Banking

Most small business owners want to maintain tight control in the important area of banking, while effectively monitoring their cash inflows and outflows. Microsoft® Great Plains Small Business Manager Banking features provide a straightforward, consistent approach to managing your bank transactions. The Banking tasks are the intersection for all bank-related activity throughout Small Business Manager. They seamlessly integrate all cash, check, and credit card transactions, track bank account balances, and automate the monthly process of reconciling these accounts.

Banking Tasks

Banking Tasks
At the heart of banking tasks for any small business are deposits and receipts, and reconciling these transactions with your bank statement. All bank-related information automatically flows into Banking tasks from other Small Business Manager tasks, so you only have to enter information once.

Deposits and receipts. Payments received from customers are recorded in Sales tasks, where they are applied to a customer’s invoice or balance. These receipts automatically flow to Bank Reconciliation, where you combine them on a deposit for the bank. Returns from Purchasing tasks also flow to Bank Reconciliation. Miscellaneous receipts, checks, withdrawals, and adjustments that are not related to a purchase or sale, can also be entered directly in Banking tasks.

Use Banking tasks to transfer funds from one checkbook to another in a single transaction, without the need to record the transaction in each. You can create, edit or void deposits. You can record single-sum deposits easily and quickly. You can select receipts for deposits by receipt type or by range of dates.

Check payments. Check payments to employees are recorded in Payroll. Check disbursements to vendors are recorded in Purchasing. There may also be times when miscellaneous payment transactions occur in other areas. All of these payments and miscellaneous cash paid-out transactions flow to Bank Reconciliation, where they are available for reconciling.

Transaction review. When you need to extract specific information about your transactions, you want easy access to everything from individual checkbook balances—including reconciled and UN-reconciled transactions—to detailed transaction information, such as the deposit number, date, and status. Small Business Manager gives you the ability to drill down to underlying detail from Bank Reconciliation’s views for all the details you need. And, you can easily print the contents once you’ve found the information you need.

Bank Reconciliation
If your business reconciles bank accounts on a regular basis—handling various bank accounts with multiple bank transaction sources and destinations—the banking reconciliation tools will give you a great return on investment. Before you begin the reconciliation process, simply enter the bank statement ending balance, ending date, and transaction cutoff date for the checkbook you want to reconcile. Then, all you have to do is indicate which transactions have cleared the bank. You can void printed checks, and record voided manual checks by entering zero-amount checks.

For those occasions when you are reconciling multiple checkbooks on the same day, Small Business Manager Banking gives you the ability to record multiple reconciliation's without forcing you to complete each one before beginning the next.

Transaction management. Maybe you wish you could see your transactions as the bank does, in the same layout and sorted the same way. With the Small Business Manager Banking features, you can do just that: choose to sort transactions either by transaction type or by date, to match your bank statement layout for quicker reconciling.

Reconciliation. Small Business Manager stores all kinds of detailed information about your reconciliation's. You can use inquiries and reports to view and analyze information about reconciled and UN-reconciled transactions that have been posted for a checkbook. Enter other adjustments, such as interest income and service charges, during reconciliation. Adjustments automatically post to Small Business Manager General Ledger accounts during reconciliation.

Exception handling. Sometimes, your bank statement differs from your records and you find that you need to make an adjustment to your records. Small Business Manager lets you handle cleared amount differences quickly and easily. You can easily make the change during reconciliation, without needing to enter a separate transaction.

Banking Reports
Small Business Manager stores detailed information about your cash-related transactions. You can use inquiries and reports to view and analyze information about a specific transaction, or to obtain general information about a group of transactions.

Transaction details. In Banking, you can choose to view only UN-reconciled transactions, only reconciled transactions, or all transactions in your reconcile range.

You can get more information about a deposit, check, or other bank transaction without interrupting the reconcile process. Small Business Manager’s drill-down functionality gives you the power to display the originating transaction, regardless of the task of origin, for complete audit control.

During reconciliation, important information is always on-screen, giving you immediate process feedback. Information includes adjusted bank balance, adjusted book balance, difference between bank and book balances, number of cleared payments, cleared payments total, number of cleared deposits, and cleared deposits total.

