Introducing Website Development Services!

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At Infoplex, we’re always looking for new ways to support your business. While we’ve been the trusted partner for TASBooks support and innovative add-ons for over 20 years, we’re thrilled to announce an exciting addition to our portfolio: Website Development Services!

This new service complements our existing expertise, helping businesses not only manage their finances and operations efficiently but also strengthen their online presence. Whether you need a sleek new website, a refresh of your existing site, or custom functionality to integrate with TASBooks, we’ve got you covered.

 

Our Website Development Services

Here’s a snapshot of what we offer:

1. Bespoke Website Design

We create visually stunning, fully customized websites that reflect your brand identity and business goals. Whether you’re looking for a simple brochure site or a complex e-commerce platform, we’ll deliver a solution that stands out.

2. TASBooks Integration

Leverage our unique expertise to integrate your TASBooks system with your website. Automate data sharing between your online store and TASBooks for seamless order processing, invoicing, and inventory management.

3. SEO Optimization

We build websites that are not only beautiful but also optimized for search engines. Our SEO-focused designs help improve your online visibility and attract more potential customers.

4. Ongoing Maintenance and Support

Just like our TASBooks services, our website support doesn’t stop after launch. We provide ongoing maintenance to keep your site secure, updated, and running smoothly.

5. Custom Functionality

Need something specific? From booking systems to member portals, we can develop custom features that cater to your unique business needs.

 

Why Choose Infoplex for Web Development?

  • Experience: With decades of supporting businesses, we understand the challenges you face and how to overcome them.
  • Business-Centric Approach: Our solutions are tailored to enhance efficiency and profitability.
  • End-to-End Support: From TASBooks to your website, Infoplex offers seamless support for your digital and operational needs.
  • Proven Trust: Thousands of businesses across the UK, Southern Ireland, and Europe already trust us with their TASBooks systems.

 

Get Started Today!

Whether you’re launching a new business, looking to upgrade your online presence, or integrating TASBooks into an existing site, Infoplex is here to help. Our team of skilled developers, designers, and TASBooks experts will work closely with you to bring your vision to life.

Contact us today to learn more about our website development services and see how we can take your business to the next level.

Infoplex: Supporting Your Business, Online and Beyond.

New for 2024 – What Does Sage Ending TASBooks Support in Mean for You?

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Changes are on the horizon for TASBooks users. Sage has announced that they will no longer provide support for TASBooks after 2024.

If you are already an Infoplex customer, rest assured that nothing changes for you. Our first-line support services, known for their personal touch and dedication, will remain fully operational. We’ve been serving TASBooks customers across the UK, Ireland and Europe for over 20 years, offering unparalleled expertise and guidance tailored to your needs.

For those who are not yet Infoplex customers, now is the perfect time to consider making the switch. Here’s why:

Why Choose Infoplex for TASBooks Support?

1. Experienced Specialists: With decades of experience, we deeply understand TASBooks and its unique requirements.

2. Personalized Service: Unlike large software providers, we focus on providing a tailored and human-centered support experience.

Infoplex Ltd also offers a variety of add-ons designed to enhance the functionality and usability of TASBooks. These tools are built to simplify processes, save time, and provide businesses with more control over their operations

If you’re interested in learning more or implementing any of these features, contact Infoplex today. Let us help you unlock the full potential of TASBooks!

Multi-Currency Purchase Orders now available – MultiTAS 6.2 released

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Multi-Currency Purchase Orders are not on everyone’s Christmas list. But for those select few whose list it is on, Christmas has come early. MultiTAS v6.2 has been released this week after 7 months of work and the odd sweary word. This blog post has a wee rundown of features and improvements that it contains. Inevitably there is probably also a bug or 2, if you find any please report to Support.

Multi-Currency Purchase Orders (Entry/Receiving/Invoicing)

 You can now create a multi-currency purchase order (P/O) in any of the currencies that TASBooks supports (which is most of them). You can then receive the goods from this P/O and invoice the P/O – all in the currency of the Suppliers Invoice, and these amounts together with the base currency values are what are posted to the Suppliers Account.

This ‘closes’ the multi-currency (multi-currency sales orders and multi-currency purchase orders) adventure Infoplex has been on for a number of years. Initially we added these features to Sales Orders and now they have been added to Purchase Orders.  As a reminder, we added support for Supplier Pricelists and Multiple Stock Locations to Purchase Orders in v6 and v6.1 so those adventures have green ticks against them too.

