Pastel - The Smart Option

The latest release of the highly acclaimed and award-winning Pastel range of e-commerce enabled accounting software. A Perfect combination of power, innovation, flexibility, fast processing and ease-of-use makes Pastel the ideal solution for any type of small to medium sized business. Pastel's optional modules allow for unparalleled scalability, making additional functionality available as and when you need it. 

Unlimited Possibilities

Accounting isn’t just about getting the numbers right.  It’s about what you’re able to do with those numbers.  With Pastel Accounting, it goes way beyond the norm.  Pastel is the leading global developer of accounting, payroll and related software, offering a comprehensive range of solutions for all types of small and medium sized businesses.  With over 150,000 users worldwide, Pastel is available in a number of languages, with further translations underway.

But perhaps the real attraction is that, as your business grows and begins to demand more sophisticated systems, Pastel Accounting will allow you to add new modules with seamless integration.  There are simply no boundaries. Realise the true potential of your business today, with the accounting solution that goes way beyond accounting.

Pastel Accounting Version 6 is Multi Everything

Multi-Company

Create and work in as many companies as you require. Consolidate multiple companies into a single company.

Multi-Store

Pastel allows you to set up and use multiple stores.  Multiple stores enable you to control stock movements and quantities on hand through warehouses or stores that may be in different locations.  Multiple stores can be used in many different ways.  Two of the most common are:

Warehouses:  You may have a business with separate physical warehouses.  If you are running multiple branches, situated in different cities, each branch could then have its own warehouse.  Pastel allows you to transfer items between these stores.

Manufacturing:  If you manufacture goods, you may wish to split the process into different stores.  For example, you could have a store for raw materials, another for work in progress, and another for finished goods.  Pastel allows you to transfer items between these stores as they proceed through the manufacturing process.

Multi-Period

Pastel allows you to optionally enter data into any period, even outside of the financial year you are currently in.

Multi-Currency

Pastel has multi-currency processing.  Define a currency for each customer, supplier and bank account.  Pastel is fully euro compliant and supports European Union processing.  Available with the optional Multi-Currency module.

Multi-Lingual

Pastel is available in a number of languages. 

Multi-User

Up to 20 users can work on the same company’s data simultaneously.  Available with the optional Multi-User module.

Pastel is Powerful

• Multi-currency Create up to 30 currencies in addition to your home currency. Define a currency for each customer, supplier and bank account. Report both in home and foreign currencies. Process revaluations which automatically update an exchange rate variance account.
• Reports Output reports to screen, printer, word processing file, spreadsheet file, HTML file, or to an e-mail address.
• Tax With users in over 40 countries and on every continent, Pastel’s powerful tax engine caters for the vast majority of tax systems in the world. A customisable tax report makes completing and submitting the tax return form a simple process.
• Multi-period Post to any period at any time, this year or last year (can be password controlled).
• Multi-level Passwords You have complete control as to what each user can access on the system.
• Data Integrity Full transaction rollback ensures the integrity of your data in the event of a power failure while processing. Operating system independent Zip compression backup compresses your data by up to 90% and automatically tests your backups and prints backup logs. For data corruptions, the Data Integrity Assistant uses data redundancy built into Pastel’s file structures to repair most situations automatically.
• Export / Import Masterfile and transaction imports and exports are a standard feature in Pastel. In addition, you can access data via ODBC or the Pastel Developer’s Toolkit. The Pastel Developer’s Toolkit lets you read from and write to all of Pastel’s data files. You can also import your bank statement for automatic reconciliation.
• Drill Down Multi-level drill down from balance sheet or income statement to original transactions.
• Control Centre This powerful management tool lets you monitor key activity such as cash balances, item quantities, etc. Monitor critical items by displaying a message or sending an e-mail when a value is above or below a critical level.
• Financial Ratios Use Financial Ratios to analyse key areas in your business.
• Graphs Analyse your sales, purchases, expenses, and inventory with attractive, colourful, customisable graphs. View graphs on screen, or print them to a printer. Choose between pie, doughnut, line area or bar graphs, and display in 2D or 3D format.