Banking history. Your company may want to maintain historical records for audit purposes. You can keep records of transaction and reconciliation history for an unlimited number of years. Once you determine historical information is no longer necessary, or when you need to make hard disk space available, you can remove the history. Bank reconciliation history contains records of transactions that have been entered, posted, and reconciled. You can access Banking history through reports such as Bank Transaction History report, Bank Transaction Distribution History report, and Bank Distribution History report. Back to top

Financial

As a small business owner, you need to capture and analyze vital business information, and you want an accounting program that will serve your needs well into the future. Microsoft® Great Plains Small Business Manager financial features help you master yesterday’s vital business data and chart tomorrow’s success. Its real power lies in its flexibility: it grows with your business so you can track finances the way you need to today and tomorrow. Consisting of General Ledger and account structure processes, Financial tasks give you flexible account formatting, intelligent transaction processing, powerful and familiar Microsoft® Excel-based budgeting, and sophisticated financial reporting capabilities.

Set Up Accounts and Fiscal Periods
Setting up your books should be easy. Small Business Manager sets the standard with easy-to-use, step-by-step setup of ledger accounts and fiscal periods.

Flexible structure. As your business grows, you want to avoid changing accounting programs. Small Business Manager grows along with your business, with the flexibility to track finances the way you need to today, and the room to grow tomorrow. For example, Small Business Manager allows you to set up account numbers containing up to 25 characters and five segments so you can leverage your accounts to manage multiple departments.

Fiscal period options. Small Business Manager's flexibility extends to fiscal periods. You can define up to 13 fiscal periods to track weekly, monthly, and quarterly activity. Periods can be different lengths, as well, allowing you to define "adjusting" periods at the end of the fiscal year, for example.

Flexible closing. You can maintain multiple open years at a time. This allows you to enter current-year activity while continuing to adjust for the past year. You are not forced to close periods or years, so you can easily adjust entries when needed. Small Business Manager allows you to create a preliminary "first closing" of a period, which could be used for auditor adjustments, and then a "final closing" after any audit adjustments.

When you make adjustments to the prior closed fiscal year, Small Business Manager automatically updates retained earnings and beginning balances for the current year.

Unlimited years of historical information can be maintained, and multiple years of historical information can also be included on a single financial statement.

Process Transactions Efficiently
When it comes to processing transactions, you want to spend as little precious time as possible, and you want your software to work the way you do-not the other way around. Small Business Manager gives you the tools to manage all your transactions efficiently.

Journal entries. You can save time and simplify journal entry with various methods such as single-use, clearing, reversing or recurring. You can also determine how often the transactions will be posted, such as weekly or monthly. Use the quick journals feature to create a template for journal entries where the accounts remain the same, but the amounts vary. For example, if your company uses an outside payroll service, you may need to enter the same information each pay period, but the amounts change.

Posting. Match your posting routines to your business processes. You choose whether to save transactions in batches for posting, or post each transaction upon entry. Regardless of the method you choose, Small Business Manager helps you make the most of your time, because it uses background processing, allowing you to continue working while the system posts.

Batch recovery. Occasionally, the unexpected happens. If there is a posting problem-caused by a power fluctuation, for example-Small Business Manager will attempt to recover the batch the next time you log in

Control Your Finances
You want day-to-day financial control, and you need a safety net for the unforeseen. With Small Business Manager, you get both.

User access. With Small Business Manager, you can provide an unlimited number of employees with a unique logon ID and access rights, and up to five users can access the system at the same time. To help you control who can access different parts of the application, you can grant or deny access to windows for each user-either by entire module or by specific task-all from a single window.

User tracking. Small Business Manager records user activity by ID and date so you know who did what, and when. This allows you to monitor transactions and easily follow up on a given transaction for more detailed information.

Financial controls. A smart cross-module audit control feature provides a complete electronic "paper trail." Use it to follow any journal entry back to its source transaction. This feature helps maintain sound accounting practices and allow for quick and easy verification of transactions entered.

