ACCPAC Middle East offers new Advantage Series 5.2 with advanced order management and security

This latest version provides small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) with dozens of functional enhancements throughout the system including improvements in the Order Entry (OE), Inventory Control (IC), and Purchase Orders (PO) modules that make it even easier to manage the entire order processing cycle. Additional enhancements in the System Manager (SM) module give administrators even tighter control over the security of the entire accounting system.

All editions of ACCPAC Advantage Series (Enterprise, Corporate, Small Business and Discovery) are being upgraded to version 5.2, starting with the current availability of SM, OE, IC, PO, and General Ledger (GL) modules. Version 5.2 Accounts Payable (AP), Accounts Receivable (AR) and Project and Job Costing modules are slated for delivery later this year.

'ACCPAC Advantage Series is a proven, trusted business management system throughout the Middle East,'said Marc Van der Ven, General Manager, ACCPAC Middle East. 'Version 5.2 offers our existing Advantage Series clients a powerful new feature set that can significantly improve their order management processes, along with enhanced security controls for additional peace of mind. With the freedom to choose from a variety of industry leading databases, and to deploy on Microsoft® or Linux® operating systems, this new version both reinforces the confidence existing ACCPAC Advantage Series clients have and provides even greater incentive for others throughout the region to seriously consider ACCPAC® solutions.'

Advanced Order Management - Faster, Easier, More Flexible
Order management has been significantly improved throughout ACCPAC Advantage Series OE, IC and PO modules with a focus on ease of use even while supporting the more complex needs of fast-growing and larger organizations.

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 OE function.

Some of the additional order and inventory management enhancements in ACCPAC Advantage Series 5.2 that can significantly improve order processing include:


• Faster data entry with recognized manufacturer's numbers. The system now recognizes and maps manufacturer's item numbers to IC item numbers, including UPC codes, ISBN numbers, and shortcut codes that can be used to speed up data entry. The OE and PO modules allow users to enter the manufacturer's item number instead of the IC 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. OE 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 5.2 General Ledger module provides new features that further improve transaction management and reporting. Among these are security by GL account and segment; a new function to easily reverse posted transactions; performance enhancements in the financial reporter; and the ability to print/send financial reports to multiple destinations, including e-mail.

Advanced Security Controls
ACCPAC Advantage Series 5.2 features an improved System Manager module, with enhanced 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 (e.g., require a mix of letters and numbers), enforce password length and prohibit users from re-using the same passwords.

Version 5.2 also contains new user-specific security options including: forcing the user to change their password at their next log-on; prohibiting the user from changing their password or allowing their password to expire; restricting users' log-on days and times; and disabling a user's account.

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 and/or locations.

Security has also been stepped up in the GL 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 GL transactional data.