Pastel is Flexible

• Inventory Physical and service items. Exclude individual items from early payment or invoice discounts. Barcode processing and barcode label printing. Set number of decimals for quantity, cost and selling prices. Attach notes and pictures to individual inventory items.
• Customers Monthly or day-based terms, default discounts, multiple delivery addresses, email customer documents, user-defined fields.
• Selling prices Three standard price lists and date-sensitive special prices, volume-based discount percentage matrices per customer category and inventory group, volume-based price lists per customer per inventory item with expiry dates, global price adjustments and rounding.
• Access control Each user has an access profile which controls what they are allowed to do.
• No month-end Process in any period at any time (controlled per user)
• Customise Reports Easily create customised financial reports with Pastel’s Report Writer Assistant. You can of course also use the standard built-in financial reports.
• Customise Currency Formats Define the symbol and number of decimals for each currency, including your home currency.
• Customise Forms Use Pastel’s powerful, easy-to-use drag-and-drop Forms Designer to customise or design your own invoices, statements, labels, cheques and tax return forms. You can include your company logo, add barcodes to inventory labels, draw boxes, add text or database fields and align and space fields.
• Customise Graphs Resize, reposition and rotate graphs to view from any angle. Customise your graphs using your choice of colours and shading options.

Fast Processing

• Customisable Data Input Screens Define the order of the input columns and hide columns that you do not
  need – this speeds up data entry.
• Toolbar Common processing options can be directly accessed via an icon bar which has been designed to let users get to almost any processing screen with two mouse clicks.
• Repeating and Incrementing Fields You can set fields to repeat or increment, thereby minimising the number of keystrokes.
• Auto contras Pastel enables you to set up default contra accounts for different journals. Pastel then automatically generates your contra entries. This greatly reduces data entry.
• Recurring / Postdated Entries Set up recurring and postdated transactions and use Pastel’s Recurring / Postdated Assistant to automatically post these at the correct time.

So Many Features

Pastel has many features that you would only expect in a package many times the price. Cost codes, multiple delivery addresses, volume based price discount matrices, multi-currency, and more...

Process an unlimited number of companies. All the reports you will ever need are readily available: Trial Balance, Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Detailed Ledger, Cashbook, Customer Balances, Age Analysis, Overdue Accounts, Sales Analysis Reports, Supplier Balances, Remittance Advices and Currency Variance - to name just a few. Reports scroll sideways as well as up and down. Define your own fonts. Email the reports, print to screen, printer or export directly into spreadsheets, word processors, or HTML in their native formats. Print reports in landscape (sideways) or portrait (normal).

Use the built-in note utility to record all contacts, notes and reminders. Notes are linked to masterfile records such as customers, suppliers, inventory items, sales reps and bills of materials. Notes can contain a link to external files associated with word processors and spreadsheets. Accessing a linked note opens the application and loads the file into it. Assign a status and action date to each note and print a ‘to do list’ based on the action date.

Pastel supports multiple tax rates. You can customise tax processing for your country, and you can design your tax report to match the totals required on the tax return form.

A powerful and flexible Budget Assistant (wizard) enables you to generate this year and next year budgets and to report on actual-to-budget variances.

Pastel has a powerful Reorder Assistant that, with minimum and maximum stock levels in your inventory items, will automatically create a list of items that need to be ordered. You can optionally change quantities and/or recommended suppliers and Pastel will automatically create purchase orders. (Available with the optional Inventory module).

With Pastel's Bill of Materials  module you can create bills of materials (recipes) with an unlimited number of components. Use three additional user-defined costs such as labour, overheads and buyouts. When you manufacture, Pastel automatically removes component items and creates manufactured items. You can also unmanufacture if you need to. Link multiple inventory items to a linked code (kit) and Pastel automatically invoices its inventory items. Use linked codes for containers, kits, supercessions, and extended inventory descriptions.

In Pastel's Point-of-Sale module you have a complete solution for retail businesses. Interface to slip printers, cash drawers and pole displays. Perform quick processing with ‘hot-keys’ for items you use frequently. Process payments with one keystroke when customers pay exact amounts. Determine whether fields such as credit card expiry dates are compulsory or not, based on minimum values. Comprehensive cash control and cash up procedures ensure you have complete control over cash, cheques, credit cards and vouchers received at the till point.