Make Informed Decisions with Financial Data
In today's fast-paced, competitive environment, Small Business Manager makes it easy to input and access the information you need, putting the advantage in your court.

Reports. You need information presented in a way that makes analysis easy and functional. Built-in reporting options help you quickly and easily search records and transactions to create the reports you need in various customized formats and levels of complexity.

You can even perform advanced financial analysis. The quick financial reports setup makes it easy to create a base set of financial reports. Then, simply enter a report name, select your report type, and add any optional fields, such as year-to-date, history, and budget ratios. You can also modify existing financial reports, or create new financial reports, with account information, comparative analysis, and complete graphical support.

Excel budgeting. When it comes to any financial task, you want to lower the learning curve to save time and money. To that end, Small Business Manager incorporates Microsoft® Excel.

You can export and import budgets to and from Microsoft Excel through an interactive wizard. Quickly and easily create unlimited budgets for each account starting with a default budget template complete with accounts, descriptions, and default amounts. After modification in Excel, budgets can be imported back into Small Business Manager, providing a way to easily compare performance with benchmarks. Save even more steps by calculating this year's budgets based on last year's information.

SmartList. SmartList is setting a new standard for easy information access. SmartList views allow you to search numerous records and transactions. See at a glance which accounts are over or under budget and view transactions that have been posted to an account. SmartList also saves you steps, providing an easy way to create, compare, and use export solution templates to quickly and easily transfer information between Small Business Manager and Microsoft® Word or Excel.

 

Small-business solutions from Microsoft bCentral

Whether you want to build an online business presence, deliver stronger sales and service, or manage business operations, Microsoft® bCentral™ offers the solutions and valuable information you need. Microsoft Great Plains Small Business Manager and Microsoft bCentral work together to expand the work performance of retail and service businesses. bCentral has solutions that are perfect for new businesses just starting out or established companies ready to grow their business online.

NOTE: Special offers on this page are available for a limited time, and might be available only in North America. For details about special offers and more feature information and examples, visit bCentral.com.

Business Benifits

bCentral Product Suite for Retail Business
Extend your business to the Web with bCentral Commerce Manager and bCentral List Builder.

Export and import data quickly and easily. Sell on popular Internet markets such as eBay® by exporting product information from Small Business Manager into Commerce Manager. Import Commerce Manager orders into Small Business Manager to streamline invoicing and instantly create new invoices and an up-to-date listing of paid invoices. Easily exchange customer data between your Small Business Manager database and the List Builder marketing tool for targeted e-mail marketing campaigns to announce product promotions or special offers.

bCentral Product Suite for Service Business
(Product Suite available March 2002)

Manage your business and improve customer service with bCentral Appointment Manager and bCentral List Builder.

Export service items and employee data. Transfer information from Small Business Manager into Appointment Manager quickly and easily. Transfer data simply from Small Business Manager into Appointment Manager. Import Commerce Manager orders into Small Business Manager to streamline invoicing and instantly create new invoices and an up-to-date listing of paid invoices. Use your Small Business Manager customer data with the List Builder marketing tool for e-mail newsletters and special service announcements.

E-commerce
Build an online catalog with bCentral Commerce Manager and sell your products on your Web site or at popular Internet marketplaces.

Build an online catalog. Create and organize product lists of everything you have to sell. Build an e-commerce storefront, with a shopping cart, for any existing Web site. Use step-by-step wizards to turn catalog items into commerce-ready Web pages. Add pictures for any catalog item, quickly and easily.

Sell on the most popular online marketplaces. List your products anywhere on the Web, including sites such as eBay™ and MSN® Marketplace. Build one catalog to re-use as commerce ready pages on your own site.
Send confirmation e-mails and special instructions to your customers.

E-mail Marketing
Sell more with bCentral List Builder-increase sales to existing customers, reach new ones and reduce marketing costs.

Drive repeat sales. Create and send personalized e-mail newsletters with product promotions, advice, tips, and more. Keep customers informed about your business and give them a quick way to respond with questions and comments.

Reduce marketing costs. Save on traditional printing and mailing costs by using graphics-rich e-mail to announce new products and special offers. Increase response rates by up to 66% using colorful, engaging HTML newsletters. Deliver your news and offers to customers instantly, with no lag time.

