Dataflow - Purchase Ledger

Supplier Details

dataflow gives you a flexible account code structure, with alterations possible at any time. Detailed supplier information can be held, including Factoring Agency, unlimited numbers of addresses and contacts, along with up to three user-definable supplier profiles for analysis purposes.

Multiple creditors accounts can be held in the Nominal Ledger, and the individual purchase ledger accounts can be linked to the relevant control account. This provides an effective way of handling sub-ledgers and also, for instance, the control of factored and currency creditors.

The ledger retains all historical transactions, with the ability to filter outstanding transactions or view transactions in a specific period.

Supplier Invoice Entry

Keeping alert to when invoices are due and on what terms is essential for managing your cash flow effectively. Purchase Ledger can help you organise payment of invoices efficiently.

The screen design and operation provide easy to use entry procedures, with full support for nominal coding and Cost Centre allocation. There are keyboard shortcuts and automatic tab-handling to provide fast data entry. Additionally, batch control is maintained over update of invoice and credit note entries.

Purchase invoices recorded directly through the Purchase Ledger can be automatically assigned reference numbers, or a reference can be entered manually. You can review and edit open items via authorisation tracking facilities. VAT handling and multi currency support are included as standard.

Import Facility

The import facilities in this ledger allow multi-line invoices and credit notes (with Cost Centre analysis) to be brought into the system from flat files or dragged from Excel. All aspects of this process, from which users are allowed to import transactions to see whether errors can be amended before update, are controlled by security parameters.

The Purchase Ledger module keeps you fully posted on the status of suppliers' accounts with you. Credit terms can be set to automatically calculate the due date on individual invoice entries to ensure that you make the most of any prompt payment discounts offered.

All transaction entries are automatically posted to the dataflow Nominal Ledger, ensuring that the Creditors Control account always matches the Purchase Ledger.

Payment Processing

Purchase Ledger contains many automated facilities to reduce administration and smooth your cash flow.

Use the payment options you prefer: BACS processing, automated cheque production or manual payment. Payments can be made direct to the required factoring agency.

All payments are passed automatically through to bank reconciliation in the Nominal Ledger.

dataflow Purchase Ledger supports manual or automatic allocation of payments with the ability to reverse allocations with automatic generation of Nominal Ledger journal entries (and cost centre allocation where appropriate); for write-offs, settlement discounts and exchange gains and losses.

Ageing Analysis

Age analysis is available by both document date and due date with user-definable ageing bands. Graphical presentation options for individual accounts show performance on a discrete or cumulative basis. A point-and-click option shows a complete age analysis on screen. Shortcut menu options quickly and easily display transactions and any associated credit notes.

Error Correction

The Purchase Ledger includes features that allow posting errors in transaction details and values to be corrected without clogging up account records or remittance advice with untidy reversal entries. At the same time the Purchase Ledger records a full audit trail of this activity.

Powerful Visual Enquiries

Simple point-and-click procedures give you fast access to information from any point in history. Shortcut menu options provide quick and easy display of all transactions held on a given account.

Reporting and Analysis

Accurate, in-depth management reports are an essential tool in managing your purchasing function. Purchase Ledger provides an easy, but powerful, method of extracting specific ranges of information and presenting it as readily understood graphics and spreadsheets. It makes time wasting re-keying a thing of the past.

dataflow incorporates extensive reporting filters on standard reports, with full support for multi company and currency information. To aid reconciliation, reports can be reproduced to show the actual position at a specified time in history.

The ability to produce purchase analysis at both a detail and summary level with powerful selection criteria gives you a powerful marketing tool with which you can exploit your accounting data.

Compliancy with EC reporting requirements - ESL and Intrastat reports are all available as standard.

Additionally, the dataflow Raw Data Access module gives you the capability of extracting raw data from the Purchase Ledger.

Report Messenger provides both accounts and non-accounts users with up-to-the-minute information automatically distributed directly to their Windows desktop. The information can be distributed by placing it in a central location, directly e-mailing it to the user or placing it on a website for access across the Internet or Intranet.

Repetitive reports can be quickly reproduced with the batched reports feature. A report suite may comprise different reports and many versions of the same report.

Security and Control

You need to be able to trust your Purchase Ledger system implicitly to give you a true picture of the purchase side of your business activity. Some of the features dataflow gives you include transaction rollback in the event of systems problems, security at individual supplier account level and period end processing independent of other modules.

Built-in e-mail Technology

Dataflow's built-in e-mail technology gives you instant communication and offers a flexible alternative to the traditional approach of printing and posting documents such as Remittance Advice Notes.

This feature will give you considerable savings on postage, stationery and administration, and will improve credit management efficiency with a safe, secure and reliable delivery system. Standard reports can be e-mailed from the print preview window to appropriate users and non-users.

Document Storage

dataflow includes the ability to attach any number of documents to Purchase accounts and transactions posted, e.g. contracts, original goods received notes or purchase invoices, etc. Documents in any format - Word, Excel, scanned images etc. - can be attached. These can then be viewed from the comprehensive dataflow enquiry screens, including those reached by drill-down and across.

Links to documents attached to orders, delivery notes and invoices are transferred through to the transactions posted to the Purchase Ledger, including those where an invoice may be the result of a number of orders or receipt notes. This allows you to view all the original documents that have resulted in an invoice from one simple transaction enquiry screen, instead of having to scour many different screens searching for the relevant transactions.