The System Manager: The System Manager is the control centre for the entire Evolution application. It is the system's user interface. Featuring a System Tree, it controls the system environment and setup, on-line help, multi-level password security and displays all the modules included in Evolution.

With all of these features and much more, Evolution delivers enhanced efficiency, productivity and security to any business, including:

• A consistent user interface no matter which module you are currently using, i.e. Fixed Assets, Payroll, Accounting all share the same common interface and all appear as options on a single System Tree.
• Navigation tools such as menus, a hierarchical system tree, toolbars, and favorites.
• Powerful tools for maintaining, sorting, searching and grouping your lists of data.
• The ability to customize the interface (per user) to suit each user's requirements.

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Database System: Pastel Evolution takes advantage of the latest database technologies, utilising MS-SQL Server 2000 or Microsoft's Database Engine (MSDE). And while MS-SQL provides Evolution with the ability to scale support to an unlimited number of concurrent users, data integrity is ensured through the use of SQL's transaction roll-back feature. Pastel Evolution includes MSDE for 1 - 10 user sites. Larger sites will purchase MS-SQL Server on a per user basis.

Store Data Indefinitely: The General Ledger stores 3 years of data and requires no month or year-end procedures. Accounting periods can however be blocked, preventing transaction processing to those periods that have been closed. The Subsidiary Ledgers (Inventory, Receivables, Payables etc.) store information indefinitely.

Transaction Rollback: Data protection and integrity is significantly improved. This feature optimises data integrity by ensuring that users will never have incomplete entries or corrupt files, even if they suffer a power failure while a transaction is in process.

Supports Multiple Companies: The system can maintain multiple sets of books, each with its own chart of accounts. Access to companies and their related functions are password protected. Data can also be copied from one company to another, simplifying the company setup procedure.

Transaction Drill Downs: Drill down functionality allows you to find exactly what you're looking for, quickly. From summarized information, to detailed transactions, right down to source documents - just by clicking your mouse.

Advanced Security: Confidential accounting data, as well as controlling access to information is vital to any business. Pastel Evolution enables you to configure multi-level, menu-driven passwords and securities per individual user. You can also establish 'user groups', allowing the quick addition of new users into the system, with security access rules defined at the user group level. Once you assign a user to the group, the user takes on the access rules of that group.

Integrated with Microsoft® Office: (A seamless integration with MS Officemeans that you can e-mail any report, in any format (HTML, XML etc.) Data can also be exported to Word or Excel where you can perform your own complex data manipulations. This feature greatly complements Pastel's extensive range of management reports, available at the touch of a button. The Resolve module also integrates its e-mail management to Microsoft Outlook.

General Ledger: The general ledger is the heart of the financial function of your company. All processing you do eventually reflects in the General Ledger. No tedious month or year-ends, the system is date-driven, allowing you to post transactions to any period at any time providing peace of mind and flexibility. The General Ledger stores 3 years of data. Accounting periods can, however, be 'blocked', preventing transaction processing to those periods, which have been 'closed'.

Segmented General Ledger: Users will be provided with multi-dimensional views of financial information. In a Segmented General Ledger, each segment becomes a reporting dimension in its own right. If an account number is segmented into different sub levels such as accounts, branch, department and project, it is possible to extend financial reporting to include combinations of these different sub levels.

Cheque Printing: Cheques can be printed from within a Cashbook Batch. The cheque layout is fully customizable to accommodate requirements from different banks. User access level has also been added for the printing of cheques. Cheque numbering can be set up for different bank accounts.

Receivables and Payables: Have instant access to customer and supplier balances, overdue totals and sales/purchases history. Enjoy quick and easy confirmation of delivery requirements, selling prices, discounts and available customer credit. Drill-down features and reports are available when you need a more detailed analysis of customer/supplier transactions. Maintain unlimited addresses for each customer/supplier record.