Monitor marketing campaigns in real time. Learn from your campaigns by analyzing campaign statistics and customer feedback. Improve your marketing techniques instantly.

Offer convenient online scheduling. Give customers a way to learn about your services, make appointments, or add their names to a waiting list. Eliminate phone tag by letting customers schedule appointments online. Remind customers of appointments with automatic e-mails.

Increase profitability. Increase employees' satisfaction by giving them access to their schedules. Reduce costly no-shows with automatic e-mail reminders and waiting lists. Coordinate resources and stay up to date with a real-time calendar.

Complement your existing appointment book. Offer customers an option to schedule online, or use Appointment Manager for all your appointments. Customize your schedule so that customers make appointments for specified time slots.

Web Hosting and E-mail
Get hosting, generous storage, and 20 business e-mail accounts with bCentral Web Hosting. Plus, get Microsoft Publisher 2002, FREE with a subscription to Web Hosting. Start building your online business in minutes with your own Web site address-bCentral will register your domain name.

Easy to start and easy to manage. Create your own business Web site or host your current site, quickly and easily. Build your site with Publisher 2002-which includes more than 45 site designs-or use Microsoft FrontPage®, or your favorite Web design tool.

Free customer support, 24 hours a day. Get free, expert support and service by e-mail and telephone from our service and technology specialists. Maintain control of your site-make changes or additions anytime, at no additional cost.

Grow your site with your business. Get as many e-mail accounts as you need and manage them with your favorite e-mail program. Get more features and more choices as you grow your site with your business.

Put your name at the top of the list. Get guaranteed Submit It! listings on search engines and directories, including AOL, HotBot and MSN. Update your listing information and automatically re-submit your site to multiple locations. Keep listings fresh-Submit It! checks your site for updates every 48 hours. Track your site's ranking within leading search engines through e-mail reports.

Create, customize, and maintain control. Set up client- or project-specific workspaces on the Web using only a Web browser. Specify user access privileges and track team participation. Use your site to back up and store important files. Customize your site to fit your needs.

Work together, anywhere. Share information securely and work together with employees, customers, and suppliers from any location. Eliminate phone tag, long-distance calls, and expensive overnight shipping.

Leads Management
Turn leads into sales with the help of bCentral Customer Manager. Create a centralized customer database to track leads, manage contacts, and improve customer service.

Access and manage data from anywhere. Collect customer information and leads directly through your Web site. Import contacts from Microsoft Outlook®-no need to enter data twice. Access and maintain customer information from any computer connected to the Web. Route leads to employees no matter where they are located.

Improve customer service. Respond instantly with automatic e-mail notifications. Notify the right employees if no one responds to an inquiry within 24 hours. Maintain a smooth process from initial contact to final follow-through.

 

Purchases

As a small business owner, you need control over your accounts payable functions. Microsoft® Great Plains Small Business Manager saves you time by automating the processes you need to efficiently manage purchases. The Purchases feature helps you track vendors, process payments, and review vendor performance. And, because this feature integrates seamlessly with other Small Business Manager tasks, such as General Ledger and Banking, you'll save even more time.

Bill Entry and Vendor Setup
No one wants to spend valuable time entering and re-entering data. In Small Business Manager, it's easy to enter vendor information and set up accounts. Plus, the built-in flexible features save you time-and the need to re-enter data-later.

Set up vendors. Because not all businesses-or business relationships-are alike, Purchases allows you to customize information about your company, your vendor, and your relationship with them. Record unique payment terms, enter multiple addresses and phone numbers, and add customized fields and notes for an unlimited number of vendors.

Enter bills. The flexibility built into the Purchases feature also makes entering bills a snap. It handles recurring transactions, automatically calculates applicable taxes, and provides an audit trail for sales taxes. All these features simplify your accounts payable, save you time, and keep you in control.

Pay bills. To make an immediate payment on an account, you can print a check at the same time you are entering a bill. You can also specify which vendors and document types to include in a check run, or have the system automatically select and/or apply unapplied payments, credit memos, and returns to your selected vendors. However, if you prefer, you can enter bills and pay them at a later time in a separate check run. This option gives you the ability to quickly select all bills that need to be paid by a certain date.

