ACCPAC Updates Multiple Accounting Modules

ACCPAC, a subsidiary of Computer Associates, held its partnership conference last week. Updated releases of ACCPAC’s small- and mid-sized business accounting systems were a big part of the event.

First in line is version 5.2 of ACCPAC’s award-winning Advantage Series accounting system. This latest version provides small and mid-sized businesses with dozens of functional enhancements throughout the system including improvements in the order entry, inventory control and purchase orders modules designed to make it easier to manage the entire order processing cycle. Additional enhancements in the system manager module provide administrators with even tighter control over the security of the entire accounting process.

Craig Downing, ACCPAC vice president of product marketing, said the Advantage Series continues to provide SMBs with an exceptional value.

“In addition to providing our customers with the freedom to choose from a variety of leading databases and to deploy on Microsoft or Linux operating systems, with version 5.2 we’re offering our customers a powerful new feature set that can significantly improve their order management processes, plus unprecedented security controls for additional peace of mind,” Downing said.

Advanced Order Management is faster, easier and more flexible in version 5.2. New features support entering orders, shipments and invoices separately, so businesses can allocate various components of the order process to different company personnel. For example, order entry clerks can enter customer orders, while warehouse personnel record shipments and accounting personnel process the invoices. Security protocols can then be attached to each process so that only the assigned personnel are permitted to perform their specific order entry function.

Some of the additional order and inventory management enhancements in ACCPAC Advantage Series version 5.2 include:

  • Faster data entry with recognized manufacturer’s numbers. The system now recognizes and maps manufacturer’s item numbers to inventory control item numbers, including UPC codes, ISBN numbers, and shortcut codes that can be used to speed up data entry. The order entry and purchase order modules allow users to enter the manufacturer’s item number instead of the inventory control item number when processing transactions.
  • Improved quote management. Users can keep and reuse quotes, include all or just some of the details of the quote on a new order, and include multiple quotes on a single order.
  • Enhancements to shipment and invoicing relationships. Order entry clerks can include multiple orders on a single shipment and include multiple shipments on a single invoice. In addition, users can specify the shipping method for each item to allow items shipped with the same method to be grouped and printed on the same packing slip, and specify the shipment tracking number for each detail.
  • Simplified order creation and management. Users can create an order by simply selecting and copying details of existing customer orders. They can also now commit a quantity to a specific order to ensure the quantity is guaranteed to be available for shipping and specify a discount on each detail of an order, shipment and invoice.
  • Improved inventory distribution. Users can now disassemble master items that have been built from components in a bill of materials, and return components to inventory as separate items. They can also transfer inventory directly and immediately between locations, or transfer goods via goods-in-transit locations to reflect more accurately the movement of goods between locations.

In addition to these enhancements in the order management cycle, the new ACCPAC Advantage Series v5.2 General Ledger module provides new features that further improve transaction management and reporting. Among these are security by general ledger account and segment, a new function to easily reverse posted transactions, performance enhancements in the financial reporter, and the ability to print or send financial reports to multiple destinations, including e-mail addresses.

ACCPAC Advantage Series 5.2 also features an improved System Manager module, with administration features that provide even more security throughout the accounting system. Administrators can force users to enact password changes at intervals determined by the administrator, set requirements on the structure of passwords required to access the accounting system — that is, require a mix of letters and numbers — enforce password length and prohibit users from re-using the same passwords.

When deploying ACCPAC Advantage Series over the Web, a single administrator can easily implement all of these functions globally, regardless of the number of users or locations.

Security has also been stepped up in the General Ledger module, where access can now be restricted by account code and even account code segment. Only those users predetermined to have rights to the account or to the segment can view, enter or print general ledger transactional data.

ACCPAC Advantage Series 5.2, Enterprise Edition, is available now from ACCPAC Solution Providers worldwide for $1,500 per module, with Corporate and Small Business Editions to be made available later in the fall.

Leave It To The Pro’s
The second updated release is version 7.2 of the ACCPAC Pro Series accounting and manufacturing system. New features in this version include international accounting support for Multiple Value-Added Tax (VAT) processing and a series of productivity enhancing wizards designed to accelerate shipping and inventory forecasting processes.

ACCPAC Pro Series 7.2 is compatible with other ACCPAC solutions, offering SMBs an integrated end-to-end business management suite that includes accounting, manufacturing, customer relationship management (CRM), human resource, warehouse management, e-commerce, electronic data interchange (EDI, and enterprise-wide reporting.

Modules for both Editions of ACCPAC Pro Series, Small Business and Enterprise, are being upgraded, including General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Order Entry, Inventory Control, Purchase Orders, Job Costing, and Multi Currency. In addition, all ACCPAC Pro Series Manufacturing and specialty modules are being upgraded, including Production Entry, Work Orders, Shop Control, Message Master, Customization Manager, Bills of Materials, Bills of Lading, Customer Connect, ProAlert and Project Accounting. Now all of these modules can be run on the Microsoft SQL database, in addition to Microsoft Visual FoxPro. IBM DB2 support, already available for ACCPAC Pro Series 7.1, is slated for version 7.2 toward the end of the year.

New Internationalization and General Accounting Features ACCPAC Pro Series 7.2 now fulfills the taxation needs of international companies with new Multiple Value-Added Tax support. Multiple VAT builds on the standard VAT method of taxation by allowing users to assign multiple tax codes to a single line item. This enables ACCPAC Pro Series 7.2 to be configured and customized for use in foreign countries or locales that have specialized line item tax requirements.

General accounting enhancements include support for alphanumeric account codes in the general ledger for greater flexibility, and with version 7.2, users can now defer invoicing during shipment, plus combine shipments from all or just selected invoices into a single, consolidated invoice.

The new wizard-driven features are designed to improve user productivity. For example, the new Inventory Forecasting Wizard built in to ACCPAC Pro Series 7.2 can project the demand for an item, by location, and estimate a new order point and order quantity. Users can then update the system, replacing their current order point and quantity with the newly estimated values. The new Quick Ship feature is also wizard-driven and enables users to ship multiple sales orders simultaneously by entering one bulk sales order command.

ACCPAC Pro Series 7.2 also features several new capabilities for attaching files to customer, inventory and other information entries. For example, users can now hyperlink attachments, enabling them to attach spreadsheets, correspondence and other documents to customer files. Picture files can now be added to inventory items. In addition, the ACCPAC Pro Series Message Center has been enhanced to enable bulk message delivery, including file attachments.

Both Enterprise and Small Business editions of ACCPAC Pro Series 7.2 are available now from ACCPAC Solution Providers. Pricing starts at $1,500 per module for the Enterprise Edition and $795 per module for the Small Business Edition.

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Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing addresses the technology needs of small businesses, which are defined as businesses with fewer than 500 employees and/or less than $7 million in annual sales.

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