ABM 2008 New Features

Security Improvements The number of user groups increased from 10 to 99 User passwords are now encrypted in ABMControl Password has to be re-specified by an authorised person after five failed attempts to enter it. Support people will have access to a special password which allows administrator log in to a specific company for one day only. Users can now change their own passwords. SQL Server users will have the option to move ABMControl into a SQL Server database to provide greater security. A separate authorisation is added to control editing of standard costs. Changing of customer/supplier/product/job groups can cause balancing issues where the control accounts differ. This is now controlled.

See More on Bigger Screens The Viewer windows can now be resized to show much more information for users with bigger screen resolutions Ledger Accounts and Sub-Account codes can be shown in transaction lists and batch listing.

Better Drill Downs The sales and purchase drill downs open faster and have a Find button to locate any text in line items.

Locating Old Stock New options allow users to locate stock which is older than a specified age and in specified locations

Keep your staff well informed Product notes can now be made to popup automatically, at time of sale, to remind the operator of special conditions, warranties, etc.

Customers can “own” specified products Products can now be reserved for a specified customer or groups or categories of customer.

Special Price Improvements Branch special prices are now used first, if they exist, and head office special prices are used only if none is specified for the branch. The customer viewer opens faster on databases with lots of special prices. Customer and product special prices can be edited directly in the view screen. This avoids the need to open the tables and locate the prices.

Products link to Cost Centres Job cost users can now pre-allocate products to cost centres to save data entry time and ensure accuracy in purchasing.

Jobs purchases now show in products Product order and movement lists now include purchases of the product for use on jobs. Users can select the job code and title in the column chooser.

Warehousing Time Saver A find button is now available in warehousing to allow users to quickly locate products by any part of their product code, title or lot number.

More efficient purchasing Users now get an automatic warning when a supplier has increased a price after a requisition was created.

More efficient purchasing When purchasing stock and figuring out where it should go to, users can now see the stock status of every location at a glance.

More efficient purchasing Delivery dates can now be monitored on job cost purchases.

More efficient purchasing Custom formulae are now available on purchases and work the same as on sales

Withholding Tax Rates A default withholding tax rate can now be specified on each supplier group

Withholding Tax in Ireland ABM is now aware of the annual payment ceiling above which withholding tax applies. This is now specified on the C2 certificate in Ireland.

There is now an option in Tools\Options\Preferences to display s prior to sending so that the covering text can be edited before despatch. Text lines can now be imported in sales orders. Within all documents, text handling has been improved by: Better text handling on documents Now nothing gets truncated The line length limit of 200 characters is removed. The limit of 25 lines in a text field is removed Blank lines are blank; no more dots.

Updated Documents The Crystal sales and purchase documents have been improved and reference new fields in Tools/Options/Forms. These allow the placement of the user’s logo, conditions of sale and payment methods. Specify the logo path as NO LOGO if none is required.

Point of Sale – Tracking Cash Sale Customers Users who wish to track their cash sale customers can enter their names in the reference field and view and sort on that field later.

Point of Sale – Deposits on Orders Operators can now enter deposits paid when goods are placed on order for customers

Optional Journal Numbering Journals can be sequentially numbered by ABM starting from the reference you specify in Tools/Options/Company.

A New Business Today Window Subject to their authorisations, users can configure their Business Today window to show their current sales or gross profit status with end of month forecast and comparison with budget. All outstanding tasks and appointments in Outlook can also be displayed.

A New Business Today Window The panels in the Business Today window are configured by clicking the View menu. A choice of four information displays, each in three different shapes, can be dragged and dropped into the panels.

Easier Customisation Buttons can be added to toolbars to start custom programs using the software sockets. Each can have a user specified title and icon.

Better, Faster Banking Bank reconciliation has been completely re-developed to let users take full advantage of Internet Banking. Automatic matching of bank statements saves time and labour. Cashbook data entry can be automated using downloads from your bank; daily or whenever you choose.

Better, Faster Banking See, at a glance, the status of your bank, debit or credit card statements as far back as you wish.

Better, Faster Banking Open a statement to view the reconciliation screen. Use the transaction tools or right click the mouse to drill down into transactions or to void them

Better, Faster Banking Transactions can be added on the fly with minimum effort on the part of the user. The Find button performs an instant scan of all columns to locate the text or number specified by the user.

Better, Faster Banking When transactions have been downloaded from your bank they can be imported and automatically matched to transactions in ABM.

Better, Faster Banking Transactions which fail to match can be manually matched by the user by mouse click or by dragging and dropping from the imported transaction window to the reconciliation window.

Better, Faster Banking Transactions not yet entered into ABM can be quickly added using the details downloaded from the bank. The result is less manual data entry and fewer errors. An “Undo” button and optional automatic offsetting is provided.

Project Invoicing has also been re-developed to give power job cost users greater flexibility Project Invoicing Improvements

Users can specify an accumulating percentage of the job cost to be invoiced

Project Invoicing Improvements Cost selections can be saved as templates so that they can be quickly reused later.

Project Invoicing Improvements A higher level of layout flexibility is available and can also be saved for later re-use in the same template.

Project Invoicing Improvements The invoice can be built, step by step, to ensure complete control of the items being invoiced and the way they are presented. Automatic sub-totals can be added where required. The cumulative percentage to be invoiced can be varied line by line.

Project Invoicing Improvements Users can drill down on an invoice line to see the underlying job transactions and can exclude individual cost lines if required.

New Job Claims Users can set up a job claim; an agreed contract value which may not relate to costs incurred on the job. There can be multiple claims for each job.

When invoicing claims, you can link them to costs and charges which are to be written off automatically, or break down the total cost and charge manually for cost/profit analysis New Job Claims

Project Invoicing Improvements Invoices and claims can still be printed as a draft (proforma) document which can be checked, edited, accepted and processed as a tax invoice.

Other Improvements Recurring invoices now handle head office / branch office scenarios. Company database upgrades have to be confirmed before they proceed. Other users can’t log on to a company while it is being upgraded. If Outlook is not available then the registration file is now saved into the My Documents folder for manual ing. A detailed audit trail of foreign exchange movements is now provided in the table TransCurAdj. Deposits paid on sales orders offset automatically against the first sales invoice. The budget editor is easier to use. Outlook and Legrand synchronisation now describe what they are about to do and require confirmation before proceeding

Other Improvements When customers, suppliers, jobs and products are moved from group to group or if group control accounts are changed, journals now occur to maintain the correct balance between the control account and the sub-ledger. The import menu at the company list now includes an import from QuickBooks which is to be released soon. ABM 2008 contains an option to move ABMControl from an Access database to a SQL Server database. In new databases, the CashBook list shows the bank amount by default. 3rd party products can now use a special connection library to log in using ABM’s user accounts (required if authentication of the ABM password is used).