Void checks. The voiding process is easy, too. You can void bills before payment and void payments during or after the computer check printing process. Corrected entries are automatically posted to the appropriate General Ledger accounts.

Monitor expenses. To keep a handle on expenses, you need to track and monitor your purchases from vendors. The Purchases feature in Small Business Manager helps you maintain control with an eye toward the bottom line. Inquiry windows and payables management reports provide access to detailed and summarized payables management information. You also can use payables management reports to help you edit setup or transaction entries, find aging, posting and history information, and uncover errors in transaction entry.

Report options. View un-posted, posted, and historical transactions. Review complete vendor, credit, period payments, yearly payments, lifetime payments and payables status summary information with up-to-the-minute accuracy.

View details. What's more, you can easily locate the underlying information you're most interested in by drilling down for more details. Using the drill-down functionality allows you to cross tasks so you can follow accounts payables activity from a General Ledger inquiry back to the originating accounts payables voucher to verify the account distributions.

 

US Payroll

You want payday processing to be fast, convenient, and reliable for your company and your employees. You need an easy-to-use payroll program that gives you control over your payroll processes and quick access to employee pay details. Microsoft® Small Business Manager Payroll makes it possible. Whether you need to complete a regular pay run, issue an individual paycheck, run special payrolls, or respond to last-minute changes, the control is in your hands. Smart wizards walk you through setup and automated tasks make regular payroll processing a breeze.

Payroll Setup
Smart wizards in Small Business Manager Payroll make it easy to set up pay, deduction, benefit, and tax codes at the company level and then modify records for individual employees as necessary.

Perhaps your business is small but growing quickly. Small Business Manager Payroll grows along with you, managing records for up to 100 employees.

Pay code setup. You need versatility and flexibility; Small Business Manager Payroll provides both. Once you set up company and employee pay codes using the setup wizard, tracking individual pay information and making ongoing changes is easy.

Benefit tracking. Unlimited benefit and deduction records and versatile calculation methods help automate benefit and deduction tracking, reducing manual tasks and the potential for errors.

Time-off tracking. You can track time off by setting up the corresponding pay codes using the payroll pay code setup wizard. Once your codes are set up, Small Business Manager handles the time off tracking automatically.

Easy processing. Small Business Manager makes it easy to address the typical and the not-so-typical pay needs of your company. Efficient pay processing wizards throughout Payroll help you pull together all of the appropriate information for each pay run in a few simple steps. Because the pay-run process uses information you've already set up for your employees-like pay codes, benefits and deductions-you'll just answer a few quick questions and be on your way to an on-time, reliable payday.

Check printing. Payroll tasks use an efficient wizard that walks you through building, calculating, and printing payroll checks. And, if an employee should misplace a check, the original can easily be voided, and correcting entries will automatically post to the appropriate General Ledger accounts.

Check preview. Small Business Manager Payroll includes a powerful preview feature. The preview window gives you an opportunity to preview and verify important information such as check number, payroll code, transaction amount, units to pay, and pay rate before you process the transaction and print the check.

Direct deposit. Small Business Manager Payroll even handles direct deposit-an option that will save both you and your employees time and money. An easy-to-use wizard guides you through the process of entering direct deposit information for each employee. Employee pay can be split between direct deposit accounts and printed checks, using fixed amounts and percentages. When checks have been processed, you simply send the Automated Clearing House (ACH) file to the bank of your choice. Direct deposit complies with the National Automated Clearing House Association specifications.

Payroll Compliance
Small Business Manager helps ensure compliance with government reporting requirements and makes month-, quarter-, and year-end processing go smoothly.

Government reporting. Payroll calculates, prints and posts the information for monthly SUTA and FUTA reports, as well as quarterly SUTA, FUTA, and 941 preparation reports and Form 941.

