ABACUS -- Easy, Even for the 'Accountingly Challenged'

Ernie Ford, co-owner with his wife, Linda, of Fine Print Book Store in Greencastle, Indiana, recently wrote to Jim Dana, executive director of the Great Lakes Booksellers Association, to encourage GLBA members to participate in the ABACUS study. Thanks to Ernie Ford and Jim Dana for permission to reprint his e-mail letter here.

Jim:

I just read your little blurb to everyone on ABACUS, and I want to encourage everyone in GLBA to submit their data. It's not that hard, and it does not take that much time.

As you know, I went to the Chicago [ABACUS Sneak Preview] and watched the same presentation you did. The data WAS powerful and started me wondering how I really compared to other bookstores my size.

I have often thought about submitting data before, but the task always seemed overwhelming. The new system, however, looked like it might be something I could cope with, so I was determined to give it a try.

I use Quickbooks and when I set it up, I mostly used the categories that ABACUS suggested. It made my task extremely simple once I got on line Monday. Any questions I had were answered by the online help buttons, which are provided for each and every line of the form.

I managed to do the whole thing in about 25 minutes. It only took a few minutes after that to put the whole thing on line and send it back to ABA. The nice thing is that Avin Domnitz, the CEO himself, keeps an eagle eye on this stuff, and if he has questions (or if you have questions), he responds quickly. Not an hour after I sent my information in, he was on the phone with me. (I forgot to include the square footage of the store.) He had already reviewed the data and found no big questions with that.

Now, I am looking forward to getting my personalized copy of how I do, compared to the rest of the stores who participated.

I would love for GLBA to have enough stores to get our own profile, so I am urging everyone to spend a few minutes and fill out the information. It is easy even for those of us who are accountingly challenged.

The benefits we all reap will be well worth the efforts.

Ernie Ford
Fine Print Book Store
Greencastle, Indiana

The deadline for bookstores to contribute data to the first year's ABACUS study is April 30. Instructions and an online form for submitting data are available at www.bookweb.org/read/5786. Questions about ABACUS should be addressed to ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz at [email protected].