Other Improvements

  • 95% of customers use Outlook for emailing documents from MultiTAS. But there are the hardcore 5% who for whatever reason do not. We’ve made improvements for these customers by changing the component used to MailKit which appears to handle the security requirements of modern email systems better than the component built into Windows that we were using.
    • For this same subset of customers, when emailing the cc and bcc fields now handle multiple addresses separated by a semi-colon.
  • When entering Sales Orders, if you remove a product from Back Order MultiTAS will check to see if the Cost Price of the product has changed. If so you’ll be asked what you want to do (keep existing/update).
  • When producing Sales Order documents, if there are no lines to be shipped then MultiTAS will not produce a document.
  • The Location Stock Report now has a ‘Negative Stock Only’ option.
  • When receiving a P/O and GMVs are not used, the database transactions involved are wrapped into a single one. This means if one part of the process (e.g. invoicing) fails then the receiving part will not be committed to the system.
  • A new system has been introduced that allows MTADIF.dat Journal Import files to contain foreign currency values that MultiTAS converts to base currency values when importing. For this to work your journal import file must be called MTADIF-E.dat. MultiTAS will look for that file first, if not found and a MTADIF.dat file is found that will be imported instead. If neither is found then Error Town here we come.

 

Notable Bug Fixes (not all!)

  • Fixed issue when emailing multiple P/O’s to the same supplier.
  • Fixed various issues with VAT when entering Purchase Orders and producing P/O documents.
  • Fixed issues with discounts on Purchase Order lines (who even gets a discount from suppliers?)
  • When entering a Purchase Order, the Suppliers outstanding orders value was not updated – it is now
  • Fixed an issue when posting Credit Notes where the ‘Update Stock’ flag was ignored

 

So, there you have it. MultiTAS 6.2 is available for download now.

If updating from v5 (or – gulp – earlier) you will need to remove the existing version of MultiTAS you have before updating to v6. If you already have v6 then you can skip this step and install over the top of your version. Please remember you will need to have a valid support contract to update to this version that adds Multi-Currency Purchase Orders. If you do not currently have one please get in touch as we may have a Christmas offer available to help you out.

 

via GIPHY

Brexit and TASBooks/FirstBooks – what updates to expect

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It goes without saying that everything you’re about to read should be taken with a large pinch of salt. The situation is fluid (to say the least) and until we know exactly what will be required of businesses that import and export, we can’t say for certain that there will not be changes a little further down the road.

So. Here goes…

Will there be a TASBooks update to support Brexit changes?

There will be no TAS update to support Brexit changes. Manual processes are being documented currently which can be used.

Sage

17/12/2020: Here are the details: https://my.sage.co.uk/public/help.aspx#/customer/support/brexit/category/tas/uk

Will there be a MultiTAS update?

Yes. We’ll add in fields to allow you to store Customer and Supplier EORI numbers and make them available on Sales Order and Purchase Order documents. We’ll also add an option to select and display the Incoterms of a Sales Order (not sure these are needed for Purchase Orders, if we are wrong then please get in touch!!).

If you need changes to any of your existing MultiTAS documents (e.g. modify to meet Commercial Invoice requirements) then please do not leave it until the last minute (or even the last week). For significant changes, there will be charges involved. We are closed for the Christmas break from 5pm on 22nd December – more information available here.

Will you tell me what to do to get ready?

No. We are not Brexit/Customs/Accounting experts.

If you are unsure what you need to do to get ready then your first call should be to your Accountant.

You should also look over the UK Governments Transition page to see what they advise, what will change (lots) and what will get better (nothing) – Brexit transition – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

There is a lot of reading available on the Xero website – Brexit: Impact on small business and what you need to know | Xero UK

Photo by Call Me Fred on Unsplash

ePrivacy, GDPR and Brexit

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We’re going to keep this as straightforward as possible…

In case you missed it, the United Kingdom (UK) left the European Union (EU) on 31st January. The UK is now in a transition period. Nothing has changed. When the transition period ends, nothing will change.

Clear? Good. Now we’ll go into a bit more detail…

The TASBooks market is based in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. As such, our market is based in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. If you trade with a country that is a member of the EU, you must conform to EU rules and regulations (such as ePrivacy and GDPR). The Republic of Ireland is a member of the EU. That means that we will conform to EU rules and regulations for our customers in the Republic of Ireland.

But what about customers in the UK? When we left the EU, all existing rules and regulations were rolled into one and transferred to the UK. As such, the rules and regulations that existed in the EU on 31st January continue to exist in the UK on 1st February. It means that in the UK our customers are protected by the EU’s rules and regulations and we must continue to abide by them.

Nothing has changed. To be honest, it’s made life easy. Instead of having two sets of rules and regulations to which to conform, we have only one. It would cost money and time to implement new rules and put into place new procedures.