W-2 statements may be printed after following-year pay runs, affording you more time for adjustments at year-end. Uncollected FICA Social Security Tax on Tips and Uncollected FICA Medicare Tax on Tips, can easily be tracked and reported on an employee's W-2 form, if your business requires that functionality. What's more, it's easy to view, revise, and print the W-2 forms for a select range of employees or all employees at once.

Year-end processing. Small Business Manager Payroll gives you the ability to run a report of Year-End annual wage information and review it before printing W-2 and 1099-R statements.

You can download and install the latest year-end and payroll tax updates directly to Small Business Manager without having to run a separate application. The year-end update contains changes to forms, such as the W-2 and the 1099-R, as well as tax table information for the upcoming calendar year.

 

Sales

As a small business owner, you know that providing high-quality customer service is critical to your business success. The Microsoft® Great Plains Small Business Manager Sales features turns data into a powerful business tool to help you drive success. Sales tasks help you efficiently manage invoices and sales, track customers, process customer payments, and analyze customer activity, providing a full-feature invoicing environment that delivers unparalleled, time-saving access to information.

Customer Setup
Customer setup covers all the bases to get you up and running quickly, including a complete history for each customer and special features such as credit card limits.

Set up customers. Improve customer service by collecting customer address, phone, fax, e-mail, shipping, tax, payment terms, finance charge, credit limit, credit card, and complete history information. Accommodate the specific needs of each customer by entering separate Primary, Ship To, Bill To, and Statement To addresses, and add or change address information at any time. Best of all, there's no set limit for the number of customers you can enter.

Maintain customer information. You can look up existing customer information or enter new records as you enter transactions. You can also view and change information for one transaction, or save changes on a customer card that will be incorporated for that customer throughout the accounting system.

Create credit limits. For each customer, you can also define a credit limit. You can query that information to determine which customers are exceeding, or are close to exceeding, their credit limit. Then at the time invoices are entered, you can choose to alert those customers with a note on the invoice.

Invoice Entry
You want to work efficiently, and unnecessary information can be distracting. But you still need that vital access to the big picture. With the single-window invoicing process in Small Business Manager, the most important information stays in front of you in a single window, while providing quick and intuitive access to all other information.

Process invoices. The invoices your customer sees should be accurate and professional. With Small Business Manager, you can enter invoices one at a time or store them in batches for later review and posting. This flexibility allows you to enter batches before transactions, or enter transactions and then assign them to batches, depending on your preference. When creating an invoice, you have the ability to select items already set up, or if your customer has a special request, you can add additional items during invoice entry. You can even add these items to the inventory file permanently.

When entering an invoice, you have the option to place it on hold until the customer makes a final decision. You can customize your invoices - even adding your company logo for a professional look. Once completed, you have the option of emailing or printing and sending your invoice.

Create statements. Both you and your customers have unique reporting needs. Using the Print Statement Wizard, you can easily create customized statements. The Print Statement Wizard walks you through the steps necessary to create statements in a format that's best for your business and for your customers. Before sending customer statements, you can verify the aging of the outstanding balance, assess any applicable finance charges, and preview the statements for accuracy.

Apply payment. You can apply receipt of payment via cash, check, or credit card to a specific invoice or to the overall customer balance. You also have the ability to track NSF checks and write off a portion or an entire customer balance.

Reporting options. You can view un-posted, posted, and historical transactions, plus complete customer data, period sales, yearly sales, payment history, and receivables summary information. You can save unlimited versions of each report, and group reports for consistent analysis. To monitor amounts due from customers, you can review current and prior period aging, specifying ending dates for exact control of information. You can also track state, local, and other sales taxes for full sales tax reporting.

SmartList queries. To see how much you have earned and how much customers owe you, you can use a SmartList inquiry to show sales for the day, month, or year as well as outstanding receivables. With SmartLists, you can also create customized favorites that allow you to analyze the customers that order from you frequently or even those that have not placed any recent orders. You can also use SmartLists to determine which specific transactions are making up past due balances. This information can be merged with Microsoft® Excel to create a chart of outstanding receivables; it can also be merged into Microsoft® Word to send collection letters.

