Advantage™ Business Management System

Features

Advantage is a complete solution for your business, with modules for:

• Accounts Receivable
• Accounts Payable
• Collections
• E-mail
• Faxing
• Financial and Management Reporting
• General Ledger
• International  and Overseas Compatibility
• Inventory Management
• Invoicing
• Multi-Location Management
• Payroll
• Point-of-sale
• Purchasing
• Rentals
• Report Creation
• Vendor Communications
• Worker Time Management

Benefits

Affordable ERP

Each feature works as a seamless whole to form Advantage, a fully integrated business system and, more importantly, a sound investment. Advantage automates core functions to save time and cut costs, but also comes complete with a broad range of advanced capabilities to expand the scope of your business.

Multi-Location Management

No other software system does a better job of managing multiple locations. Advantage offers centralized commodity buying and inventory requisitioning from vendors — the system automatically finds the best commodity price and turnaround time available. Advantage also helps you to minimize inventory holdings across locations with inventory transfers. For optimal coordination, Advantage can build seamless network bridges between sites.

Highly Scalable

Grounded in the stability of Linux, Advantage software provides both versatility and a solid, robust architecture. The system is fully scalable, with a platform that comfortably supports 1 user or 1,000. 

A Complete, Turnkey Solution

Suitable for both small and large businesses, Advantage supports a rich selection of peripheral equipment.  We offer industry-standard hardware to complement our software, including terminals, printers and point-of-sale devices for a complete, turnkey solution.

Unique Features

Advantage has a lasting commitment to innovation.  Our core functionality includes these specialized features, unique to Advantage among all industry providers:

• Check Reconciliation – Reconcile payroll and A/P checks with bank statements as often as you like — monthly, weekly, or even daily.
• Balancing Control Accounts – Know the exact value of your inventory: Advantage balances your inventory valuation against your G/L on a daily basis. Summary reports for A/R, A/P and inventory print automatically at the close of each day so you always know where your business stands.
• Special Order Tracking – Some software packages give up completely when it comes to special orders, forcing you to rely on time-consuming manual processes. With Advantage, special orders are assigned unique, order-specific SKUs for complete tracking and fast, responsive fulfillment.
• Consolidated Quote Repricing – Cost changes can erode margins on outstanding quotes. Advantage software can automatically update quoted prices to reflect these changes, eliminating the need for manual input.
• Bar Coding – Advantage not only supports bar code scanning for point of sale, inventory and receiving, but enables you to print your own bar coded labels without the need for additional software — robust capabilities that only Advantage offers standard.
• Scan-Receive Multiple P/Os – Some software packages are limited to receiving one P/O at a time and don’t give you the full benefit of scan-receiving. With Advantage, simply scan products as they come in, regardless of P/O number; the software automatically matches scanned items to open P/Os. Reports show variances between received items and P/Os (including P/Os with unfilled items) or electronic invoices downloaded from the supplier.
• Past-Due Letters – Generate a file of past-due accounts based on aging (30, 60, 90) that you can mail-merge into Microsoft® Word. Merge information includes the customer’s name, account number, outstanding balance, age of account and date of last payment. Advantage even comes with letter templates in Word format, saving your accounting staff time when dealing with slow-paying customers.
• Automatic Bad-Debt Charge-Off – Simply flag the delinquent account and the software automatically writes the outstanding balance to the correct G/L account, removes the account from A/R aging reports and locks the account to prevent further orders from the customer.
• Lien Tracking – Advantage helps protect you against financial losses by tracking sales dates and notifying you when it’s time to file paperwork for liens. The software can even generate lien forms for the state selected.
• Depreciation Schedules – Track the value of your fixed assets with Advantage’s built-in depreciation module, which supports multiple depreciation calculations.
• Accurate Pricing for Millwork – Advantage’s integrated Millwork Molding Calculator provides accurate pricing for custom projects based on your actual product costs. Advantage automatically applies the cost of the raw material to your finished product so you always see your true net margin.
• International and Overseas Operations – With customers throughout the world, Advantage is the leading choice for international and multinational companies. Software features for international and overseas businesses include:
  • Warehouse management
  • Manifest processing
  • Multi-currency compatibility

