New Features Coming In SAFE 5.0!
Simple Accounting for Forms Experts version 5.0 will be release January 23, 2002. We have a raft of changes, designed to to allow you to sell in more ways, easier than ever. What's new is both under the hood and in the styling. Here is just a sample:

Automated Assemblies!	You can now automatically create Assemblies (a.k.a. Kits/Bills of Material) which consist of multiple component line items. The Assembly can then be used as a single line item on a Sales Order. Best of all? You can post separate A/P Bills to each component which maintains the correct overall profitability of the line on the sales order line item!
A/P Posting Within Sales Orders!	You can now control and view all postings to A/P directly from inside a Sales Order! Yippee! No more bouncing back and forth between Sales Orders and the Bills Browse to see which costs were posted to an order! The same applies to Purchase Orders for inventory. You will be able to receive in products and apply any number of costs to each line without leaving the Purchase Order screen.
User May Control Sales Order Line Item Numbering!	You can now change the order of Sales Order lines at will. In other words, if you add a line item to a Sales Order, you can make it appear as the first line of the transaction.
Easier Mixed Units Of Issue!	Selecting alternate package quantities has been made much easier. No more Unit/Lot/Package Quantity. You will be able to 'purchase by the thousand' and 'sell by the carton' and never have to worry about selecting the proper buttons or Units of Measure on Sales Orders and P.O.s. This will make the entire process 100% fool-proof, once and for all.
Complete Windows XP Certification!	We will have completed Windows XP certification from Microsoft. (Not that SAFE does not run under Window XP now, it's just that SAFE 5.0 has been tested and given the 'seal of approval' from Microsoft.) By the way, no other program in our industry can say that.
Payroll Import Extensions!	Eliminate tedious manual payroll entries by purchasing our Payroll Extensions for SAFE 5.0! Automatically import disk based reports from ADP and Paychex to your Check Register and General Ledger!
Built-In UPS and FedEx Tracking!	Right click on any line item to get detailed tracking information on any item shipped via UPS or FedEx! (Does not require external UPS or FedEx software.)
Improved Inventory Audit Trail!	You will now be able to view and manage, from a single Audit Trail, any Product's overall balance at all Sites, regardless of how many Site it is stored at.
Easier Cost Center Reporting!	Several Cost Center based forms management reports are now standard with SAFE. You can easily group releases and production orders together by Ship From or Ship To which makes reconciling inventory at each storage site easy.
One Click Shipping!	If the item you are releasing is shipping to a single Site, you can enter the Shipped Quantity and complete the line item with a single click!
Easier A/R Payments!	You can now automatically receive payments on all open invoices for a customer's check with one click (no need to enter separate line items for each invoice!) If the customer is on Summary Billing, you can automatically apply payment to all component invoices with one click! Of course, you still have complete control over editing individual lines if you need it, but for your smaller clients (who typically only have one or two open invoices at a time) or large customers on Summary Billing, this will save lots of time every day!

As always, SAFE 5.0 will be free to current Remote Support Subscription customers. Users of earlier versions of SAFE 4.2a may upgrade for $1,295. SAFE users who do not have a current Remote Support Subscription will also be required to purchase a new block at the prevailing rate.

But Wait, There's More!
There are many more features and improvements to SAFE, such as improvements to ThinSAFE and Ollie which we will be only too happy to impart to you, next time. Get all the details now at www.suntowersystems.com/whatnext.htm

Suntower Systems Closed Christmas Week!
Just a note that we will be officially closed Christmas week ( Saturday Dec 23rd through Tuesday January 1, 2002.) We will re-open for normal hours (7AM-5PM PST) on Wednesday January 2nd. For those of you who insist on continuing to work full tilt that week, two lumps of coal for your stocking, but fear not: for genuine dreaded emergencies we shall have people on stand by.

Deals, Deals, Deals!
Hey it's that special season of the year when it's only natural to be thinking about Deals! Deals! Deals! So these fine companies want you to know that they've got some great specials going on:

IBM Leasing: All leases written before 12/31/01 feature payments and interest deferred for four months. So you get 120 days before your first payment and no interest accrues during that time. Contact Pat Burke @ 800-624-3514 for complete details.

FaxBack: Our absolute favorite fax server system is having a 50% off sale on many of their products, including an extremely cool T1, DSL web fax server which turns your Internet connection into an essentially free way to send tons of faxes. If you wince every time you read your phone bill for faxing, this gizmo is for you. By sending faxes over the Internet you bypass long distance charges. Works great. Call us for more information, to order, or go to www.faxback.com/bf for a trial of their broadcast fax solution.

 

Ciaran's Corner: Merry Christmas!
First and foremost, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas. You may celebrate Chanukah or Kwanza or what have you, but the message is the same, right? Right then: go ahead and knock yourselves out over the holidays. You've earned it. It's been a tough year, all things considered.

Now regarding my promise not to pick on Microsoft anymore. I shall keep it. Of course, many of you did not receive our last issue the first time 'round simply because eight or nine of the largest ISPs were infected with yet another Outlook based virus! One last jab: Recall that agreement MS inked with the government a couple of weeks ago? Remember how MS was to give over one billion dollars in computer gear to schools? Nice guys, huh? OK, the complete text of the settlement came out this week and here's the rest of the story.' Of the one billion, only 375 million is for hardware. The remainder is for software, such as Windows and Office. Now the 625 million is Microsoft's retail value of said product. You know how much it actually will cost MS to crank out a few hundred thousand extra CDs? A million or two at most. And as far as the 375 million in hardware: Guess what? It can be used gear. Microsoft plans to donate their used gear, at their assessed value. They also state that many of these machines will be Windows 95 based. Now, if it was your kid, would you want him/her to have a Windows 95 PC when a brand new machine can be had for $800? These guys are shameless. Don't believe me? US News & World Report has good story on this in the current issue.

OK, to end the year on a pleasant note, here are some general suggestions for the coming year:
1. Pleeeeaase, get an e-mail account other than Yahoo or Hotmail or AOL! They cannott handle large attachments. They are huge security risks. The number of bouncebacks we get from these accounts is enormous. We are an e-business company. You should be too. Quality e-mail is intrinsic to that.

2. On the other hand, I am extremely gratified that so many of you have purchased broadband connectivity. If you haven't, make it a goal for next year. If you are located someplace where the tumbleweeds roll and believe that service is not available, do not necessarily believe it. Check with people other than your local phone company. There are choices, though they are sometimes tough to find. If you are stuck call us and we will research options for you.

3. On the call us theme, more and more we see our competitors advertise all manner of features and benefits of their wares which have existed in SAFE for many years. One of the most common questions we get is: I see that xxxx has a particular feature, when are you going to have something like that? My suggestion is to take some time to learn SAFE more thoroughly. There is a lot of depth to the program and most companies use perhaps a quarter of it's features (the same could be said for any large application such as Word or Excel.)

4. Taking that one step further, make this the year that you step up and provide us with suggestions on how to make SAFE work better for you. Every year I beg and beg for ideas and get back tangible thoughts from only a hand full of you. Yet, I know that you sense that SAFE could do more for you. I see on the DMIA discussions and in talking with distributors that there are needs that we can and should address. Let's do it!

5. Last but not least, bear in mind that we are your partners. We're not just vendors and you are definitely much more than customers to us.  We have a symbiotic relationship which requires both of us to work at it in order that we may both truly succeed. At least, that is how we view it. So if you would, over the next couple of weeks, please let me know how we can become closer in the coming year so that we can help you be even more successful in 2002.

'Til then,

---Ciaràn

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