Business Management Software Add-Ons

There are certain add-ons that can add value to your business management software. We look at a few business management software add-ons below.

Email Clients: The ubiquitous email can become even more valuable if it is integrated with your business management software. For example, it can take email addresses from your customer database, vendor database and employee database. These databases are highly secure compared to the contacts list attached to your email programs (which can be hacked into and used to send virus-ridden emails to all your contacts).

There are other features that you might wish to see with your business email client, such as the ability to create templates for use by your employees, shared emails that go to different individuals in a department (so that a person who is currently free can attend to it) and controlling email settings to minimize virus attacks. Tailor made email add-ons to your business management program can provide such facilities.

You might also prefer to conduct mailing campaigns with your business email client that already has access to your business contacts, categorized suitably, instead of setting up everything using a standalone mass-mailing program.

Sales Order Processing: If you are still using your pre-Web sales order processing/invoicing systems, you might find things a bit awkward online. With a sales order processing add-on to your business management software, you can automate the tasks of partial fulfillment, back-ordering, order edits, etc.

For example, if the stock level is inadequate when an online order is received, the software will automatically display a message to the client asking whether the person wants to make it a back order or cancel it. If the buyer chooses back ordering, the order is automatically queued to be executed when stock becomes available. Where the client indicates in the order that only partial shipment is to be done for now, that instruction too can be automatically followed by the system by generating a partial shipment order to the warehouse.

Many such sales order processing specific functionalities can be built into an add-on making order execution more efficient and foolproof.

EFT: This is another high value business management software add-on. With electronic transfer facility, your customers can avoid late payment charges because funds will be automatically transferred from their bank or credit card account when payments are due. The customer will also save on the costs of preparing a check and sending it by mail to you.

You, the seller, will benefit from the speedier receipt of funds, and will also avoid check collection fees. Earlier receipt of funds also mean savings on interest costs.

The EFT facility is thus beneficial both to your customer and to you.

Shipping & Receiving: With this software add-on, you can automate much of the routines of shipping and receiving. The software interfaces with UPS or other courier software and expedite shipping transactions.

Some of the facilities that this add-on might offer include shipping barcode printing, multiple tracking codes for one invoice, generating an email with tracking number to be automatically mailed to the consignee, and a shipping charges calculator.

Business Management Software Add-ons: We have illustrated only a few of the possible add-ons that you can get. If you ignore the option of adding value through business management software add-ons, you will be foregoing the opportunity to save your costs significantly.