Forum

	Gold Club customers may use the forums to discuss problems you may have, ideas to share around, and to keep up to date with what Business Manager Software is doing, such as campaigns, newsletters, and much more. You can also set a watch which notifies you if the topic you are interested in has been updated. Notifications may be sent through the web or e-mail. To add a topic to your watch list, click on the Watch This Topic link at the top of the topic page. Click on Stop Watching Topic to end the email notifications. After 30 days, inactive watches automatically expire. To see the current list of topics you are watching, click on "Your Control Panel" then "Watches". From this screen you can choose to receive email notifications when new posts are made. Just click on Add Email Notification next to the topic for which you want to be notified. You can delete a watch by clicking in the Delete tick box for the watch you want to delete, then clicking the Delete button.

FAQs

What is included in the Yearly Gold Club Subscription?
The Gold Club Subscription covers yearly updates of your software; you are entitled to receive 2 upgrades per year on a CD, and have access to unlimited downloads from the Download Centre. Your Gold Club subscription also gives you a number of other advantages - to get the full details, click here.

What are my Support Options?
We recommend that you contact your dealer for support issues. However, if your dealer is not able to provide support, or you are located in a regional area where your dealer is not able to support you, we offer a few different Support Contract options. Please see the full details of our Support Contracts here.

Is Advanced Business Manager (ABM) Multi-Currency?
Yes, as a product used across the world, Advanced Business Manager is completely multi-currency. Users can invoice customers, pay suppliers and even maintain bank accounts in foreign currencies.

How does ABM User Licensing work?
Advanced Business Manager licenses by concurrent users. This means if you purchase a five-user license, you can install the product on as many workstations as you have in the office, but only five users/workstations can access the Advanced Business Manager database at any one time.
All Advanced Business Manager licenses are provided on a single server basis only. You cannot split five users across multiple servers of two users and three users respectively. To do so requires an additional server license.

How much does it cost to run additional companies in ABM?
Nothing. Advanced Business Manager software allows you to add as many company databases to the same server as you desire without the need for additional company licenses.

What reports are provided with the system?
Advanced Business Manager provides over 100 Crystal Reports with the standard system. Because these reports are written with the generic Seagate Crystal Reports program, they can be modified or edited by anyone with a copy of the Crystal program. Advanced Accounting Software provides a runtime license for Crystal with Advanced Business Manager, and provides users with the ability to not only customise existing reports but to also add new Crystal Reports into the Advanced Business Manager menu system.

How much training will I need when starting with ABM?
It is difficult to determine how much training is required before getting to know a client. However, Advanced Business Manager is a very simple program to learn. We find that most users will have a very good understanding of Advanced Business Manager after three days of training. Your local Advanced Business Manager Channel Partner will be able to give you an exact estimate of your specific requirements.

Can Advanced Business Manager be tailored to our needs?
Each company database can be easily customised to store extra information, which is special to your company. Up to 48 extra items of information can be specified for each customer, supplier, product, job or general ledger account. Custom items can be shown on forms, reports and mail merge letters.
Forms can be customised using Crystal Report Writer or Microsoft® Word. Import/export facilities are provided to common data formats including Excel. The Developer's Kit, which includes technical documentation, provides custom controls for importing transactions. This allows developers to "bolt on" custom software and third party applications.

Where do I buy Advanced Business Manager?
For further information, contact our Sales Team who will direct you to a reseller in your area.

What's the pricing of ABM?
Pricing is dependent on number of users and what sort of functionality you need. Please contact your dealer or the BMS sales team to get pricing information on ABM.

ABM vs BM - Should I Upgrade?
With two outstanding solutions to weigh up, this is a tough question. First of all, though, we should get the wording right. ABM is a new product, developed from the ground up to make use of current advanced technologies, so even though there is an excellent data conversion program available, the move is actually a cross-grade.

The real question, then, is "when should I consider cross-grading?" ABM has many strengths that will determine the need to cross-grade as soon as practicable. For instance, if you buy or sell in foreign currencies, or have a need for batch (lot) tracking, or you need quantity/price breaks, these are some of the obvious reasons to cross-grade for some firms. For others it is the link to better POS software or more stringest manufacturing needs that is the deciding factor; the "best-of-breed" add-on modules approach for ABM is a real strength.

Other significant advantages of ABM are:

• no end of month or end of year processing; keep going with your normal processing, and print your reports - even statements - whenever it suits you.
  
• complete integration with microsoft outlook for contact management
  
• document management - all your email, word and excel files can be seen and used from within ABM
  
• robust database that can grow and keep pace with any business. SQL Server is one of the best and fastest data repositories available.
  
• easy customisation you can do yourself, using the 48 custom fields per ledger
  
• quick GST reporting with full auditing facilities

It is a good idea to sit down with your dealer and discuss the timing of a move. Have a good look at ABM as if you were buying any new package to see what business processes you need to put in place.

If I do decide to move to ABM, do I lose any of my BM information?
The conversion program built in to ABM takes almost all your BM data and converts it for ABM. This includes names, addresses, stock codes, balances, transactions, most history files, serial numbers, special prices - pretty much everything. Typically, users find that the BM data has accumulated "rubbish" over the years, and it pays to clean up the data before converting it. Conversion is a procedure that is so important that it demands proper planning and care, as well as testing and a period of running in parallel to ensure you don't have any problems. Your dealer is best qualified to assist you in this process to ensure your data is set up correctly.

My Gold Club Subscription is current. Do I get ABM?
Current BM Gold Club subscribers are eligible for a free upgrade to the next release of BM. ABM is a different product, so a change to ABM is not one of the Gold Club benefits. However, as a current Gold Club subscriber you will receive a significant trade-in for BM, and 12 months Gold Club on your ABM. Sounds good? Speak to your dealer for more information.

I haven't decided when or even whether I will cross-grade, so why should I renew my Gold Club?
Either way, the Gold Club is important to have. If you stay with BM you will get the benefits of the new version. If you move to ABM, you will more than get your money back because of the significant discounts in cross-grading to ABM. We will even apply the unused portion of your Gold Club against the cost of the cross-grade to ABM.

Can you send me a list of features ABM has that BM doesn't and vice-versa?
We do have a feature brochure to help you start a comparison, but because the two packages are different in their approach to so much, it would be impossible to write up such a document. You know your company best, and know what you want. Speak to your dealer, they'll be able to help you.

Will BMS stop developing BM?
BMS will continue to develop BM as long as there are enough users to support such development efforts, and as long as the operating systems continue to support DOS applications.

Link to FAQ Archive - FAQ about old versions of BM