An Unparalleled Feature List at a Budget Price

Pastel provides excellent value-for-money. Below is a list of the different features found within each of Pastel Accounting’s modules:

General Ledger

• Unlimited number of sets of accounts for as many companies as you require. Consolidate any number of these at any time and produce consolidated reports.
• Trial Balance, Income Statement and Balance Sheet are standard reports. A Report Writer Assistant also allows you to write any customised reports based on general ledger values. Compute and print actual and percentage variances.
• Run up to 99 user-defined tax types to cater for existing tax rates as well as any future changes. A user-defined tax report ensures that filling in your tax return is easy. Tax validity dates ensure that tax types cannot be used when they are not applicable.
• Run up to 30 cashbooks / bank accounts per company, with full cash book reporting, including bank reconciliations.
• All cash book entries balance automatically to the relevant bank account. Preview the accounting entries from any transaction on the screen or printer before you post, to ensure that they are correct. Post in detail or in summary to the contra account. Print cheques in any format. Post one cheque to many accounts.
• Enter post-dated transactions and let Pastel’s Post-dated Assistant (wizard) determine when they become current and therefore need to be posted to the general ledger.
• You can also automate recurring entries with Pastel’s Recurring Assistant (wizard). Pastel will perform standard accounting on your command every month / quarter / year. Use this to easily account for regular payments (rent, electricity, provisional taxes, etc.) or other recurring transactions.
• Post to any period at any time, this year or last year (password controlled). There are no month-ends and the year-end procedure is performed with the help of a Year-end Assistant (wizard).
• All journal entries are automatically balanced by the system. Enter amounts as Inclusive / Exclusive or Debit / Credit. Preview the accounting entries from any transaction on the screen or printer before you post to ensure that they are correct. Post in detail or in summary to the contra account. All reports can be printed to screen. Control which types of accounts can be used per journal type and capture transactions by date or by period.
• Use General Ledger main and sub accounts to analyse any account or use this feature to report on costs per project, department, branch, cost centre, etc. Create accounts `on the fly'.
• Use Pastel’s Budget Assistant (wizard) to help you enter budgets per account per period. Generate future budgets by adjusting existing figures. Export budget figures to a spreadsheet and re-import them after your spreadsheet adjustments. Print actual to budget variance reports.
• Use Pastel’s in-built Financial Ratios to analyse key areas of your business.
• A Cash Movement Report shows you your net inflow / outflow of cash.
• Use graphs to analyse income and expenditure.

Customers (Debtors)

• Unlimited number of customer accounts. Add new accounts or modify account details while working in any transaction.
• Set up defaults to speed up new customer account creation. Create customer accounts `on the fly'.
• Multiple delivery addresses can be entered for each customer for invoicing branches with consolidated statements to the head office.
• Set up email addresses per customer, per delivery address. Email customer documents.
• Create up to five user-defined fields for each customer for additional information. You can optionally access these when you invoice, and print them on documents, including statements.
• Run customers in open-item for full reconciliation of all payments or credit notes against invoices, or balance forward for easy and quick processing. Suppress statement printing for any customer (e.g. cash customers).
• Set up customisable day-based payment terms (e.g. 7 day payment terms, 14 day payment terms, etc.). Aged messages can be set up to print on statements for credit control purposes (e.g. 30-day message, 60-day message, etc.) – The messages can also be suppressed, by customer.
• Produce an age analysis and overdue reports for credit control.
• Specify interest terms per customer and Pastel will calculate and post your interest journals. Suppress interest charging by customer. Vary interest rates at any time. Suppress trivial amounts of interest by specifying minimum interest charges.
• Specify overall invoice discounts (trade discounts) per customer. Specify one of three price lists per customer. Override / change any of this when invoicing (password controlled). Specify a discount matrix per customer category, per inventory group or customer specific prices, based on volume breaks.
• Attach an unlimited number of notes to each customer. Print these out for credit control or to track sales calls, etc.
• Print form letters to all or specific ranges of customers. Use this for mass mailing customers or to follow up on overdue accounts. Address labels can also be printed for the same range of customers.
• Design your own customer statements using Pastel's forms designer. Import your own company logo for professional looking statements.
• Use graphs to analyse sales trends.
• Use Pastel’s easy ‘drag and drop’ functionality to re-allocate payments to invoices.

