In the past, accounting systems stored a wealth of information relating to your customers, suppliers and inventory. This information was often limited to accounting data, i.e. the numbers. Pastel Evolution takes accounting to the next level by allowing you to not only capture numbers, but also to perform what we refer to as business activities. This gives you the ability to control your financial situation as well as your relationships with your customers, suppliers and employees.

In addition to the comprehensive range of features in Pastel Evolution, are a number of add-on modules that make Pastel Evolution the perfect management tool for your growing business.

There are three new exciting add-on modules in Pastel Evolution.

Information Alerts allows you to streamline key processes within your business. You can send and receive notifications to relevant users based on a set of predefined criteria.

Procurement allows you to precisely manage the numerous purchase orders in your business and keep control of purchases.

Bank Statement Manager allows for the cash book to be electronically populated when a bank statement is imported where large volumes of transactions are processed.

To cater for the move by many businesses to increase staff productivity and become more efficient, the Information Alerts module is designed to streamline key processes within the business. Information Alerts allows you to receive notifications based on a set of predefined criteria and take on a more proactive stance in dealing with exceptions in the business. Information Alerts can be configured to send out notifications to relevant users via e-mail or CRM (Contact Management) incidents.

These notifications can be setup to notify you on time based intervals, daily, weekly or monthly. It comes with a set of predefined methods, which the business can utilise to define which criteria they would like to be aware of for example a client reaching their credit limit.

An action can be for example a notification being generated and sent to the financial manager, who can then take action. The module currently supports Accounts Receivable and Payables, Inventory and Job Costing modules.

Designed for the manufacturing and assembly environment, this module allows you to create assembly sheets (or Bills as they are commonly known) detailing each component making up the completed item. Completed items can be manufactured before they are sold or you can simply invoice the completed item and Sage Pastel Evolution will manufacture the item on-the-fly, where-upon the sub-components will be drawn from stock.

You can manufacture items in a single operation or, for more complex manufacturing and for processes that occur over a significant time period, you can work on an open manufacturing process over time.

This add-on module allows you to keep inventory items in discrete areas, or warehouses. You can use warehouses for many types of situations:

• Physical warehouses in different geographic areas.
  
• Keep raw materials and/or internal parts separate from items you sell.
  
• Keep track of consignment stock/samples in a separate warehouse.
  
• Separate obsolete items into a separate warehouse.
  
• Track demo stock allocated to sales representatives.
  
• Track costs per warehouse.

We have combined World Class accounting software with Microsoft® Excel and have produced a reporting tool that revolutionises the way you make decisions in your business!

BIC is an add-on module that dynamically links to your Sage Pastel accounting data, taking your business beyond standard reporting functionality. You can generate spreadsheets by simply extracting Sage Pastel Accounting data and converting it into an easy-to-read, graphic format. Sage Pastel’s BIC retains report formats and makes them available for future use. You also have instant access to ‘live’ information and that last minute journal no longer impacts your Excel reporting. Monthly financials account for a large percentage of manual Excel labour.

Sage Pastel’s BIC offers a customisable pack which provides drill-down functionality. You can customise the standard set of reports and templates, and create new ones. It gives you flexibility with the combinations of financial data you choose to report on.
BIC ships with Management Packs (Balance Sheet, Income Statement), Sales Master (Sales Reports), Inventory, Purchasing options, and more.

Company Law requires that you keep a register of your business' fixed assets as part of it’s accounting records. However, managing your company’s fixed assets can be tedious and time-consuming. Fixed assets are physical items such as desks, computers, cars, machinery, etc which you acquire to run your business. As you use assets, they depreciate or become obsolete. You can legally expense depreciation in your accounts for tax purposes.

This module is an extension of Sage Pastel Evolution Bill of Materials. It separates the manufacturing process into time periods where items being manufactured are transferred into Work In Progress and then into Finished Goods. In addition this module allows you to:

• See a full audit trail of each manufacturing process
• Draw stock at the beginning of the manufacturing process, and reverse any unused stock once the process is complete
• Change a Bill of Materials without affecting an ongoing manufacturing process that uses the same Bill of Materials
• Replace one or more components in an existing process if you need to, and then continue manufacturing with the new components
• Create by-products in addition to your main manufactured item
• Forward plan with the material requirements feature.

