Accounting Software News

Partnership between Phocas and Business and Accounting software vendor Lakeview Computers provides integrated analysis tool – ‘slice and dice’ sales history, product and customer data   

Bexleyheath, Kent: In response to customer demand, business and accounting software vendor Lakeview Software (www.lakeview.co.uk) has partnered with specialist software provider, Phocas Ltd, to provide SMEs with a sales analytics solution which allows the business to look in detail at its sales performance.

“Regardless of your role within the business,” says product and services director, Mark Greatrex, “being able to drill down into your product sales by customer, in order to analyse trends and opportunities, is a key enabler to making the right decisions to help grow your business profitably.”

As a result, the sales director will be able to access key information in helping the sales team sell more product, the marketing director can determine which profitable products to promote and the supply chain director will be able to forecast future demand more accurately based on sales trends.

“Using the sales analytics tool integrated within the broader Lakeview solution, the business can analyse the customer’s buying history,” he adds.  “Analysis can be undertaken by revenue, cost or margin, with trend analysis clearly represented graphically.  In addition, sales history, customer and product data can similarly be ‘sliced and diced’ in different ways to provide key, timely sales intelligence to predict customer needs and profitable revenue growth.

Over time, the sales analytics tool will enable the business to identify where there are recurring issues in the business that need more detailed review in the way the company sells and markets its products and manages its product ranges throughout their life-cycle.  More information about sales and marketing functionality provided by Lakeview Computers can be found at http://www.lakeview.co.uk/solutions/sales-marketing.

“This represents yet another ‘first’ for Lakeview in its target markets,” confirms Greatrex, “by bringing enterprise-scale functionality within the practical and financial reach of the fast-growing SME market.”

More information

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Notes to Editor

Lakeview is a leading provider of powerful, flexible accounting software and systems for most areas of business management, accounting and manufacturing control.  Its tailored systems are designed to unlock the productivity of small and medium-sized businesses, by delivering proven technology together with best-of-class technical support and training, all underpinned by a market-leading service guarantee.  Headquartered in Bexleyheath, Lakeview operates a direct sales model and although key target markets include manufacturing and wholesale distribution they have specific expertise in the food and drink, electrical and industrial manufacturing sectors.  For more information visit www.lakeview.co.uk

Contact

Michelle Gunter                                                             Lucie Smith/Sarah Brambley

Lakeview Computers                                                      The Whiteoaks Consultancy

Tel:   +44 (0) 20 8303 3329                                                 Tel   +44 (0)1252 727313  

Email: michelleg@lakeview.co.uk                                                                                                            Email: lucies@whiteoaks.co.uk

Business and accounting software author Lakeview Computers has signed an agreement with leading business software integration specialist First B2B, which will enable free EDI for Lakeview customers.

Bexleyheath, Kent: Following a new partnership agreement with leading EDI integration specialist First B2B, business and accounting software author Lakeview is able to offer its customers free EDI traffic up to 100 kilocharacters per month.

For Lakeview, which provides flexible software and systems for business management, accounting and manufacturing control, the addition of the Lakeview Global Gateway powered by First B2B provides a number of further advantages over other EDI offerings.  These include:

·         Fixed-price agreements, for easy and accurate budgeting;

·         Hosted ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) delivery, requiring neither up-front hardware nor specialist in-house IT skills;

·         An open system, capable of accommodating any electronic trading message standards;

·         Implementation deadlines protected by a unique service level agreement (SLA);

·         Free provision of AS2, the communications method now mandatory within an increasing number of electronic trading communities.

“In working with us, Lakeview is leading the market in offering proven, high quality EDI integration,” believes First B2B founder and managing director, Ian Ford.  “Not only does Lakeview have a strong

technological advantage over its competitors as a result, but its customers will also benefit from this exceptional offer.”

For his part, Lakeview product and services director, Mark Greatrex, confirms: “Our business control system already covers financials, sales and purchase order processing, with a management reporting system providing live information to enable businesses to make the right decisions quickly.

“Adopting First B2B’s Software-as-a Service (SaaS) electronic trading tool has dramatically reduced the time to market for our EDI integration solution, so enabling Lakeview customers to realise significant time and cost benefits much more quickly.”

For further information about EDI from Lakeview, please visit http://www.lakeview.co.uk/solutions/sales-marketing/edi

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Notes to Editor

Lakeview is a leading provider of powerful, flexible accounting software and systems for most areas of business management, accounting and manufacturing control.  Its tailored systems are designed to unlock the productivity of small and medium-sized businesses, by delivering proven technology together with best-of-class technical support and training, all underpinned by a market-leading service guarantee.  Headquartered in Bexleyheath, Lakeview operates a direct sales model and although key target markets include manufacturing and wholesale distribution they have specific expertise in the food and drink, electrical and industrial manufacturing sectors.  For more information visit www.lakeview.co.uk

First B2B Limited is the leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) electronic trading.  Serving the world’s top companies in construction, food, FMCG, print, paper, packaging and publishing computer manufacturing, over 400 companies currently rely on First B2B to link them to their trading partners and together they exchange more than a million transactions each year through First B2B’s service.