Customer Invoicing

• Flexible document numbering. Choose between global document numbers and document numbers per user.
• Document names can be customised including the supporting document.
• Process quotations and sales orders. Link multiple quotations or sales orders to invoices. Link the entire document or part of it into the invoice automatically.
• Auto-create purchase orders directly from within customer documents.
• Auto-manufacture an item directly from within customer documents.
• Auto-create a back order for a customer if there is insufficient quantity to invoice.
• Quick-mode invoicing can be used to speed up processing. Capture or scan the item code or enter a ‘hot-key’ abbreviation and Pastel completes the entire line with defaults.
• Specify tax per item for defaulting at time of invoicing. Can be overridden.
• Email or print all customer documents. Print on plain or pre-printed, single sheet or continuous paper.
• Design your own invoices with your name, logo, etc., or modify the default formats.
• Modify an invoice after printing but before posting (password protected option) and re-print if necessary. Print multiple copies on laser printers.
• Credit control messages warn if credit limits are exceeded. Credit data displays on the screen. Block bad accounts and Pastel will allow no further invoicing on the account. Credit control reports allow follow-up of overdue accounts. Notes attached to customer records can be viewed at any time.
• Warning messages display if minimum gross profits are not achieved. Set invoicing line limits to check data capture.
• Show specific messages on any document (free format) - these have defaults but can also be edited when invoicing.
• Customer specific prices / volume based pricing. Create price matrices per customer category per inventory group or create customer specific prices per customer per inventory item, based on volumes. For foreign currency customers, enter prices in their currency.
• Invoice exclusive or inclusive of tax. Choose either method when invoicing or set up defaults per customer. Print tax amounts or percentages per line or suppress tax printing on lines.
• Give discounts on any single line of an invoice.
• Calculate and show settlement discount (early payment discount).
• Enter financial lines on an invoice - use this to invoice out charges direct to the general ledger (delivery, services, handling fees, agent's commission, etc.).
• Capture unlimited narration lines on an invoice - this can be entered line-by-line or in a ‘text window’ format, with automatic word-wrap facilities.
• Analyse sales by rep or area.
• Set up a commission structure for each salesperson with volume breaks. Print rep sales commission reports based on sales or gross profit.
• Enter one invoice and auto create it for all customers of a specified category. Use this for fee billing, invoices, subscriptions, etc.
• Create recurring invoices and auto-generate them once a month / quarter / year. Use this for easy invoicing of contracts (e.g. rents, levies, subscriptions etc.).
• Store all invoice history for as long as required. Look up invoice details for any customer, for any period. Optionally display gross profit.
• Inventory levels of items being invoiced always display on the screen. Add or modify inventory items at any time while invoicing (password controlled). Pastel will optionally warn you if the quantity of items on hand fall below their re-order level.
• Design your own customer invoices using Pastel’s forms designer. Import your own company logo for professional looking invoices.
• Put invoices on hold. Invoices on hold do not update until they are taken off hold.

Point-Of-Sale (Only available with the Pastel Point-Of-Sale module)

• Interface to cash drawers and pole displays. (Control the cash drawer with an operator password.)
• Receive payments by cash, cheque, credit card, or voucher at point of sale. Use more than one method at a time.
• Complete cash control. Pastel controls a theoretical value for each operator’s cash drawer. Process journals to move cash in and out of the cash drawer.
• Cash up procedures. Operators and supervisor have separate cash up procedures.
• Process COD (cash on delivery) invoices and receipts. Pastel tracks COD payments until receipt.
• Print invoices on standard printers or on slip printers.
• Do a quick enquiry on an inventory item (e.g. a price search).
• Process a cash sale to any customer account.
• Pay out amounts in cash to customers (EFTPOS).
• Set up users to go directly to point of sale processing, on opening a set of accounts.
• Restrict user to only use point-of-sale functions.
• Suspend a sale by putting an invoice on hold.
• Specify compulsory data entry fields per payment type. You can specify that the information is always required, never required, or is required when the payment value is over a specified amount.

