Access reseller Armstrong Consultants has widened its own software portfolio with a document management program for small businesses called ImageIT. John Stokdyk reports

As a software reseller, Armstrong also handles the Invu document management system alongside Access products and FocalPoint, the reseller's own web portal system for project management and accounting.

But Armstrong managing director Chris Bayne saw a gap in the market for a lower cost small business-focused paperless office system and set to work developing one internally that would link into Access Dimensions and FocalPoint.

Rather than replacing Invu as the company's preferred document management system, ImageIT offered customers a second option. Because it ties in so closely to Dimensions and FocalPoint, ImageIT does not cost as much to implement as a full featured system such as Invu, Bayne added.

ImageIT [1] acts as a central document store for Access and Armstrong applications from which users can pull in documents stored against customer, supplier, project, stock and resource records. Or a document such as an invoice can be stored against an individual transaction. FocalPoint users can also view, store and retrieve files from ImageIT to keep track of all the documents associated with a particular project.

The new system borrows conventions from the Microsoft Outlook interface and uses the same Microsoft SQL Server database that powers Access Dimensions. The new system was being shown for the first time at Softworld Accounting & Finance in London. Armstrong has yet to confirm the program's price.