Multiple Debtor And Creditor Control Accounts: More than one General Ledger control account can be created for either Receivables or Payables. In other words, the Groups feature in Receivables or Payables allows you to allocate a customer or supplier control account respectively, which will be automatically updated at the time of processing your transactions. For example, customers could be grouped against local or foreign customers, and each group could have its own control account which will be updated automatically.

Inventory Control: Evolution's powerful Inventory gives you unlimited control over your stock. The system provides both summary management reports as well as detailed operational reports, all customizable per user. You can extend Evolutions' power by combining the Inventory module with other related add-on modules:

• With Multi-Warehousing, you can create multiple warehouses or stores, and move items between these stores.
• Serial Number Tracking serializes individual inventory items and keeps track of them by their history. The system follows their purchase, internal movement in the company, sale and possible return for repair or refund.
• Bill of Materials allows you to manufacture or assemble items from components. The system takes the component materials out of stock and creates finished items ready for you to sell.
• All these add-on modules work together. For example, you can manufacture serialized items into warehouses.

Goods Received Voucher / Supplier Invoices Split : With this feature, you have the ability to receive and immediately update your stock based on a delivery note from your supplier, without having to update the supplier account until you have received the actual supplier invoice. This scenario will take place. For example, where stock might be delivered with a delivery note, and the supplier invoice will only be issued on a future date.

Import Cost Allocations: When you import goods, there are frequently additional costs that do not originate from the supplier. For example, you may be liable for shipping costs and/or import duties. This feature allows you to process these additional costs at the same time as the goods received voucher. The system will then calculate the cost of the items correctly. This feature avoids the inconvenience of having to process these additional costs later and then adjusting your costs manually.

Sales and Purchase Order Entry: Maintain and control outstanding orders, processed orders and back orders. This module is fully integrated into Evolution's Inventory, Receivables and Payables modules.

• Print and process purchase and sales orders, and then fill these orders in part or in whole, keeping track of outstanding orders.
• Reserve stock quantities for customers when they place an order. " Print picking slips and delivery notes.
• Capture purchase orders in the supplier's currency and the system converts the values into your currency at the exchange rate you specify.
• Create purchase orders automatically, using the re-order fields on the inventory records. " Create quotes and convert into sales orders once confirmed.
• Powerful reports help you manage outstanding and overdue orders.

Project Tracking: This module allows you to 'tag' transactions (either income or expense) to particular projects. Reports can then be filtered showing those items specifically related to the project you are wanting to control, extending so far as to reflect a profit or loss report by project.

Contact Management: Any issue that takes place in a business, and is important enough to be tracked, is recorded as an Incident. Resolve will track these incidents to their conclusion - or until they are closed off. Evolution still stores incidents even after they have been closed, allowing you to track a history of events as they occurred, as far back as you wish. You can track all contact with your customers and suppliers, having access to information about the history of their Incidents as well as monitoring any other pending activities within your business. Using this information, you can track all the sales and support activities associated with a customer who initiated these activities, and the agent or agent group who dealt with the customer. Resolve Lite is standard with Evolution. However, you can upgrade to more powerful functionality by installing the Resolve add-on module.

Graphs: You have the ability to view General Ledger accounts in a graphical format to compare, for example, the account movements over a period of three financialyears. Additionally, graphs have been added to allow you to compare Sales vs Purchases in the Orders module.

Evolution Report Writer and Stationery Customization: The Report Writer module allows you to customize standard reports per user as well as stationery layouts per user. It integrates into every module in the Evolution system. You can change layouts, add and remove fields, and perform additional calculations or subtotals. You can even write your own SQL script for advanced functionality. The system includes a tutorial programme that will guide you through the process of report writing.

Add-on Modules

Sage Pastel Evolution Grows with your Business: The utilization of the MS-SQL database makes Pastel Evolution scalable, supporting an unlimited number of concurrent users. In addition, the growth of your business may demand the ability to add new functionality to your accounting system. By using Pastel Evolution as the core engine, you can add specialized modules to cater for industry-specific requirements. Developed within the Evolution FrameworkT, these add-on modules offer complete integration with the core system, as well as a common interface and user experience. Furthermore, all components within the Evolution FrameworkT utilize a MS-SQL database ensuring that all your business data resides in one central database.

