1. Advanced Business Manager Version 2.5 Features

2. business solutions you can count on Contents 3Back to Back Orders 8Requisitions 9Barcode Printing 13Products, Costing and Pricing 20General Ledger 24Bank Reconciliation 25Job Costing 28Searching 30Sales 37Payments and Receipts 41Printing and Reports 44Outlook 45SQL Server 48Customisation 50Features previously available on a limited basis Page

3. business solutions you can count on Back to Back Orders Each supplier can be nominated as a back to back order supplier in two modes. 1.A purchase order for the supplier can be immediately generated for the supplier each time a customer orders specified products and they can’t be supplied from stock. 2.Specified products ordered by customers and not supplied from stock are consolidated into a purchase requisition which can be approved and converted into a purchase order when required.

4. business solutions you can count on Back to Back Orders The products of those suppliers can then be specified as being ordered back to back or not. Typically, high value items like office equipment would be ordered back to back whereas low value items like consumables would be ordered in bulk for stock

5. business solutions you can count on Back to Back Orders When customer orders are processed, any products which were selected for back to back orders are displayed for purchase. These purchases can be confirmed, modified or cancelled. Individual purchase orders will be created automatically. Consolidated orders are accumulated in purchase requisitions until they are released.

6. business solutions you can count on Back to Back Orders Back to back purchase orders created as a result of customer orders are marked with orange and purple flags

7. business solutions you can count on Back to Back Orders Consolidated purchase orders are accumulated in requisitions until they are ready to be released for order. The status of these requisitions is now indicated by coloured flags

8. business solutions you can count on Control of Requisitions Requisitions now need to be approved before they can be converted to purchase orders. The name of the person who approves the purchase is recorded for audit purposes. Once released, requisitions are marked so that they cannot be double purchased

9. business solutions you can count on Barcode Printing Prints any of 23 different barcode specifications User designed label layout Can be configured for any label stationery from single rolls to sheets of labels

10. business solutions you can count on Barcode Printing – Step 1 Three step printing wizard Choose to print the barcode labels needed for a specified supplier delivery Or select to print labels for specified products or sets of products

11. business solutions you can count on Barcode Printing – Step 2 Check and, if necessary, modify the numbers of barcode labels to be printed.

12. business solutions you can count on Barcode Printing – Step 3 Print the labels with the flexibility to stop printing and change the label settings, if necessary

13. business solutions you can count on Average Costing by Location If you are using average costing and multiple stock locations then a new costing option is available. When ABM 2.5 is run for the first time, you are given the option of having ABM maintain average costs for each product at each location. If costs, and hence profitability vary a lot from one location to another then you may wish to adopt this new option.

14. business solutions you can count on Product Costs Average and Last In Unit Costs can now be selected through the Column Chooser for viewing and sending to Excel

15. business solutions you can count on More control over Buying Prices To cater for supplier’s specials, you can now specify the date from which buying prices start. In addition, these buying prices are not now updated by purchases if a new check box is ticked or if there is a valid expiry date showing.

16. business solutions you can count on Product Revaluations A button is provided to re-value individual products. You are also able to change the last in unit cost of a product and, if the quantity on hand is negative, then the average cost of the product will be changed accordingly. Both these facilities are available only to users who are authorised to process a stocktake.

17. business solutions you can count on Easier Special Prices & Discounts Lists of special prices and discounts can now be sorted by any of the columns by clicking on the column headings

18. business solutions you can count on Prices can be in a Foreign Currency Any of the eight price scales in ABM can be allocated to a foreign currency. You can therefore store, publish and use prices which are fixed in US Dollars, Japanese Yen, etc.

19. business solutions you can count on Importing Stocktakes The “Enter Stocktakes using barcodes” facility will now also accept product codes so that users who don’t use barcodes can now import stocktakes from text files.

20. business solutions you can count on Ledger Balances Users who are authorised can now select monthly movements and current balances through the Column Chooser for viewing and sending to Excel

21. business solutions you can count on Better Exchange Rate Records ABM now maintains a record of all exchange rate changes on all foreign currencies

22. business solutions you can count on Quick View a Ledger Batch A new button in Ledger histories shows all the transactions which belong to the selected batch

23. business solutions you can count on Standing Journals Get Easier When processing a standing journal, users can now choose to have it reversed automatically at the beginning of the next period.

24. business solutions you can count on Improved Bank Reconciliation Users can now drill down to see individual transactions which have been grouped by reference.

25. business solutions you can count on Easier to select Job Stages Job stages can now be selected from a list so that consistency is maintained across jobs

26. business solutions you can count on Retentions can be Restricted Job retentions can now be limited to a maximum entered for each job

27. business solutions you can count on Jobs can be analysed by Type of Work Users can specify up to three types of work and these can be selected transaction by transaction.