Suppliers (Creditors)

• Unlimited number of supplier accounts. Create new accounts `on the fly’.
• Set up email addresses per supplier. Email purchase orders to suppliers.
• Run suppliers in open-item for full reconciliation of all payments, credit notes, etc. against invoices or balance forward. Use age analysis reports to determine payments to be made. Print cheques for supplier payments.
• Set up customisable day-based payment terms (e.g. 7 day payment terms, 14 day payment terms, etc.).
• Block suppliers from whom you no longer wish to buy.
• Print labels for suppliers for mailing.
• Attach an unlimited number of notes to supplier accounts. Use this to store contract details or any extra supplier information.
• Link inventory items to preferred suppliers.
• Use graphs to analyse purchases.

Supplier Document Processing

• Email and / or print purchase orders.
• Capture supplier documents inclusive or exclusive of tax.
• Capture goods received notes when the goods arrive to update stock levels without updating the supplier until you receive the supplier invoice. Print outstanding purchase orders and goods received notes.
• Link multiple purchase orders or goods received notes to a supplier invoice. Link the entire document or part of it into the supplier invoice automatically.
• Auto-create purchase orders directly from within customer documents.
• Create new inventory items `on the fly' with cost and selling prices. Modify inventory item details `on the fly'.
• Optional warning messages display if you are purchasing from a non-preferred supplier, or if the supplier has charged a price in excess of the last unit price plus a definable mark-up.
• Change inventory item selling prices at the time of capturing goods received notes and supplier invoices to ensure that cost increases are accounted for.
• Enter financial lines for any invoice - use this to capture charges direct to the general ledger (delivery charges, services rendered, handling fees, duty, etc.).
• Facility to purchase linked codes and service items.
• Costs are continually updated (weighted moving average) based on latest purchases. Full integration performs general ledger accounting entries for all inventory purchased.
• Purchase history is tracked for as long as you decide - this includes narrative and financial lines.
• Design your own supplier documents using Pastel's forms designer. Import your own company logo for professional looking purchase orders, etc.
• Print inventory labels for a range of goods received notes.

Inventory (Stock) (Only available with the Pastel Commercials module)

• Import inventory master file information. This can be used for take-on, and also to update selected selling prices.
• Unlimited inventory items.
• Identify each inventory item by means of a picture.
• Enter barcodes for individual inventory items. When you invoice, you can use the barcode instead of the item code. Print barcode labels.
• Inventory item descriptions can be modified while invoicing or can be locked to prevent operators changing them.
• Enter bin numbers for easy location of stock items in store. Print reports in bin number sequence.
• Capture default tax rates per item (caters for multiple tax rates, exempt / zero-rated items, etc.). Globally change inventory item tax rates for rate increases / decreases.
• Facility to change inventory item codes.
• Specify inventory items as service items to override quantity accounting but still use default prices, tax types, etc.
• Block inventory items that are no longer in use.
• Specify whether or not an item can be discounted.
• Specify whether quantity and unit should display on the invoice for an item.
• Specify re-order levels and maximum levels. Pastel will print re-order reports with suggested order quantities with cross-reference to supplier / supplier part number.
• Optional low quantity warning while processing. This option will warn you if the quantity of items on hand fall below their re-order level.
• Optionally allow "negative quantities" of inventory. Optional warnings indicate if inventory items go into negatives.
• Calculate selling prices based on cost prices plus mark-up. Mark-up can be based on either average or last unit cost.
• Have up to three price lists with user-definable names (e.g. local price / export price, or retailer / wholesaler / dealer, etc.). Set defaults per customer as to which price list applies. Print price lists inclusive or exclusive for single or all lists. Print labels for items.
• Specify a Special Price with a start and end date. Pastel uses this price instead of the normal price list prices when it applies.
• Set up customer specific prices with expiry dates, per customer, per inventory item, based on volume breaks.
• Set up discount matrices per customer category per inventory group with volume breaks.
• The Selling Price Adjustment Assistant (wizard) allows price list adjustments based on mark-up or mark down on the current price, or another price list, or mark up on average cost or last cost. You can also make prices end in a specific number (e.g. 9.99, 19.99, 29.99, etc.), or ‘round to the nearest’, e.g. 0.05.
• Prepare new prices in advance and run a simple price change-over procedure when in effect. Run this procedure again to restore the old prices.
• Export your price lists or inventory listings to your word processor or desktop publishing (DTP) program.
• Use the Inventory Count Assistant (wizard) to perform a full inventory count procedure. Print inventory count sheets. Import inventory quantities. Print inventory count variance reports. Update variances between actual and theoretical inventory automatically. Variance accounts in the ledger are automatically updated.
• Differentiate your inventory with up to 999 inventory groups for detailed analysis of inventory-on-hand, sales, cost of sales, and adjustment accounts. All invoicing options integrate to general ledger and post inventory purchase, sale and cost of sale entries, as well as accounting for all tax. Inventory journals perform quantity or cost adjustments with full general ledger integration to any ledger account - use this for internal use of inventory items.
• Inventory valuation reports display at moving average (actual) cost or last cost (e.g. for calculating replacement value for insurance purposes).
• Define number of decimals (0 to 4) individually for quantities, cost prices and selling prices.
• Print specific reports to identify slow-moving inventory items.
• Use graphs to analyse inventory.

