WHATS NEW SAGE PASTEL PARTNER/XPRESS 2009

The below mentioned features are available for both Xpress 2009 and Partner 2009

• User Groups (New)
  
  This feature has been added as a new option to create User Groups.
  
  You can find it under Setup … User Groups. The user types, such as Supervisor, Full Accounting etc. which were available in previous versions have been moved to the Groups Setup. Users are now able to create up to 50 groups.
  
  User Groups are useful when there are a number of users that need to be setup with the same or very similar user access. One can now create a User Group with the relevant user access and when creating the users passwords, you will then be able to simply attach the user to the specific User Group.
  
  Under Setup … Users, one will have the ability to attach a user to a “Personalised” group. This may be used when a user does not fit into any other User Group you may have created. 
  
  

• User Access: BIC Access, Menu Access and Processing Options (New)
  
  When creating or changing access, users will now have the ability to assign user access to specific reports in the BIC module, as well as assign user access to specific options under the Menu. For example, if a user should be able to process customer invoices but not quotations, you are now able to select the process menu, select customers, and select only invoices.  In previous versions, it was only possible to allow or not allow customer document processing. 
  
  Another useful feature of the Menu Access is that one can assign rights to a user to view only specific reports, which gives you the ability to lock users from viewing sensitive information, for example, the Financial Reports.
  
  Processing Options will also need to be set up per user, or per User Group.  For example, one of the options is the ability to block a user from changing a salesman’s code on the invoice if one is setup on a customer account.  In previous versions, you were not able to lock down users as effectively as you can now.
  
  
• System Audit Trail (New)
  
  The System Audit Trail will track the date, time and the user who effected any changes made under the Setup and the Change menus. Changes to fields which are fundamental to the data will be tracked and changes such as long date / short date format will not. 
  
  This feature does not need to be setup and will automatically record these changes. The System Changes Audit Trail report can be found under the Setup menu. As this report has the ability to grow very large, an option to purge information has been added for the user to remove data older than a specific date.

• Transaction Audit Trail (New)
  
  This feature enhances your ability to interrogate your data. A Transaction ID field has now also been added to transactions.  As a user processes, this field will be populated with a unique sequential number, but the same number will be assigned to each leg of a batch or invoice. For example, all transactions relating to INV000001, will have the same number allocated in the Transaction ID field. This gives the user the ability to extract only transactions relating to a specific batch or invoice, including the generated entries, using the Transaction Audit Trail Report.
  
  This report has been added under View … General Ledger … Transactions. Filters have been provided to help you interrogate your data. 
  

• Supplier Invoice Number/Customer Reference Numbers Increased to 25 Characters (Enhanced)
  
  We have increased the amount of characters to ensure you can fit in more data. The following fields found under Process … Customers and Process … Suppliers have been increased from 15 characters to 25 characters:
  
  
  1. Customer Ref Number (Quotes, Sales orders, Invoices, Recurring Invoices, Time & Billing invoices)
  2. Original Invoice Number (Debit Note, Credit Note)
  3. Order Confirmation (Purchase Order)
  4. Order Number (GRN)
  5. Supplier Invoice Number (Supplier Invoice)
  6. Original Invoice Number (Return & Debit, Credit to Supplier)
  
  Two reports have been put into Landscape due to the Supplier invoice Numbers being increased.  These reports are Outstanding Quotes and Backorders: Summary and Details by Customer.

• “Insert Lines” option added to Cashbooks & Journals (New)
  
  An Insert button has been added to Cashbooks and Journals to enable the user to insert a line within an existing batch. This feature is particularly useful when transactions are captured in a specific sequence in the batch, and one transaction is accidentally missed during input. In previous versions, the user would have to add the line to the bottom of the batch, but in Sage Pastel Accounting 2009, the user will be able to insert a line at any point in the batch.

• Force Cost Codes on Cashbooks & Journals (New)
  
  This feature allows more control. An option to force a Cost Code on lines in Cashbooks and Journals has been added. This setting can be found under Setup … Entry Types. If this is selected, the user will not be able to complete a line in the cashbook or journal that has been setup to force Cost Codes, unless the user inserts a Cost Code on the line.

•  “On Hold” option for Supplier Invoices (New)
  
  You have always been able to place Customer Invoices on hold, now you can place Supplier Invoices on hold. If an invoice is marked “On Hold”, the invoice is suspended, and the user can then return to the invoice at a later stage to process the invoice and take it off “On Hold”. This feature is particularly useful if a particular Supplier Invoice in a batch must not be updated. This particular invoice can then be placed on hold, and the remaining invoices in the batch can then be updated.

• Supplier Categories (New)
  
  You can now group specific suppliers. Supplier Categories have been added, and all related Supplier reports have been changed to allow ranging on categories.
  
  Users can now “group” suppliers by creating up to 99 different categories and then attaching the applicable category to the supplier’s accounts. The user is then able to run reports ranging on a specific category of supplier.
  
  Export Supplier Accounts – a new filter for categories has been added to the File … Export Supplier Accounts option to allow users to export only particular categories of suppliers.

• Count Inventory Enhancements (New)
  
  This feature allows you to see a Grand Total on the Variance Report which was not previously offered. With Pastel Accounting 2009, totals have been added to the Quantity columns of this report, as well as to the Total Cost column. Users will now immediately be able to determine the total cost implication of updating the Inventory Count, instead of only being able to determine the total cost implication per stock item.

• Gross Profit Reports: Option to run using either average cost or last cost (Enhanced)
  
  Sage Pastel Accounting 2009 brings you enhanced Gross Profit reporting. All reports displaying Gross Profit will now have the option to use either average cost or last cost. Some of these reports include Sales by Item or Sales by Customer.

• File ... Import: Mapping introduced to facilitate easy imports (Enhanced)
  
  Mapping has been introduced to facilitate easy imports. When using the import function, before the import is performed, a screen will be presented with the various fields within the file. This enables the user to map the columns of data in the file to be imported to the various fields available. This allows the import file to be in any format, and need only contain mandatory fields. The mandatory fields will be displayed in red. 
  
  Where non-mandatory fields are not available in the file, the Defaults will be used. For example, when importing Customer Accounts, Open Item is not a mandatory field, and if it is not available in the file, the system will use the default as set up under Customers … Control … Defaults. 

• Drilldown Items – select to display Drilldown items in blue
  
  An option has been added to display the Drilldown text in blue. If this option is not selected, then the text will appear in the normal black font. This new feature can be found under Setup … Company Parameters … Formats. 

Sage Pastel Partner allows users to add additional modules to their core accounting application. This means that if your company operates in a retail, industrial or any other type of industry sector, you can tailor Sage Pastel Partner according to your specific needs.

Key features:

No. of Users	Multi-Users, 1 up to 30 users
No. of Companies	Unlimited*
Database required	Pervasive

Add-on modules available   

• Multi-Currency
• Receipting
• Point-of-Sale
• Multi-Store
• Fixed Assets°
• ACT!
• Business Intelligence Centre – Standard & Advanced       
• CRM°
• Time & Billing
• Serial Number Tracking
• Bill of Materials
• Payroll

* Purchase on an annual basis.
* Requires Inventory module.
° Purchase as stand-alone applications. Can be used with Sage Sage Pastel Xpress and Sage Pastel Partner.

Pricing :  Visit E-Business Site  Click Here