Evolution Resolve: Evolution's standard functionality includes Resolve Lite. However, to maximize this module's potential, Resolve includes the following added functionality:

Escalations: One of the most compelling reasons to use Contact Management is its ability to ensure that Incidents are dealt with in acceptable time frames. Taking too long to respond to a customer complaint (or Incident) could be damaging to your company. Escalations allow you to design a flow of responsibility for various Incident types that is automatically triggered after a specified time.

Calendar: The calendar feature in the Resolve module allows for the linking of Incidents to a particular appointment in your calendar making it easier to prepare for meetings. Schedules for other users can also be viewed when scheduling an event to avoid conflict in appointments.

Knowledge Base: The knowledge base lets employees create topics. In these topics, they can share information about support, sales, or any other issues. In addition, employees can link documents from the document list into knowledge base articles. The articles can also be linked to Incidents and, if you e-mail Incidents, you can optionally include the knowledge base articles in the e-mail, either in the text or as an attachment.

Contract Invoicing: This feature allows controlled invoicing against customers that have contracts in place and services that are rendered on the basis of a valid contract. Contracts are created within a specific time period and on a particular charge basis, which is automatically invoiced out against the customer from directly within the contact management module. Resolve can be purchased as a stand-alone product.

Incident Graphs View Incidents graphically (bar charts) per user, per Incident type, per Incident status and so on. Graphical representations of Incident information gives a birds-eye view of your business activities - perfect for management. You can even drill-down by clicking on a particular area of the chart to see the underlying detail making up the chart.

Evolution Fixed Assets: With features like an unlimited number of assets and multiple forms of depreciation, Evolution Fixed Assets helps you to control your fixed assets easily, affordably and reliably. The different methods of depreciation include straight line, reducing balance, immediate write off, units of usage, plant & machinery and equal allowance.

Other key features include:

• Track unlimited number of Fixed Assets by cost centres or departments
• Multiple Asset Types
• Capex Budgets and Orders

Pastel Evolution Fixed Assets can be used in conjunction with the core Evolution system or can be purchased as a stand-alone product.

Evolution Annuity Billing: Integrating to both Receivables and Inventory, this module provides for repetitive or recurring invoices on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Specify contract periods, design recurring invoice templates or simply setup base amounts to be charged to customers periodically. Annuity Billing is another flexible module that provides you with the ability to customize the application to fit the specific requirements of your business.

Evolution Serial Number Tracking : Integrating with Evolution's Inventory Module, Serial Number Tracking keeps detailed information on specific inventory items. From purchase to sale, to returns, each item is tracked uniquely providing absolute control over serialized inventory items. Sometimes you may need to track items individually. For example, if you sell items that have warranties, you need to know when you sold the item, and to whom you sold the item, so you know whether it is under warranty. A Serial Number Listing report shows the current location of serial numbered items. For each serial number, the report shows the item code and description, the date of its last movement, the current general location in stock, the customer it was sold to, and so on. A Serial Number Transactions report shows all transactions for a serial number. Reflecting one transaction per line, each line shows the serial number, item code and description, transaction date and reference, the customer/supplier account code and its originating module.

Evolution Job Costing: Allocate costs and measure the profitability of short to medium term jobs. Enjoy an unlimited number of job cards and the ability to archive these for future estimates. Track labour costs from payroll time sheets in Pastel Evolution Payroll and calculate transactions on a rate, lump sum or percentage basis.

Evolution Bill Of Materials: 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 complet manufactured before they are sold or you can simply invoice the completed item and Evolution will manufacture the item on-the-fly, whereupon the sub-components will be drawn from stock. Additional features include the ability to update inventory files during the manufacturing process and forward planning with the Material Requirements feature.

Alternative Units Of Measure : This feature is particularly useful when dealing in different units of measure. For example, you are now able to break down items in case lots to smaller units automatically when receiving goods. This feature works in conjunction with the Bill of Materials module.