Manufacturing (Only available with the Bill of Materials module)

• Create bills of material. Specify which components you require to manufacture an item, and how many of each item. Specify additional costs for items such as labour, overheads, and buyouts. Pastel calculates the cost of the manufactured item for you.
• Determine the selling price on a cost plus mark-up basis, or use the selling prices of the components.
• Manufacture from components according to the bill of material. Pastel removes the component items (raw materials) from inventory and the manufactured items are added into inventory.
• Unmanufacture a manufactured item. Pastel reverses all the entries.
• Sell component items as normal inventory items.
• Invoice manufactured items as normal inventory items.
• Material requirements planning. Produce reports of projected production and raw materials requirements.
• Linked codes. Specify a list of linked items with a linked code when you invoice. Pastel issues each component or linked item, and displays it individually on the invoice. Use this for the sale of kits, for selling items with containers, for items which replace or supersede other items, for treatment codes in the medical profession, or any other uses.
• Linked codes can have remarks and these also transfer onto the invoice. Use this for extended inventory descriptions.

Reporting

• Output reports to screen, printer, word processing file, spreadsheet file, HTML file, or to an email address.
• Perform enquiries directly from any zoom screen.
• Perform drill-down enquiries - for example, you can click on a customer's balance to see the transactions which make up the balance, and you can then click on a transaction and see the source document with individual document lines.
• Use any size and type of font. You can preview reports on screen, and you can scroll up, down, left and right when viewing reports on screen.
• The powerful financial report writer enables the creation of customised financial reports.
• All general ledger reports can be produced in home currency or foreign currency.
• Use Pastel’s in-built Financial Ratios to analyse key areas of your business.
• A Cash Movement Report shows you your net inflow / outflow of cash.
• Design your own layout for any document on screen with the drag-and-drop forms designer. For example, you can design different delivery note layouts to accompany different invoice layouts.

Multi-user Version (Requires the Pastel Multi-User module)

• Upgrade to a multi-user version at any time by purchasing a multi-user module.
• Password access control. Define exactly which processing functions / accounting areas each user may access.
• Up to 20 concurrent users at any one time

Graphs

• Analyse your sales, purchases, expenses, and inventory using Pastel's extensive graphing facility.
• Produce bar, line, area, pie, and doughnut graphs.
• Choose between 2-D and 3-D views. With 3-D graphs, you can orientate the graph in 3-D space.
• Customise your graphs by resizing, rotating, and repositioning them to view from any angle. Reposition graphs, headings, and legends independently of each other.
• Customise graphs in your choice of colours and / or shading options. Choose from a variety of colours or create your own colours. Set the background to be either a selected single colour, or a series of fill colours.

Windows Functionality

• Multiple windows may be kept open simultaneously.
• An icon button bar and hot-keys speed up processing.
• Pop-up calculator with easy transferring of answers into your current field.

Protect Your Data

• Full rollback in the event of a power failure.
• Built-in operating system independent ZIP backup.

CD-ROM, Monitor 256 colours recommended, Printer Any, with Windows driver, Pentium I Processor (minimum), Memory 64 Mb RAM, Free disk space prior to installation 40 Mb, Free disk space required during installation 20 Mb (after installation)

Software specifications
Microsoft Windows '9x or Windows NT, Internet Explorer 4.0 (minimum), MS Office 2000 needed for Office Integration

Additional requirements for Point of Sale Specifications
Slip Printer Generic text, Pole Display, Till Drawer