Businessware Q&A
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1. Will Businessware produce all my VAT reports?
Businessware will produce all the necessary reports you need to keep you in the VAT man's good books. Businessware caters for both VAT cash accounting and the standard schemes. The VAT form looks just like the actual VAT 100 form so it's easy as clicking a button and Businessware does the rest! The system allows you to drill into the figures to fully justify and reconcile your VAT return. If you deal with other EC member states Businessware also produces your VAT EC sales list. It caters for upto 10 different VAT rates so you are fully covered.
Businessware can maintain accounts for upto 3 years at a time. You can produce any type of report instantly for any period or periods you like, whether it is monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly. There really is no limit! This applies to a vast array of financial reports including Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and Budget reports.
Businessware has extensive credit control facilities. Customers can be placed on stop, assigned credit limits and individual payment terms. On-screen aged debtors enquiries (as well as printed reports) and graphs tell you instantly who has exceeded their credit limit and who has overdue invoices. Due invoice enquiries and reports are available instantly. Customer information can be exported for use in MS-Word to send regular and timely reminders to late-paying customers. Businessware puts all this power easily at your fingertips.
Businessware’s bank section includes a vast array of features including the facility to maintain upto 10 separate bank accounts. It maintains details of credit limits on each account and maintains balances to give a true picture of the funds available at any time. Direct payments and receipts can be entered easily and bank to bank/ cash to bank etc. transfers are incredibly easy to process. All bank accounts can be reconciled simply by ticking off the items and any additional bank charges can be added on the fly.
5. Can I process refunds and retro-discount payments from suppliers?
Businessware handles customer and supplier refunds very simply. Refunds can be fully or part allocated against part or fully paid invoices, outstanding credit notes and payments. Cash posted out of the customer ledger and cash posted into the supplier ledger is automatically handled without the need for entering additional journals and is fully traced throughout the system for future enquiries.
Businessware enables you to place transactions on query at any time which can be enquired and reported on at any time. You can also enter an unlimited amount of notes on each transaction to maintain a history of events. You can also take transactions out of query and maintain the notes for future reference. You can also see the total of outstanding amounts on query for each customer/supplier. To provide greater control the system will not allow you or your staff to pay off a queried invoice.
7. Is Businessware forgiving enough to let me correct any mistakes I make?
Businessware is very forgiving! It provides transaction amendment facilities and the ability to undo entries. Whether you entered an incorrect amount, wrong date or the wrong customer, supplier or account you can simply pick the transaction, select Amend and you can make the corrections. Lets say you entered a transaction as a receipt when it should have been a payment, or an invoice instead of a credit note. Select amend, click on the right option, click save and it's done! If you would rather completely delete and start again then simply select Undo and all the necessary processing is taken care of. In other systems you have to make correcting entries which show up on reports including customer statements. Not with Businessware!
8. In Businessware do I have to close a period off before I can make entries into a new period?
Absolutely not! Businessware maintains 36 periods at any one time and you can make entries into any one of those periods at any time! For example if you are in August and you have to make entries into June the system will simply "ripple" the balances forward into the current month to reflect the in subsequent month's balances. If you make an entry for the wrong date, even in a wrong period you can go back, correct the date on the transaction and all the necessary periods will be updated as appropriate. This level of flexibility is what makes Businessware the best software for your small business.
9. Can Businessware handle my direct debits and standing orders?
Yes. You simply setup each of your direct debits or standing orders, set the frequency they are to be recorded, the amounts and then whenever they are due the system will remind you to update your accounts which are in-turn automatically posted. Recurring entries can be either payments or receipts so if you are paid by your customers on a subscription basis then this too can be handled. The whole process is very simple indeed.
10. Can Businessware help me to prepare budgets and forecasts?
Businessware has the facilities to setup budgets for each period of upto 3 years accounts. Budget vs Actuals reports and graphs can be produced for any period you require giving you a great deal of information and analysis.
Absolutely! Every report you can produce in the system can be viewed on screen and can also be emailed. Whether it's sending a balance sheet or budget report to your accountant or bank manager or issuing statements to customers you can send it via email by using a freely distributable reports viewer. The recipient of the report can then view the report on screen and print it out. This applies to invoices, purchase orders, statements as well as every report in the system.