Evolution Multi-Warehousing: The Multi-Warehouse add-on module allows you to split your inventory items into 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.

Evolution Point-Of-Sale: This module integrates with Inventory as well as Receivables, perfectly addressing the practical issues within the retail or Point-of-Sale environment. Functionality includes security parameters, tender types (cash, voucher, credit card or Cheque), flexible pricing and discounting. This module supports peripheral devices such as pole customer display units, cash drawers, slip printers and a bar code scanner. Evolution Point-of-Sale is user friendly and offers flexibility by allowing for per till configuration and has powerful reporting features.

Evolution Pricing Matrix: This module adds great flexibility to Evolution's standard pricing feature. Establish volume-based or time-based price breaks and much more. Discounts can also be specified by customer or group of customers. Design unlimited discount variations, such as multiple discounts per customer per stock item, discounts per stock group and the ability to override discounts on processing invoices.

Evolution Customer Account Consolidations: Integrating with Receivables, this module allows for the separate invoicing of branches, but with the added functionality of printing one customer statement at a consolidated head-office level. This is particularly useful when you wish to keep track of a 'group customer with head office' situation where you need to capture sales made to the individual branches, but then present a consolidated statement to your customer's head office.

Evolution Customer Credit Risk Management: Integrating with Receivables, Customer Credit Risk Management helps you manage your customer credit risk through a step-by-step process. A credit application is completed to assess a potential customer's credit-worthiness before the granting of credit. This module generates credit applications and runs the data through a scoring system. A passing score will see a new account opened. A failing score will request guarantees or security against granting credit.

The module will also generate standard legal documentation based on the type of business you are running. 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.

Sage Pastel e-Business The Internet has fast become a necessary extension to the traditional manner in which business is conducted. Evolution's E-Business module enables you to quickly and easily open an online web store. Set up seamless integration between your online store and Pastel. For example you draw product and price information for the online store and orders can be automatically downloaded into Pastel and processed. Fully integrated with Pastel Evolution, E-Business provides:

• Full E-Business integration - seamlessly draw customer, product, pricing information from Evolution directly into your website enabling you to merchandise and sell products online.
• Full order integration - orders automatically flow back from your E-Business web store into Pastel Evolution.
• Offline set-up; no IT knowledge required.

Pastel E-Billing: View detailed customer statements, with a drill down into source transactions over the Internet. The benefits include:

• 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.

Sage Pastel Peace of Mind: The Sage Pastel range of products - Pastel Xpress, Pastel Partner and Pastel Evolution - ensures that, from start-up to medium size enterprises, through to large operations, your business software will sustain and support continued growth. You can be confident in the knowledge that your business growth will never be hampered by your accounting system. Powerful and flexible, Sage Pastel's feature-rich applications are suitable for a broad range of industries. Furthermore, Sage Pastel is committed to ensuring that you get the very best out of our software. That's why we continuously invest in improving our comprehensive service and support infrastructure. Sage Pastel's years of experience, in-depth knowledge of the accounting software industry and commitment to ongoing investment in Research and Development, delivers complete peace of mind. It's for this reason that over 1 60,000 businesses around the world rely on Sage Pastel to help them keep running efficiently.

Annual Renewal: Sage Pastel Evolution Accounting and all modules within the Evolution range are subject to an annual renewal fee. This business model provides customers with a number of important benefits including: updates and upgrades, first line telephonic support and e-mail support. The compulsory annual renewal is payable on the anniversary date of registration of the application and Pastel Evolution will automatically provide you with advanced notification.

The accounting system forms the financial heart of your business and, accordingly, becomes a central repository of key information that you rely on to run your business on a day-to-day basis. The mission critical role of these systems requires a comprehensive service and support infrastructure, and ongoing investment in research and development. The concept of a compulsory annual renewal fee is similar to insurance. It gives you peace of mind that you always have the back-up service, support and expertise you need.

This concept appeals to mature businesses that consider Sage Pastel Evolution a crucial element to the efficient and competitive running of their business.

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