28. business solutions you can count on More Searching Options The Advanced Find now allows searching by a variety of criteria including custom fields

29. business solutions you can count on Quick Partial Searches There are times when you know part of a product or other code. Now you can enter that portion, press F3 or click the Finder button and see a filtered list of only those items which match.

30. business solutions you can count on Easier Order Tracking The customer’s or supplier’s order, delivery, invoice, etc. numbers are now shown to assist order tracking Product/Job/ledger codes now show on the left A “Send to Excel” button shows the entire grid in Excel

31. business solutions you can count on Vary trading terms by Invoice A customer’s terms can now be changed on individual invoices to specify that payment be due on a particular date

32. business solutions you can count on Head Office / Branch Office Sales On head office accounts ABM now shows which invoices relate to which branch. On branch accounts, see which invoices have been posted to the Head Office account

33. business solutions you can count on Customer’s Recent Sales Choose the timeframe you prefer. Sort and Resize the columns. Send to Excel.

34. business solutions you can count on Two ways to Store Addresses To make it easier to synchronise ABM with other packages like Legrand, TSM, Retail Manager, etc., you now have a choice of address formats. Tools/Options now lets you choose the format and defaults to the existing memo format.

35. business solutions you can count on Greater E-mail Flexibility When you e-mail an invoice, order, etc. to a customer or supplier, you are now able to pick the email address from the list of contacts for that company.

36. business solutions you can count on Full Transaction List Management All displayed transaction lists now have a column chooser and all columns can be sorted and resized.

37. business solutions you can count on More Control Over Supplier Payments The bulk payments wizard has been extended to allow payments to be selected and exported to Excel for approval and possible changing before processing. Suppliers and invoices to pay may be selected using several different criteria. Supplier bank details may be viewed and edited as required.

38. business solutions you can count on Easier Receipt and Payment Voiding Customer, supplier, ledger and job receipts And payments can now be quickly cancelled without having to enter bank reconciliation. Transactions in the current month are set to zero with an appropriate narration and the ability to add a comment. Transactions in prior months are reversed in the current period; again with a narration and comment. Available only to users who are authorised to do bank reconciliation.

39. business solutions you can count on Better Bank Deposits No deposit references to remember. No “lost” receipts while banking is in progress Easy reconciliation of the bank deposit Same screen deposit slip printing

40. business solutions you can count on Cancel Spooled Documents When you select to print documents later, they are placed in a queue. A button is now provided to selectively cancel the printing of queued documents

41. business solutions you can count on Specifying Reprint Copies When you reprint orders, invoices, etc., you are now able to specify the number of copies required

42. business solutions you can count on View Multiple Reports at once You can now have multiple reports open at the same time up to the limit of your Crystal licence. Users who have not purchased a separate Crystal licence are limited to three concurrent reports.

43. business solutions you can count on Easier Support Give your ABM consultant the information they need by clicking the email button in the about screen.

44. business solutions you can count on And something you will not see anymore ABM integrates tightly with Microsoft Outlook to automatically e-mail documents, update contacts records, etc. An irritating side effect of this has been the way that Outlook constantly pops up security questions. You will see these no more. ABM now keeps Outlook security happy so that you don’t need to answer these messages. Meanwhile, full protection against viruses, etc. is maintained.

45. business solutions you can count on Upgrade to faster, better SQL Server 2005 ABM 2.5 supports Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database operations are typically 50% faster MSDE users get better performance, capacity doubled to 4 Gigabytes and a Management Toolkit.

46. business solutions you can count on Easy SQL Server Backups Need a copy of your client’s data ? A new menu selection makes it easy to create a backup file. Available only for SQL Server which allows backing up while the company database is in use.

47. business solutions you can count on Easier SQL Server Database Creation Less confusing database paths

48. business solutions you can count on Forms Customisation is Easier All the forms tables now have a LineItemID field which allows a direct link to the relevant records in TransDetails This makes it much easier to add non-standard fields to forms lines. The TransDetails.ExtraText field now contains the entire text on a line in memo format; not just the second and subsequent lines. Fully formatted text can then be shown on Crystal forms with no truncation using these two features.

49. business solutions you can count on Database Relationships In the Evaluation Company Channel partners can now see How tables and fields are linked

50. business solutions you can count on Other New Features (Some Previously Available On Switches) Allow serial numbers to be entered at time of sale Allow lot numbers to be used as bin numbers Ability to run monthly, quarterly and annual recurring invoices in separate batches Control access to the maintenance of recurring invoices Option to specify the location in quotes Additional reports –Comparative Profit and Loss reports –Offset reports