What happens in the future is still a bit… vague, shall we say? If the UK agrees to stay close to the EU, then it should not prove to be a problem. If the UK diverges from the EU, we will have to abide by both EU rules and regulations (for our Irish customers) and any new UK rules and regulations.

In the meantime, we’ve already taken some actions to facilitate any future changes that may come to pass. First, we’re making sure that all of our data is held on servers within the EU. Our website is hosted on servers in Manchester but will be moved to servers in Germany in March. We use Office 365 and our data is held on servers within the EU. Our CRM of choice is HubSpot. They store data on servers in the United States and in Germany. These servers are regulated by the EU-US Privacy Shield. Our accounting and financial data is held on servers in the US. These too are protected by the EU-US Privacy Shield.

Secondly, we’re making some changes to the way in which we use HubSpot. We’ve used a variety of tools to get in touch with our customers over the years and data has been stored everywhere. We’ve decided to consolidate our customer data and our marketing data into HubSpot. In the future, all of our mail shots will come from HubSpot and will include the ability to amend or delete your communication and marketing preferences. We’re building new mailing lists and subscriptions to achieve this. We’re going to make it easier for you to opt-in to software updates but opt-out of marketing emails.

This work is ongoing. We’re trying do things with minimal interruption and without sending you mail shots by mistake. If we do – we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to do it. Please be kind.

We’ll let you know when everything is finished.

Making Tax Digital and beyond

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It’s been twelve months since we launched our Making Tax Digital software for TASBooks and we thought it was time to step back, take stock, and let you know what we have planned for Tax Manager in the twelve months ahead…

Tax Manager has been a phenomenal success. Working alongside HMRC, we’ve been able to develop software that takes the hassle out of submitting a VAT return. The feedback from you – our customers – has been so a real boost; you’ve shared your experiences with us and provided us with some ideas for a little further down the road.

What’s most rewarding, however, is the money that’s been saved by all of you by using our software. We know that out software can save businesses over £200 on licensing and support every year. That’s why Tax Manager continues to attract new users every month.

But what’s ahead? Firstly, most (if not all) of our customers asked for submission receipts and we’ve already delivered on this. We introduced submission receipts to both Tax Manager and Tax Manager for MultiTAS. If you haven’t updated yet, you should visit our support section to download the latest version of our software. We have a few more ideas in the pipeline for how we can use these receipts, but we’re not going to reveal too much about them at the moment.

Second, we’re looking into ways in which we can streamline the entire process for those customers that have more ‘complex arrangements’ – such as exemptions or VAT groups – and make it easier to submit returns. We are looking to allow direct submission without the need to export returns. We want to make our software are easy to use as possible.

Third, there’s a new version of Tax Manager and Tax Manager for MultiTAS due to be released in the coming weeks. It includes new tools to combat fraud and augments the existing security checks between accounting software and HMRC.

Finally, one of the biggest issues has been downtime. We’ll be honest with you – HMRC haven’t exactly been forthcoming on this front but they are getting better. We’ve already added a Service Status page to the website and we’re adding some additional features. The home page on our website will include a ticker that features service updates and product releases. We’re also working on a notification system that will push an alert or message to users as soon as possible about potential issues from HMRC.

That’s it. We’re sure that over the next twelve months somebody out there will suggest a feature. If we can do it and if it would benefit everybody, then we’ll add it to the list.

Roadmap for 2020

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You make think that March is a little late to set out a roadmap for the year and tell out about our plans, but… we’ve been quite busy.

Making Tax Digital was a big endeavour. There wasn’t much information to work from and accountants and software developers were all in the dark. To be fair, so was HMRC. Still, it’s done now and our VAT submission software has been a huge success. It’s advertised us to new markets and new opportunities. The feedback from our customers has been invaluable and we’ve already delivered on some of it. You can read more about our plans for Making Tax Digital here.

MultiTAS is, and always will be, the heart of our business. We’ve built a genuinely intuitive set of features and tools that help you, our customers, use TASBooks effectively. Your comments help us to understand how our customers use our software and are frequently the source of inspiration. That’s why Purchase Order processing will be added to MultiTAS in the next release. You asked. We’ve delivering.