12. What transaction enquiry facilities does Businessware offer?
Businessware offers complete and very comprehensive drill-down facilities. Never again will you enter a transaction and wonder "where did it go?". History enquiries and daybooks are available with search facilities to help you find the entry you are looking for easily. When viewing transactions on screen you can drill-in to payment allocations, VAT rate breakdowns, double entry journals and the original document such as the invoice. This is available throughout the system. For example you could be looking at an aged debtors report, zoom-in to query a customer's account and in just a couple of clicks find out what items they bought on a transaction and even print out or email a copy of the original invoice. You can even drill across to view the details of related transactions you were originally enquiring about. Total access to your accounts information!
13. What reporting capabilities are available in Businessware?
It's difficult to know where to start! There are over 30 standard, flexible reports included in the system that have hundreds of possible options. Most come with tremendously flexible onscreen enquiries you can use without producing the report and graphs. The printed reports can be previewed on screen first and then printed. Each report can also be emailed with a freely distributable reports viewer. Standard reports include aged debtors and creditors, customer and supplier turnover analysis, transactions histories, daybooks, customer & supplier lists, Avery compliant mailing labels, trial balance, P&L, balance sheet, stock checks, valuations and sales reports to mention just a few!
14. Can I design my own reports if I need to see information not available in the standard reports?
Businessware includes a fantastically powerful and flexible reports designer to let you get at any information you need in any way you want it. You can design tremendously elaborate financial reports or the simplest of listings. You can also setup simple enquiries for viewing on screen very easily. You can also alter the standard reports in the system to look how you want or to even include additional information. There really is no limit to what you can achieve using the reports designer.
15. I run several companies in my group. Does Businessware offer multi-company facilities?
Businessware now comes with a 5 company license as standard. If you require more we offer multi-company licenses as an optional extra to the Businessware product. They are available in several different license packs. See the Price List for pricing details.
The Document Designer included with Businessware enables you to design the layout of your invoices to your exact requirements. You can include any information from the system as is applicable, change fonts, sizes, colour, include company logos. You can set the margins to fit any size of paper you require. There is virtually no limit to what you can do in defining the layout of your documents in Businessware.
The invoicing facility enables you to enter free-text lines onto your invoices as well as product lines. Free-text lines enable you to enter an unlimited amount of detail about the services you provide. You can enter free-text lines on the same invoice as product lines so you can invoice a mixture of service and product based charges onto each of your invoices.
Yes by using the Copy facility. You simply copy the invoices that are to be repeated and new, identical transactions are created. You can even copy transactions to a new invoice for a different customer.
Yes, Businessware enables you to enter invoices for non-account customers as well as account customers. You can pay the transaction off in a variety of different ways and because the system accepts part payments you can accept deposits etc. Businessware can be used as a Point-Of-Sale counter invoicing system as well as a back office system.
Of course! Complete customer and product history reports are available which tell you exactly this information. You can breakdown the sales history by product group and you can view a summary report as well as detail reports. Therefore you can see who bought how many of what between then and now and a list of when they bought them. Use the reports designer to produce additional reports such as your most profitable customers etc.
21. I need to store quite lengthy descriptions about my stock items. How can Businessware help?
As well as a 40 character standard description, each stock item has a notepad that can store an unlimited amount of information. Whether you store sales specifications so it is available instantly on-screen when talking to customers or technical details, it is entirely up to you. One extra little feature, which you may find useful, is the ability to store pictures of each stock item. This is useful for product identification or for displaying on-screen to customers.
22. What type of stock pricing options does Businessware offer?
Businessware offers upto 3 selling prices per item as well as 3 discount levels. Each customer can be assigned a pricing level, which is used automatically when invoicing.
23. How long has Businessware been on the market?
Businessware was first released in 1999 (it's predecessor product was launched back in 1992). Businessware is now enjoying strong development and marketing effort with the aim of making it one of the leading players for small business and accounts software in the UK.
24. What type of support can I expect with Businessware?
We provide an unlimited email support service which guarantees a response to your question within 24 hours (1 working day). If you have difficulties installing or loading the software we offer a free telephone service to help you get up and running. If you require on-going telephone support we offer several telephone support packages at low cost. See our Support page for details.
25. If Businessware is so flexible, comprehensive and with all these features, why is it so cheap?
Small businesses have simply been sold short by the market leaders when it comes to business software. Our entire mission is to deliver exceptional value and benefits to small businesses. We do this through a strong range of software products specifically for small businesses proving that world class software can be delivered at low cost. Our intention is to innovate and provide on-going value through constant improvement and a range of low-cost add-ons that give the benefits usually reserved for larger companies at much higher cost. As our focus is on small businesses we don’t have a “ceiling” on our innovation that other software providers have to avoid their product ranges clashing. In short we’re for you and with you every step of the way. You get what you pay for? With Businessware you get so much more.