New Releases—AccountMate/SQL 12.3 and Acumatica 2022/R2

Dear Clients,

Regular updates are a HUGE benefit to working with currently supported software—to address new requirements and to add new functionality—and we’re happy to report new releases from both AccountMate and Acumatica.

While very few of our clients jump on every release to either product, we recommend staying within at least three years of current—and it’s always worthwhile to review the new functionality to see if there’s a feature that would greatly impact your operation and should be implemented sooner rather than later.

AccountMate V12.3 for SQL and Express has dozens of new features, including:

• New Click-to-Pay Module provides an interface to the REPAY payment portal so your customers can pay their invoices via credit card, ACH or eCheck—expediting payment processing and reducing credit card fees as “Level 3” detail is provided to the payment gateway. AccountMate invoices may be printed to PDF with an active link to your payment portal, and automated dunning notification is also built-in functionality
• Ability to schedule emailing of employee payroll stubs as PDF attachments
• Allow Payroll Deduction to span tax years—useful for employee loans or garnishments that have a maximum lifetime amount
• Allow copy/paste from Excel into the Payroll Earning Codes General Ledger Distribution grid and into the Bank Reconciliation transactions General Distribution grids
• Ability to assign warehouse and quantity during Accrue Landed Cost to a warehouse other than the one received into—useful if the goods have subsequently been transferred out of the original receiving warehouse
• Ability to email check stubs to vendors—useful to provide vendors details of electronic payments made via ACH

➤ For a tour of new features, watch the recorded webinar, AM12.3 SQL/Express New Features.

NexLAN clients of AccountMate with an active Lifecycle plan will be mailed a complete list of the enhancements and installation media for the latest release, which we encourage you to contact us to discuss/schedule the implementation of.

■ ■ ■

Acumatica 2022/R2 recognizes that all businesses are international business in the 21st century—competing worldwide—and focuses on minimizing restrictions caused by geographic location such as different languages, tax configurations, reports, banking interfaces, etc.

Already ranked number one in usability by G2, Acumatica has further increased ease of navigation and flexible workflows to simplify the learning curve, maximize adoption, and ensure that the mobile app empowers users to work on a smaller screen while on the go.

Acumatica 2022 R2 new features and enhancements include:

Usability and Technology

• Accelerated workflows through automated mobile signature capture
• Tailor mobile Acumatica workspaces by hiding widgets, configuring screens, rearranging items, etc.
• Instantaneous access to wiki-help files by hovering over fields with intelligent tooltips

Localization and Integration:

• Implement Canada-specific features at the company level to simplify setup, reporting, and management of companies with legal entities in multiple countries
• Experience easy tax calculations via automatically assigned tax zones to new sales orders and invoices based on country, state, and zip code

Financials:

• Automate the general ledger approval process using the flexible approval engine to create rules for approving entries and assigning approvers
• Expedite collections by sending customers personalized dunning letters with all related attachments and fees
• Streamline bank data and processing by letting Acumatica automatically import bank feeds

CRM:

• Streamline sales and fulfillment processes by having Acumatica link sales orders and quotes to opportunities
• Gain transparency with predefined side panels that display customer data for the corresponding case

Benefits for Distributors, Retailers, and Commerce Merchants:

• Enhance warehouse operations by converting non-stock items to stock items and vice versa
• Stay on top of business operations with role-based dashboards
• Enable one-stop parcel shipping decisions, and input box dimensions on the fly
• Push offline orders to Shopify to track and manage all omnichannel sales orders within the Shopify platform

Benefits for Manufacturers:

• Shorten engineering cycles by creating or modifying multi-level bills of materials with drag-and-drop and copy-paste
• Improve shop floor data collection and job cost accuracy with multi-job clock-in and clock-out activities
• Save time with manufacturing side panels, giving users direct access to production, bills of materials, items, inventory, projects, customers, engineering, and order details
• Balance supply and demand with MRP for planned inbound and outbound transfer orders across warehouse locations.

➤ For a tour of the new features, watch the recording, Acumatica 2022 R2 Launch On-Demand.

NexLAN clients of Acumatica hosted with AWS are provided a free 90-day sandbox for upgrade testing and we encourage you to contact us to get the update implemented.

■ ■ ■

In the continuing saga of “Make Sales Taxes As Complicated As Possible (50+ Different Ways),” are you aware of the Colorado Retail Delivery Fee that went into effect July 1, 2022? Passed with less than 60 days notice, as of that date a $0.27 fee per delivery must be reported separately on customer invoices and 100% remitted to the state for every retail order being delivered by motor vehicle (including common carriers like FedEx, UPS and USPS) for taxable goods to a Colorado address. Oh yeah, and this fee itself is considered a freight charge subject to sales tax SOMETIMES, depending on the home rule jurisdiction city being delivered to. While this only applies to businesses meeting economic nexus of $100,000 gross sales in the prior calendar year in Colorado, since this is expected to generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue, other states are already considering similar plans. The torture never stops – Frank Zappa.  Does your accounting system handle this? No! Not a single accounting system on the planet is even CONFIGURABLE for a logistical monstrosity like this… So, what do you do? You select a flexible system that can be made to handle this, as we’ve done at NexLAN. And as much as you might love Frank Zappa, you hope the torture stops…

Finally, if you run AccountMate Payroll, you should have received an email from us regarding the Annual Payroll Tax Subscription—with the usual “10% early payment” discount. We look forward to hearing from you soon to lock in that discount.

