A Review of
SouthWare
By J. Carlton Collins, CPA


To help you understand how to evaluate an accounting software product's list of modules, please refer to these two documents:

Carlton's Guide to Accounting Software Modules

Carlton's Checklist of the 90 Most Popular Modules

SouthWare's Modules

All together, SouthWare Excellence Series offers 36 separate modules. These modules and selected key benefits for each module are summarized below.

1. A/R INVOICING ADAPTER - Maintain detailed invoice histories, supports service codes, returns, price adjustments, retainage, credit limit checking, unlimited lines of text on the invoice, miscellaneous charges, added fields, invoice notes, and end of day sales register.

2. ACCOUNTS PAYABLE - Maintains 5 years of history for each vendor, supports multiple discounts, one-time vendors, payments on hold, customer refunds, check voiding, 1099 forms, and recurring transactions.

3. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE - Maintain 5 years of history for each customer, supports customer notes, invoice notes, added fields, multiple bill-to and ship-to addresses, open item or balance forward invoicing, commissions based on profit, automatic late fees, reprinting of invoices and vendor refunds.

4. AcuODBC VISION DRIVER & AcuXFD TECHNOLOGY - ODBC Connectivity provides the ability to export data to ODBC compliant applications such as Microsoft Excel.

5. ASSEMBLY WORK ORDERS - Component features include tracking number, multi-location, conversion U/M, Fixed or Variable quantity, Confirmation option, W/O Effective Date; Up to 9999 components per assembly ; creates a stock item from multiple stock items - components can be sub-assembled for multi-level assembly.

6. CASH FLOW - Reconciliation report; unlimited number of bank accounts; check number audit report.

7. COLLECTIONS ADAPTER - Manage collections by scheduling collection calls and entering collection call information. Supports automatic selection of customers who need a call, review previous calls, record who you talked to and what they promised, call date and promised date tracking, and zoom into the details of any invoice.

8. CONTACT MANAGEMENT - Contract assigned to service location, territory, and route sequence; handles contracts based on meter usage; create proposals / turn into contracts; generate scheduled service orders.

9. DATABASE DIRECTOR™ - Store or replicate your data in MS-SQL, Oracle, Informix, ISAM, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase (for history files), Btrieve, C-ISAM, generic ODBC.

10. DocTransfer™ - Directly exchange documents with customers and vendors who also use the SouthWare Excellence Series™. Exchange EDI documents with customers and vendors.

11. EQUIPMENT SERVICING - Track by serial #, tag #, or system; specific warranty dates based on model; loan, rent, out-of-service indicator; up to 10 schedules per equipment model; based on time elapsed or metered usage.

12. EXCELREPORT™ - The ExcelReport allows you to produce a report card summarizing six success factors; trend analysis, GPA analysis using an A-B-C-D-E-F grading scale.

13. EXECUMATE II™ - ExecuMate provides a window into the financial health and activity of your business and includes a summary of the following data: company totals or profit center detail; cash and aging totals; trigger “Alert” warnings; financial statement totals current balance; cash worksheet; last 10 weeks actual cash flows; next 10 weeks projected cash flows; actual trends; A/R and A/P aging; today’s sales; activity statistics per day, week, month, etc.; trigger “Alerts” for G/L accounts or financial ratios.  

14. EXTENDED DATA™ - Add hundreds of new data fields to standard files. Create your own prompts and defaults, add new search keys. 

15. FIXED ASSETS - Tracking, valuing, and depreciating your assets. Supports 15 character asset ID numbers, property tax report locations, cost basis, salvage values, replace costs, insurance coverage amounts, usage, owned, leased, or borrowed indicators, straight-line, declining balance, usage-based, sum-of-the-years digits, statutory, ACE, and non-depreciable, and partial period conventions.

16. GENERAL LEDGER - 16 column reporting, source and use of funds report, cash flow in compliance with FASB 95, multi-company consolidation, 4 segment account numbers, 5 year comparisons, and on-screen zoom to detailed transactions.

17. IMPORTMATE II™ - ImportMate II is an add-on module you can use to automatically input data into selected Excellence Series files. ImportMate II prompts you for all the information it needs and checks to make sure that the data you are bringing in is valid.

18. INTERNATIONAL TRANSACTIONS™ - Record, track, and report multi-currency transactions involving international trading partners. Features include unrecognized gain/loss report, history of gain/loss report toggle display between natural currency and base currency (dollars)

19. INVENTORY CONTROL - Comprehensive line of modules for your inventory-related operations. Sophisticated Inventory Control includes tracking numbers (serial/lot/etc.), various costing methods, multi-location flexibility and many related capabilities to help you manage inventory levels and information. Purchasing features help you buy what you need, when you need it, and at the right price. You can track the assembly of items from inventory, returns to vendors and returns from customers. Sales options include Point of Sale, Order Entry (and related shipping processes) and Rentals. Plus, powerful management tools ensure that you always know where you stand in reaching your goals for profitability and service.

