Goodman in 500k spend

City firm Goodman Derrick has completed the first stage of the 500,000 upgrade of its IT system.The first stage involved the instalment of Windows 2000 as the firm's operating platform, with a storage area network brought in for the different servers.

The software applications - Microsoft Office XP, Docs Fusion and Laserforms - were also fully integrated.

The new servers and desktop computers, which were supplied by Compaq, have been designed to cope with the firm's planned future expansion.The second stage of the investment will be the introduction of a practice management system (PMS), which is currently being selected from a shortlist of four companies and will begin operation in March next year.

'PMS is needed because in the past our accounts system has operated as just an accounts system,' said managing partner Patrick Swaffer.

'We want to integrate the accounts system with other systems such as time recording and databases, and this can be done using PMS.'Victoria MacCallum