aynrandgirl

Can I perform a file merge using records from multiple databases? Here's what I want to do: I want to auto-generate documents for my real estate business. For example, I want to generate a lease. This requires information from three databases: Name & stuff about the Tenant (Lessee) Address & stuff about the Property Name & stuff about the Manager (Lessor) Plus, information specific to this lease instance: # months rent/month amount of late fee etc. Once the document is generated, I want to save an electronic copy for reference. Eventually, I want to be able to keep an archival history of all documents generated for a tenant (leases, "you're late, pay up" letters, eviction notices, etc). Can I do this? I've only ever seen file merge examples using a single record.

Looking for an integrated solution with: 1) fixed asset accounting (depreciation, sec. 179, rent roll) 2) mortgage amortizations 3) multiple companies, separately accounted, with a shared chart of accounts 4) creating reports from (3) as if they were 1 company (NetLedger does this) 5) entity accounting (capital accounts, retained earnings, inside & outside basis) 6) document creation/forms management (contracts, disclosures, applications, etc) My business is real estate leasing, so all the fancy inventory features are useless because I don't have goods for sale. None of the solutions I've seen, including Genesis and Biz appear to handle fixed assets, and Genesis Accounting is a jaw-dropping $5k by itself (Genesis BOE is no doubt even more). Perhaps a full-custom solution is the answer, and possibly cheaper, but I have no idea what that might cost or which firms have a reputation for stellar work, and they'll probably still need an accounting backend. Help!

How does an FM Server solution compare in terms of speed, reliability and database integrity to a PostgreSQL (or MySQL, for that matter) solution? I've heard Bad Things about FM Server performance under anything other than a very light load, and I wanted to know what some experts had to say.

Ok. Let's see if I got this right. Let's say I have a Company, with 1 Person owner and 1 Company owner. There would be a relationship between Company::CompanyID and Owners::CompanyProperty. In Owners, there would be two records: one in which PeopleOwner is set, and CompanyOwner is not, and one in which CompanyOwner is set, and PeopleOwner is not. Similarly, if I wanted to know what properties the Company owned, I would match Company::CompanyID and Owners::CompanyOwner. Each record would have either CompanyProperty set, pointing to an owned Company, or OtherProperty would be set, pointing to a different property database. Is this correct? The second part of my question is, in the Name field for the portal showing the owners, how does it know that if PeopleOwner is is set, it must display People::FullName, and if CompanyOwner is set, it must use Company::CompanyName?

As I understand your solution, I have a relation between Companies::CompanyID and Owners::CompanyOwner, and a relation between Owners::CompanyProperty and Property::PropertyID. That gives me what Properties are owned. A different Owner record would have a relation between Owners::OtherProperty and Companies::CompanyID. But since relations are fixed, how do you dynamically choose which relation (Owner->Property,Owner->Company) you are joining with but a single join file?

Other than the ownership relation, the fields of Company and Property should be disjoint sets. The same is true of People & Property and People & Companies. Note that while People may also be Employees of a Company, that's a different relationship than the one shown here (Ownership of a Company). The thing that bugs me is that it looks like 4 joins (therefore, 4 portals), and I wanted to simplify if possible. There are: CompaniesOwnProperties CompaniesOwnCompanies PeopleOwnProperties PeopleOwnCompanies I was also wondering if an "is owned by" relation would be better than an "XOwnsY" relation.

We have: Property Companies People Each Property is owned by 1 or more Companies or People Each Company is owned by 1 or more Companies or People People are owned by nobody