Contact

Michelle Gunter                                                             Lucie Smith/Sarah Brambley

Lakeview Computers                                                      The Whiteoaks Consultancy

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8303 3329                                               Tel +44 (0)1252 727313

Email: michelleg@lakeview.co.uk                                    Email: lucies@whiteoaks.co.uk

Companies that raise many purchase orders or place a smaller number of large value purchases on their suppliers can expect to benefit by using Lakeview’s LM4 business and accounting software solution, which now helps to put additional financial controls in place.

In a busy working environment it can be difficult to ensure 100% accuracy of purchase orders placed. It only needs someone to key an extra zero by mistake to potentially commit your company to having to spend unnecessary time and money in resolving the issue. You probably also need to further control who can place orders for certain high value products or to prevent someone placing orders on behalf of a different department or division or for a product range they should not be processing.

Lakeview have just developed and released a new software module as part of their purchase order processing software that can help companies in this business area. Users of Lakeview LM software can now set financial controls on how much an individual can order, either per order or over a period of time (which can be per day, week, month, quarter or year.)

Where a person’s authorisation limit is exceeded, Lakeview Accounting Software users can define a second more senior person up to be able to approve these purchases.

These levels can be controlled differently per department in order to prevent people ordering for the wrong business area and one can set different authorisation spend limits for each department.

Different products or product groups can set different spend levels for each person so you can control the reordering at the lowest possible level or, at the other extreme, you can just set a spend level per person across all products and departments.

Businesses interested in this new functionality within the Lakeview system should contact their Lakeview Account Manager (http://www.lakeview.co.uk/contact-us) or just email us via info@lakeview.co.uk

Dealing with multiple product promotions running across different Customers can be a very time consuming process when dealt with via spreadsheets or a paper based process.  Keeping the order price correct and current when having to refer offline to these promotions is also wide open to error almost always resulting in loss of revenue to your business.

Lakeview has greatly enhanced the support for promotions within its LM4 software product to enable promotions to be automatically picked up at the time the sales order is entered.  Free stock promotions, such as BOGOF, can be set up in the Lakeview accounting system and can be processed whether as free shipped product or as a credit to the customers account.

Special price promotions are defined with an effective date range, which can be set up ahead of the promotion start. The LM accounting system will then always select the promotional price during this period without any intervention required.

LM also supports retrospective promotions where vouchers or coupon numbers can be entered and the appropriate discount calculated or promotional price applied.  The accounting software can also apply any combination of these promotion types to a product at any time.

Customer returns are also managed accurately by the software with the return price reflecting the promotional price that it was sold at to ensure the customer is not credited at the regular price.

The performance of any promotion can be tracked in the system against budget to ensure that volumes, revenues and margin targets are achieved.

More information about Lakeview Software’s Sales Order Processing functionality can be found at Lakeview’s website http://www.lakeview.co.uk/solutions/sales-marketing/sales-order-processing.

To find out more about how Lakeview business and accounting software can make your business more efficient please do not hesitate to contact Lakeview via the website (http://www.lakeview.co.uk/contact-us) or just email us via info@lakeview.co.uk

New Business Alerts Module from Lakeview Accounting Software Automatically flags up key business issues with delivery via email, text message, web page or triggered report – enterprise-level support for SMEs

Bexleyheath, Kent: As part of its continuing drive to provide its SME customer base with unrivalled quality product and support, Business and Accounting Software vendor Lakeview has introduced a new Alerts module and support.  This additional service enables the Lakeview system to make the end-user immediately aware of any selected business issue.

“The Lakeview Alerts module can proactively alert the organisation to almost any business event,” confirms product and services director, Mark Greatrex, “including stock-outs, overdue invoices or sales orders, late supply orders and outstanding customer calls.  In addition, the Alert can be delivered to the relevant person via the most convenient communication mechanism, from email or mobile phone text message to web page or triggered report.”

By making the business aware of key business issues automatically and in a timely fashion, the company will be better-placed to resolve potential customer service issues promptly and cost-effectively. 

“In addition, such Alerts can provide status information on the progress of manufacturing or procurement activity, both to individuals within the business or third party customers and suppliers,” he says.  ”And, over time, it will also identify where there are recurring issues within the business or broader supply chain that require review or attention.”

Further details of Lakeview’s software functionality for manufacturing can be found at http://www.lakeview.co.uk/solutions/manufacturing, and information about supply chain management software solutions.

Lakeview plans to build the Alert as a service as soon as the customer has acquired the relevant software licence.  “This is a major step forward,” believes Greatrex.  “Previously only available to large corporates, Lakeview now brings this powerful functionality within the financial reach of SMEs for the first time.”    

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Notes to Editor

Lakeview is a leading provider of powerful, flexible Accounting software and systems for most areas of business management, accounting and manufacturing control.  Its tailored systems are designed to unlock the productivity of small and medium-sized businesses, by delivering proven technology together with best-of-class technical support and training, all underpinned by a market-leading service guarantee.  Headquartered in Bexleyheath, Lakeview operates a direct sales model and although key target markets include manufacturing and wholesale distribution they have specific expertise in the food and drink, electrical and industrial manufacturing sectors.  For more information visit www.lakeview.co.uk

Contact

Michelle Gunter                                                             Lucie Smith/Sarah Brambley

Lakeview Computers                                                      The Whiteoaks Consultancy

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8303 3329                                               Tel +44 (0)1252 727313

Email: michelleg@lakeview.co.uk                                    Email: lucies@whiteoaks.co.uk