Softline Pastel R&D delivers universal customer advantage

As part of a strategic focus on continuous enhancement of the functionality of its popular SME accounting software, Softline Pastel has brought to market an intuitive drill-down feature.

This new feature provides click-of-a-button access to any information in an organisation's accounting database.

"Our new drill-down feature is important for our customers on two different but related levels," says Pastel managing director, Steven Cohen.

"The obvious one is that bookkeeping and accounting environments are data-intense, so any time saved looking for information is money in the bank when it comes to productivity and relevant decision-making.

"Statistics show that people spend about 30% of their time capturing data and 70% looking for it. The drill-down capability we've now built into our products reduces that 70% by an order of magnitude. What used to take hours, now takes only seconds.

"At a different level, the new drill-downs are important because they are something from which every single one of our customers can benefit.

"Very often, add-ons and new features enhance functionality for a portion of our customers rather than the entire customer base. That's partly because of the nature of accounting software - the basics work in all circumstances all the time and, for many users, there's therefore no compelling commercial reason to use additional functionality. Also, not every business needs, for instance, serial number tracking or customer relationship management or business intelligence capabilities. So while those kinds of add-ons are crucial to the organisations that need them, they don't have universal appeal for our customer base.

"Intuitive drill-downs, however, add value across the board. Adding that kind of value is a major focus for us, so the drill-downs are an excellent way for us to be able to deliver on it."

With more than 180 000 businesses in 52 countries running on Pastel products, the new drill-down feature represents collective efficiencies and therefore cost savings running into millions of rands.

"So, while the drill-downs offer direct and significant benefits to the individual organisations that use the functionality, they are also another way of going beyond accounting to impact positively on economies through the improved business capabilities our software confers on the organisations that use it," Cohen says.

Pastel's new drill-downs replace an older Pastel technology that limited data access to financial categories and customer or supplier accounts. The older version was also restricted to the current financial year. Now the ability to click on an item and see all its related data has become pervasive through all categories, all accounts, and all financial periods.

Existing Pastel Cover customers will receive this drill-down functionality at no additional cost in an upgrade CD delivered to them together with their latest issue of the Pastel Customer magazine.