Regards,

Kevin E. Stroud
kestrou@nexlan.com
NexLAN, LLC
https://nexlan.com 

Move Your Business Forward with Drip Learning

It can be TOUGH to clear enough time in your busy schedule to dive into your company’s data so that you can uncover new insights to improve your operations.

Consider the Drip Learning method. It doesn’t require a big, one-time project. Instead, you monitor some new data by taking a brief look at the latest numbers every day or two. Over time, as the numbers steadily drip, you gain a gut feel for how they trend. You’ll start noticing patterns and anomalies in real time, with little effort.

➤ For example, suppose that your company normally monitors your average profit margin by item type. Your team talks about item margins often. You’ve got a good handle on which items make the biggest positive or negative hit on your margin, and you’ve optimized your buying and pricing processes with this in mind.

But are you equally familiar with your average profit margin by supplier? Or by season, or salesrep, or something else?

Imagine receiving a daily report of your latest profit by geographic region. Just scan through it briefly each time. Once you get a feel for your typical numbers you’ll spot changes. You’ll start asking questions and getting ideas. You’ll get many of the same insights you would have gotten from a big data analysis project. But they’ll be even better insights because the data will have had time to become part of your view of the business, in context with other things as they happen.

How do you set up a report that drips data to you over time?

Don’t pin your hopes on a plan to remember the report manually every day. Automate!

• In AccountMate, an easy way is to use our NexReports add-on, which you may already have in place. It sends reports to specified emails on a schedule. Or, schedule a recurring zero-minute daily “meeting” with yourself in your online calendar, and go to the report when the meeting reminder pops up. For lots of reporting inspiration, see our Running Reports in AccountMate page.
• In Acumatica, an easy way is to choose a canned report or create a custom Generic Inquiry, and place it on your Acumatica dashboard where you’ll naturally see it daily. For a good high-level overview of reporting capabilities in Acumatica, see the 7-page ebook, How to Use Business Intelligence and Real-time Reporting to Gain a Competitive Edge.

Give Drip Learning a try, and let us know what new business insight reveals itself to you!

AccountMate Tech Note: Reconciling Bank Accounts in AccountMate

Regular bank reconciliation is a vital part of your company’s cash control procedures as it helps you uncover fraud and identify theft and properly plan your cash flow; however, it can be a tedious process. Reconciling the discrepancies between the cash balance shown on the bank statement and the cash balance in your books can be aggravating and time-consuming.

The AccountMate Reconcile Bank Account function and other related functions are designed to make bank reconciliation easier and faster. Reconciling bank accounts in AccountMate will give you a better grasp of your company’s real-time cash position to help you effectively manage your resources.

Article #1212: Reconciling Bank Accounts in AccountMate explains the features of the Reconcile Bank Account function.

AccountMate Tech Note: Understanding the Bank Reconciliation Report

The Bank Reconciliation Report in AccountMate provides information about the latest bank reconciliation performed on a bank account. The report gives you an overview of the status of individual accounts.

Article #1071: Understanding the Bank Reconciliation Report provides information about the Bank Reconciliation Report that can help you gain a better understanding of the report. It discusses how you can maximize the use of the report and how AccountMate calculates certain amounts displayed on the report.

AccountMate Tech Note: How to Handle Refunds for Credit Card Payments

From time to time, customers return merchandise they purchased for one reason or another. In some cases, these returned items were paid for using the customer’s credit card.

Article #1139: How to Handle Refunds for Credit Card Payments, discusses how to record refunds for receivables collected in the form of credit card payments.

This article also presents the journal entries generated when credit card payment refunds are recorded and discusses the effects of these transactions in the bank reconciliation process.

AccountMate Technical Tips

Modules: AR, SO

Q: Can AccountMate automatically select the serial numbers in the Select Qty for Item # [xxx] window? Currently, we must mark the serial # checkbox one by one if we ship several serialized items.

A: Yes; enter the quantity to be shipped in the Select Qty for Item # [xxx] ► Select Qty field; then, click the Select button. It will automatically mark the Ship checkbox for the number of units you entered in the Select Qty field. The selected units will range from the first available serial # in the grid until the selected quantity is satisfied. You may also enter the serial # in the Starting Serial # field.

■ ■ ■

Versions: AM12 for SQL and Express
AM11 for SQL and Express
AM10 for SQL and Express

Module: AP

Q: How can I attach files for a one-time vendor invoice?

A: A vendor # is required before you can attach files to vendor invoices. Since the vendor # is only assigned after you save the one-time vendor invoice, attach files by amending the invoice.

■ ■ ■

Subscription Information

If you or someone else in your office would like to automatically receive our NewsLine in your inbox each month, please email newsletter@nexlan.com.