The world is changing and so too are we. When you talk to us, we really do listen to what you have to say. Certain things come up time and again. That’s why we’re expanding the range of services we offer our customers this year. These include:

  • Health Check: The data you have in TASBooks is your most valuable asset. But like anything of value, it needs to be cared for. Sometimes, the amount of data you have can slow TASBooks and it takes longer to do basic tasks. The best solution is to start again. Our health check will help to protect your data and make TASBooks run more efficiently.
  • Website Development: A website doesn’t doesn’t have to be all-singing and all-dancing. It needs to be practical and useful. Our customers have neither the time nor the money to pour into a new website. That’s why we will offer website development to our customers from the Spring. We’ll handle everything for you – the design, the development, the fancy bits (if you want them), the emails and the hosting.
  • Digital Marketing: No. We won’t be making soft-focus John Lewis-esque adverts for a sprocket manufacturer in Cleethorpes. What we will do is help you reach the people you need to reach. We’ll optimise your website and make sure you appear on Google. We’ll make sure that your website is quick enough. And we’ll manage your mail shots and tell you how best to communicate with your customers.
  • Remember GDPR? We thought you would. Well, we’ve been working on some tools that may be of interest. It’s early days but think that a health check combined with our GDPR tools will help you get the most from TASBooks. At the moment, it’s on the drawing board for the second half of the year, but we’ll tell you more about it in due course.

And that’s it. The list isn’t exhaustive – there are some surprises that we’re keeping under our hats for now, but… That’s what we have planned for this year.

Coronavirus COVID-19

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Where do we begin?

First of all, we hope that everybody is keeping well and staying safe. It’s not easy; overnight we’ve been asked to change the way we live and work and what normally would be the most natural actions – such as a handshake or hug – are now frowned upon.

It’s fine. We’ll get through this.

Secondly, we want to reassure our customers – and any prospective customers – that we are open for business and trading normally. If you have a support issue – get in touch. If you have a sales enquiry, get in touch.

You see, a few years ago we took a decision to close our main office and move all of our operations to the cloud. We’ve been working remotely from locations such as Scotland, Yorkshire and France for some time now. It may help you to understand how we’ve gone about achieving this and how it guarantees uninterrupted service in the months aheads.

  • Our phone system is entirely cloud-based using IP technology. This means that the number that you’ve always been able to contact us on continues to work to this day.
  • Like many businesses around the world, we use a range of software and services (such as Office 365 or HubSpot) which mean that our systems are always on and available (even if we’re not!)
  • We already use some of the advanced collaborative tools and file sharing software that only now you may be becoming familiar with – apps such as Slack or Teams, TeamViewer or Zoom.
  • We have the capability to access customer content remotely and any training can be provided using online screen-sharing platforms.
  • Our website is built using WordPress and hosted on servers within the European Union (EU) and delivered using CloudFlare CDN. We’re already taking steps to streamline our website to make our support more efficient and readily-available (you’ll see that in a few days).

So what does this mean?

The cloud-based nature of our systems means that there be no disruption to the software and services available from Infoplex. We already work remotely and we will continue to do so. As always, we remain committed to supporting you and your business with a high level of customer service.

If you have any queries at all, please don’t hesitate to contact us. If you want to know more about remote working and some of the tools we use, feel free to get in touch. If you want something to help with your accounts systems, let us know. The unrivalled service that you’ve come to expect from Infoplex will continue.

In the meantime… Stay home. Stay safe. Be kind.

Making Tax Digital (MTD) and TASBooks

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UPDATE – Infoplex announces Tax Manager for TASBooks

Infoplex has announced the development of its own easy-to-use VAT submission system for TASBooks. Click here to find out more about Tax Manager for TASBooks.

The deadline for Making Tax Digital (MTD) is on the horizon. With any significant overhaul of the tax management system, there’s been a lot of concern, speculation and contradictory information. At Infoplex, we’re committed to ensuring that you have the most accurate information available at all times so that you can make informed business-critical decisions.

What is Making Tax Digital (MTD)?

Making Tax Digital (MTD) is the cornerstone of HMRC’s move towards digitising the tax system. From 1st April 2019, any business that is VAT-registered will no longer be able to file its VAT submissions using the HMRC gateway. In its place, VAT-registered businesses will need to use commercial accounting software that has MTD submission capabilities.

Is TASBooks suitable?

The simple answer is yes, but there’s a big twist.

All of the information that you need when your business files a VAT submission is in the TAS database. It is – literally – at your fingertips. Unfortunately, there’s no in-built way to access this information and send it to HMRC.

Is there a solution available for TASBooks?

Yes. In the last few months you will have seen an email from Sage about MTD. It sets out the steps that Sage are taking to help VAT-registered businesses. They have built a special module for TASBooks which will let all VAT-registered businesses file their submissions online and meet HMRC’s compliance requirements.

Can I buy a solution directly from Infoplex?

Yes. We’re working with a company to develop an easy-to-use, low-cost solution.  We’ll have an announcement on our plans in the New Year. In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss your requirements, then feel free to get in touch with George by calling 01592 598101