 

Reports

In today's fast-paced, competitive business environment, you need easy access to the right information before you make crucial decisions. Microsoft® Great Plains Small Business Manager makes it easy to access the information you need, putting the advantage in your court. The reporting features in Small Business Manager help you quickly search for information and monitor key business metrics at a glance. You can personalize and save queries to your shortcut bar for later use. Create financial reports with account information and comparative analysis to inform and guide your decisions; you can even easily track performance against budget with collaborative Microsoft® Excel-based budgeting tools. Drilling down for more details-even back to the source document-is always fast and simple.

SmartList Queries
When it comes to accessing vital business information easily, SmartList is setting a new standard. SmartList views allow you to query numerous records and transactions. SmartList also saves you steps, providing an easy way to create, compare, and use export solution templates to quickly and easily transfer information between Small Business Manager and Microsoft® Word or Excel.

Create quick queries. SmartList handles the technical work of creating inquiries for you, providing easier, faster access to information stored in the Small Business Manager system, including information about accounts, customers, employees, vendors, transactions, and items. SmartList also allows you to print or export the search results, as well as display them on the screen. Once you have created an inquiry, you can save it for later use.

Save favorite queries. SmartList saves you steps the next time you perform a search. You can personalize and re-use search definitions when you save SmartList queries to your shortcut bar.

Find source documents. Easily follow an electronic audit trail back to the information you're interested in reviewing. Using drill-down functionality of the Financial task, you can also cross modules, so information in General Ledger can be traced back to the document in which it was first recorded.

Export to Excel and Word. You want to make optimal use of the records you keep and the reports you run. To that end, Small Business Manager makes it easy to export to and share SmartList search results with Excel and Word. You can even turn customer information stored in Small Business Manager into a powerful marketing and direct mail tool. For example, you can search for information about your customers, export the results to Excel, then use Excel and Word to create promotions and mass mailings targeted to specific groups of customers based on criteria you set.

Fast financials. Small Business Manager gets you going quickly by providing basic formats for a Balance Sheet, a Statement of Cash Flows, a Profit and Loss Statement, and a Statement of Retained Earnings. You can use the provided format, or modify it to create a statement that is tailored to your business needs. Either way, you save time. What's more, this same flexibility will ensure that Small Business Manager meets your changing needs as your business grows.

Comparative analysis. Small Business Manager gives you a jump-start on advanced financial analysis, too. The Advanced Financial Analysis feature requires no additional setup beyond what is necessary for General Ledger.

Customized reports. In Small Business Manager, it's easy to create the customized reports you need to run your business. You can modify existing reports or create entirely new reports using information from throughout the program.

Preview. Small Business Manager allows you to preview commonly modified reports, such as statements, invoices, and checks without actually printing them. You can easily view any changes that have been made to the report layout and also find information relating to the preprinted forms that Microsoft Great Plains sells for a particular document.

Edit. The report editor in Small Business Manager helps you give your reports a polished finish. It provides a way to customize-change layout, colors, and graphics-so you can design each report for its intended audience.

Browse Reports Library. It couldn't get any easier. Microsoft Great Plains Small Business Manager even offers an online Reports Library. There you'll find reports that contain common modifications.

Print. You can print reports to a printer, the screen, a file, or any combination of these destinations. Because printing in Small Business Manager is a background process, once you've started printing, you can continue with other activities, without waiting for the reports to finish printing or the transactions to finish posting. For example, you could print an edit list, and then continue entering transactions in a new batch while the edit list is printing.

Send in e-mail. It's easy to send a report in e-mail. You simply need to print the report to the screen, then send it via e-mail, provided you're using an operating system or e-mail system that's compliant with a Microsoft Mail Application Program Interface, such as Microsoft® Outlook®. If Outlook or another compliant mail application is enabled on your computer, you can send reports from the Screen Output window in Small Business Manager.

Export to another format. You can export your report to multiple programs and into various formats. This flexibility provides you with the most options for publishing your report, whether it's on your company's intranet or Internet site, or in a Microsoft Excel workbook. Available formats include tab-delimited and comma-delimited characters, plain text, Excel, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).

Customize. You can create different versions of reports tailored to fit various, individual needs. What's more, you can save these styles for later use.