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Product Spotlight

More highlights from Accounting Master 15.2

By Mary White, Accounting Master Product Owner

As you begin the New Year, hit the ground running in 2016 by staying up-to-date and efficient in your office practices. By now most of you have been upgraded to the fall release of Accounting Master 15.2, so let’s revisit some of the new and exciting features that 15.2 has to offer.

Accounts Receivable Electronic Invoicing
Paperless notification of invoices has become a popular choice over the last several years. Because of MACC’s continued dedication to process efficiencies, electronic invoicing and statements are available from the Accounts Receivable module.

Whether from the AR Invoice screen or the batch posting process, customers flagged to receive email notification will automatically be sent a pre-formatted email with an attachment of their invoice. This  action saves you both time and money in your invoicing process.

Budget Suite
Budgeting is a fundamental tool in managing the financial resources of a company. Budgeting allows users to set targets, strategize and allocate the proper funds, communicate priorities, and control spending. To align with the needs and goals of our clients, MACC added tools to the budget section of Accounting Master to provide additional flexibility, efficiency, forecasting, and reporting.

The Budget screen was updated and is now more efficiently designed so that budget amounts can be entered directly into the worktable grid.  In the grid, users may perform several tasks such as applying pattern codes, updating calculated budget amounts, copying budget values from one account to another, adding or deleting accounts from the budget, and exporting the budget to a CSV file for external use. Within the grid users can choose to view prior year actuals, last year’s budget, a variance percent between this year’s budget and the prior year’s actual amount, or individual budget comments. Additionally, features have been improved regarding the import of a budget from an external file and the copying of a budget from one year to the next.

Along with the updates mentioned above, several changes were made to the current budget reports and new reports were added for budget forecasting and annual reporting. The Financial Report Viewer now has the ability to run multiple budgets in a single year as well as an option to display the current year annual budget and prior year annual budget values. The Budget vs Actual Variance Report is now built dynamically, allowing users to select a range of periods on which to report. Additionally this report now includes drill-down abilities. The Annual Actual/Budget Report was created to generate an annual look at actual amounts on closed periods and budget amounts on open periods.

Finally, the Budget Forecast was added as both a tool and a reporting feature, allowing users to create estimates for the future of their business. The forecast will be developed based on the average activity for a selected range of prior years or periods. This average activity, in addition to variable percent and additional dollars, will be used to predict future activity for a given period of time.

Customize Purchase Order and Receiving Ticket Reports
The Purchase Order and Receiving Ticket Reports can be used in various ways. Some companies use them for internal tracking while others send these reports to vendors for an official documentation of purchase. As a result, each company has slightly different needs for what it desires to be printed on these reports. To accommodate all clients, a new Custom Report Designer tool was added to the Purchasing module. Add, remove, or update fields on the Purchase Order Report and/or Receiving Ticket Report using the Designer. For information on how to update a format using the Report Designer, reference the Accounting Master help menu or contact your Accounting Master Software Support Representative.

Auto Report Generation
The Reports Auto Generation tool provides the ability to auto generate select standard reports according to a user-defined timeframe and report criteria. Reports can be emailed to select individuals and/or saved for viewing in the database at a later date.

Reports available for auto generation include: AP Aging, AR Aging, Cash Balances, Inventory Count Sheet, Inventory Listing, Low Inventory Status, and the Payment Register Report. MACC will continue to add additional reports to the auto generation tool in future releases of Accounting Master.

Need help using these new features? We’re here to help
If you need assistance using any of these new featuers, don’t hestiate to contact MACC’s Accounting Master Software Support Team. You can also take the What’s New in Accounting Master 15.2 web class from MACC’s Training Team. It’s the best way to ensure you’re getting the most out of these exciting new enhancements.