Sage Pastel Evolution Serial Number Tracking allows you to individually track items. For example, if you sold an item that carries a warranty, you will need to know when you sold the item, to whom you sold the item so that you know if the item is bought in for repairs, if it is still under warranty or not.

Integrating with Sage Pastel Evolution’s Inventory module, Sage Pastel Evolution Serial Number Tracking keeps detailed information on specific inventory items. From purchase to sale, to returns, each item is tracked uniquely providing you with absolute control over individual inventory items.

With Sage Pastel Evolution Serial Number Tracking you can receive Serial Number Listing reports that provide you with key information regarding your items, such as where the current location of the serial numbered item is, the item code and description, the date of its last movement, the current general location in stock and the customer it was sold to.

While the Serial Number Transaction report will show you all the transactions for a Serial Number, by reflecting one transaction per line. Each line will report on the following information the Serial Number, item code and description, transaction date and reference, the customer/supplier account code and its originating module.

Sage Pastel Evolution Point-of-Sale integrates with both Receivables and the Inventory add-on module, while addressing the practical issues you may encounter within the retail Point-of-Sale environment. It contains the following features which can assist you with:

• Security parameters
• Tender types (cash, voucher, credit card and cheque)
• Flexible pricing
• Discounting

It supports peripheral devices such as pole display units, cash drawers, slip printers and a bar code scanner. It is user friendly, while offering you flexibility by allowing for per-till configuration and giving you powerful reporting features.

Sage Pastel E-Billing will allow your customers to view their detailed statements, with drill-down into source transactions over the internet. You will however need to supply your customer with a password. The benefits from this module are as follows:

• Get paid faster
• Customer self-service
• Customer account access 24/7/365
• Uniform electronic remittance advice
• Mobile sales representatives with up-to-date information
• Detailed account research

This module allows for the cash book to be electronically populated when a bank statement is imported where large volumes of transactions are processed. Once verified, the information can be updated to a cash book batch and then to the general ledger. The bank statements are acquired by using a download facility that’s provided by each of the four major banks in South Africa (ABSA, First National Bank, Standard Bank, Nedbank). Supported formats include OFC, CSV and ASCII.

The advantages of using this module include the instant processing and coding of accounts once the initial process of assigning recurring coding has taken place; and the process of reconciliation and account coding is virtually guaranteed. Another benefit exists for transactions where the codes have been assigned as per the relevant accounts. Codes need not be assigned a second time – only new transactions have to be coded in the months to follow.

With Sage Pastel Evolution Multi-Currency you can process customer and supplier transactions in their currency. It allows you to track foreign currency, customer and supplier values in both the foreign and home currency. You can view balances and transactions in either currency at any time. You can maintain separate buy and sell rates for each currency. Sage Pastel Evolution Multi-Currency maintains a history of exchange rates so that you can process transactions at earlier dates using the most accurate exchange rate. When you process customer receipts or supplier payments, Sage Pastel Evolution uses the current exchange rate to calculate any foreign exchange profit or loss, which is automatically posted. In addition Sage Pastel Evolution Multi-Currency allows you to:

• Process and print customer and supplier sales and purchase documents in foreign currency or home currency.
• Print customer and supplier statements, age analysis and transaction reports using foreign currency or home currency
• Process foreign currency cashbook transactions

This add-on module lets you invoice jobs to customers. A job card is more powerful than an invoice, because you can link more types of items besides inventory items in a job. For example, you can purchase an item directly for use in a job, and you can allocate employee hours from the Payroll module into a job. You can also invoice a job on a partial basis.

You can allocate costs and measure the profitability of short to medium term jobs. Create an unlimited number of job cards, with the ability to archive these for future estimates. Track labour costs from payroll time sheets in Pastel Payroll and calculate transactions on a rate, lump sum, or percentage basis.

You can allocate jobs to projects on a job card basis or a job line basis.

Integrating with Receivables, Sage Pastel Evolution Credit Risk Management helps you manage your customer credit risk through a step-by-step process. Your customer will complete a credit risk application form in order for you to assess his/her potential credit-worthiness before granting them any credit.  It will generate the credit application form and run the data through a scoring system giving you a credit-worthiness result on your potential customer. A passing score will see a new account being opened. A failing score will request guarantees or security against granting credit.

It will also generate standard legal documentation based on the type of business you are operating. The following documentation, amongst others, is included:

• Terms and conditions of sale
• Credit application forms
• Both ‘soft’ and ‘final’ demand letters
• Power of attorney forms