Optional Features

Extend the capabilities of your Advantage system with these advanced features, fully integrated with the core software and available for minimal investment:

• Credit Card Processing
• Delivery Route Optimization
• Delivery Tracking
• Document Imaging
• Ecommerce
• Email
• Gift Cards
• Portable Inventory
• Proof of Delivery
• Rentals
• Work Order Management

Training & Support

Training

ECi offers a variety of training services for both initial implementation and ongoing education, helping new and existing customers use their software for a continuing market advantage.

• Advantage Academy: With classes and one-on-one sessions held in the dedicated training facilities at our Texas branch, Advantage Academy offers hands-on instruction in a focused environment, free from the distractions of your normal workday.
• On-Site Training: To minimize disruptions of your business and time away from work, we make our specialists available for on-site training sessions, with a curriculum personalized to your specific objectives.
• Webinars: A low-cost, timesaving alternative to traditional classroom training, webinars offer an opportunity to train a large number of employees cost effectively.
• Video Training: Get training on Advantage applications at your convenience, without leaving your desk. Training videos on a variety of topics will be available through the ECi Web site.

Support

Our industry-leading support is available around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. ECi support technicians are always on-call, ready to offer you assistance for any emergency. With ECi’s Advantage, you will never be at the mercy an electronic inbox, waiting hours or even days for a callback like with other providers. When our customers call, they get help from qualified specialists with minimal delay.

And since we don’t charge additional fees just to give you the fastest response, you can rely on top quality support, every time.

In-System Help

The new Advantage comes with many in-system help features, including a quick reference assistant embedded in the main status bar, as well as searchable help desk for in-depth assistance. This interactive database offers information on every field, subject and procedure in the system (including special help sections for each OS and database we support). Once you’ve found the help you need, you can use our Help Frame to see step-by-step checklist solutions alongside your usual operating window.

New Customer Support

For the first 90 days after implementation, you will receive dedicated personal attention to help you gain confidence with system. During this period, you can count on daily follow-up calls to check on your progress with the software, answer questions, and resolve any issues you might have.

Implementation

With an implementation method that has been perfected with decades of experience, we help you get the maximum benefit from your technology investment. Across the board, ECi systems offer the shortest implementation time for LBM & hardlines — an average of just 8 days per location. It’s a benchmark that we take pride in, because the sooner our customers can begin using their new software, the sooner they see a return on their investment.

 

System Requirements

Configurations will differ based upon certain factors such as number of users, number of physical locations and number of transactions processed. Please contact your Advantage sales representative for specific configuration recommendations. These minimum system requirements have been established to define a starting point for all configurations.

Workstations

• Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux Red Hat 9/Fedora Core 4 or Greater, Mac OS X
• 2.0 GHz Processor
• 512 MB RAM
• 20 GB Hard Drive
• Network Interface Card
• JRE 1.5.0_10 (Java Web Start)

Single Tier Server Configuration

• Windows Server 2003, Linux Fedora Core 5
• Jboss EJB Server 4.0.0
• PostgreSQL 8.1.3, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard, MySQL 5.0, Oracle 10g Release 2
• Dual 3.0 GHz Processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 100 GB Hard Drive
• Network Interface Card
• JDK 1.5.0_10

Dual Tier Server Configuration (One App Server and One Database Server)

Application Server

• Windows Server 2003, Linux Fedora Core 5
• Jboss EJB Server 4.0.0
• Dual 3.0 Ghz Processor
• 2GB RAM
• 60GB Hard Drive
• Network Interface Card
• JDK 1.5.0_10

Database Server

• Windows Server 2003, Linux Fedora Core 5
• PostgreSQL 8.1.3, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard, MySQL 5.0, Oracle 10g – Release 2
• Dual 3.0 GHz Processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 100 GB Hard Drive
• Network Interface Card