in 2005 from Oracle maintenance was smooth and efficient. "Their staff was very helpful in assisting us to make sure we had all our bases covered before the change became effective," Leone says. "They were also prompt and courteous in providing our annual updates this year. All of the updates worked perfectly, and we were able to maintain our normal schedule in completing the 1099 process. We are very pleased with the change to Klee Associates for our J.D. Edwards World maintenance."