20. JOB COST- Completed contract or percentage complete; copy function to quickly duplicate a job; AIA Invoicing option; subcontractor retainage;  change order; overhead allocation; and up to four breakdowns such as phase and cost category.

21. ORDER ENTRY - Customize the keystrokes and security features per operator ; text and notes for the order ; special purchase, drop ship, and handle as surplus; backorder, substitute and cancel options; sell from multiple locations on an invoice.

22. PAYROLL - Distribute salary to multiple G/L accounts ; employee notes; added fields; pre-check authorization report; direct deposit; retirement, review, leave reports; 401-K, cafeteria plans, and garnishments.

23. POINT OF SALE - Numerous pricing options; serial, lot, or other tracking numbers; option to display suggested related items; allows miscellaneous add-on charges; calculates proper sales tax; any combination of cash, check, credit card, or on account payment; calculates change due; optional interface to electronic cash drawer.

24. PURCHASING - Suggested order quantity based on EOQ, movement class, quantity discounts, prior usage, min/max; safety stock - fixed or based on usage; option to “freeze” order controls for items; Info about out of stock situations; seasonal indicator and movement class generates POs for stock based on current item status and order controls replenishment, expedite, exceptions, review cycle, scheduled receipts, vendor performance, and other reports.

25. RENTAL DEPARTMENT - Ideal solution for the business that both rents and sells items; multi-location option, base rate for rental table, serial number tracking option, Cost/Value/Price info; other info such as bin location, turnaround requirements; rentals, sales, and service in single transaction; option to sell or exchange rental items; grace period, cutoff times and weekend pricing; security deposits. 

26. REPORTMATE™ - Access the data in any major file in SouthWare and produce a report. Relationships between files are already set up; test a field to be less than, greater than, equal to, not equal to, greater than or equal to, less than or equal to, or match on masking characters ; report formats include printer, screen, or file, HTML file, browser table, DIF, delimited, merge file, XML data, fixed-position or fixed-length text, a file to use with ImportMate, as ExecuMate II statistics; “WYSIWYG” entry lets you see and edit what the report will look like, up to 264 columns per line

27. RETURN AUTHORIZATIONS - Lets you manage your inventory in conjunction with items being returned from customers and items being returned to vendors; Tracks item/serial#/equipment info; estimated cost; return status info.

28. SALESMARK®  - Integrated contact management system 36 user-defined record types; multi-screens per record; up to 10 search fields per record; client data linked to A/R customer; territory masking; conversation records; hot keys; history of letters, literature; mailing lists and labels ; automatic phone dialing; data import to create prospect records from purchased databases; create selective call campaigns.

29. SALES PROCESSING -  Provides sales quotes, user friendly POS, order entry, order acknowledgements, credit card verification, special pricing, sales tax, commission calculation, partial or full invoicing that includes backorder capabilities,  and delivery scheduling.

30. SERVICE INVOICING - System for service businesses that handles credits, special orders, pricing adjustments, and payments on account credit limit checking; generate invoices from contracts, service orders, equipment service pricing.

31. SERVICE ORDERS  - Option for multiple service locations problem description, problem codes, estimates, comments, and actions taken, track dates and times for each step; option to service multiple equipment on one service order, multiple technicians per service order; display service orders to be dispatched along with a list of possible technicians; check technician skills, territory, priority.

32. SHIPPING INTERFACE - Send order-related information to and from a third-party shipping software package; interface to/from StarShip™ (by V-Technologies); interface to/from Clippership™ (distributed by Evcor); open interface can be utilized by other shipping software that supports ASCII file transfer/polling.

33. SOUTHWARE NETLINK™ - Provide partners controlled browser-based access via the Internet to review and update your business data. Valid requestor logins; security masking per requestor and request.

34. SOUTHWARE THIN CLIENT- Provides graphic interface via UNIX or LINUX servers. Faster and easier to set up and administer. Performs faster, even on slower computer workstations. Results in tighter security. Reduces network traffic.  Reduces total cost of the system.

35. SOUTHWARE WORKFLOW™ - Create customized program changes for your needs while remaining compatible with the standard version.

36. SWIFTMATE™ - SwiftMate is SouthWare's system manager module which allows users to configure menus, security, styles, hardware, etc. SwiftMate keeps track of who's logged into the system and what they are doing. It can send e-mails between users. SwiftMate enables you to program new features with Objects, Field-Level Objects, and Field Filters. You can also create "Zoom Views" to provide unique summaries of your data.

37. TASKWISE® - Combines the functions of task management, relationship management, exception management, and information sharing into a single company-wide system. Tracks contacts, opportunities, prospects, alerts, financial graphs, trends, tasks, etc.

 - END -

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