Blogs

Web Design and Website Development

A website can do many things, but the one thing it must do is promote your business. It’s impossible to underestimate the value of a website as a marketing tool, and a professional-looking site will speak volumes about your company.

If your website is old-fashioned, has a poor layout out or just hard to navigate, it reflects on you as a company. Our emphasis is on clean, modern-looking web pages that customers will return to again and again. We design websites to move forward our clients business, whatever their line of business may be. From website consultancy, search engine marketing and the bespoke design and build of your site, we can offer you a cost effective solution that will repay your investment ten fold!

From content rich brochure sites and e-commerce sites to complex database driven extranets, we can provide the end result that you seek to enable your business to capitalise on the internet revolution.

Profile has produced many successful sites, by gaining a full understanding of our client’s requirements and their businesses. We are very proud of our track record which is proven by our extensive website portfolio.

Our full Web services include:

• Bespoke website design and build
• E-commerce websites and online shops
• Search engine optimisation
• Corporate intranets and extranet websites
• Online application design
• Website hosting and domain names
• Website maintenance and support

If you would like further information on our Web Design service, please download the PDF from the More Information box on the left, or contact us.

MessageLabs Hosted Email and Web Security Services

The days of inconvenient maintenance and updating of various solutions to control your company’s Internet traffic are gone. Profile, in partnership with MessageLabs, can provide you with a leading email and web security service which offers you with a total business solution with the following:

webpost from Francotyp Postalia

What is webpost?
webpost is a professional online mailing service that makes your private and business mail cheaper and more efficient.

webpost is client based application. You can access the service by simply downloading the client driver, then top up your account and you are ready to webpost.

You can post directly from any Microsoft based application, simply by selecting the webpost driver as your printer. The print file is securely transmitted to us electronically. We then print, fold, insert and frank your mail, handing over to Royal Mail for the ‘final mile’ delivery.

More details can be found in the brochure, in the case study, or check our Events page to see if there are webinars currently running for webpost. If you would like to discuss your mail needs with one of our team, please call 08000 195 101 or send us a quick message and we will contact you.

Zetafax – fax software solutions for business

Point. Click. Fax.

Zetafax, the award winning fax server software for business, is simple to install, easy to manage and highly reliable. For secure, fast, cost effective document distribution in any business, Zetafax is the proven choice of fax software solution. Faxing has never been easier, which is why it’s the number one choice for Profile’s customers. Some of the highlight features and benefits are listed below:

• Zetafax is designed to work with your existing IT systems. For instance, you can use your email client’s address book to store your fax numbers.
• Zetafax supports inbound routing via DDI and DTMF, so faxes can be sent directly to and from any networked PC. You can send almost any document as simply as sending an email.
• Businesses planning virtualized server environments can enable the Zetafax server in the same environment to provide protection against computer hardware failure. The Zetafax server can be moved onto another physical computer quickly and easily, avoiding the need for a separate failover server just for fax.
• Zetafax includes a Fax over IP Connector (chargeable add-on) which provides an efficient way to integrate a fax server and phone systems. Voice over IP (VoIP) phone systems can be used for faxing directly, saving the cost of installing separate phone lines for the use by the fax Server.
• Zetafax customers can access a rich source of support advice and technical tips via the web-based Zetafax Knowledge Base. Telephone and email support is also available from our experienced support teams.

For our current and Prospective Pegasus customers, we are pleased to advise that Zetafax can be used integrate with Pegasus Opera 3, allowing automatic faxing of the following documents: Invoice, Credit, Order acknowledgement, Pro forma, Delivery note, Quote, Purchase order and Statement remittance.

You can view an extensive list of benefits, features and further information about the product from the brochure and datasheet that can be found in the More Information box on the left. If you would like to find out more about how Zetafax can integrate with your current IT solutions, please contact us on 08000 195101 to discuss this further with a member of our sales team.

Profile is a finalist for Reseller of the Year!

We are once again very pleased to announce that Profile is a finalist for the Reseller of the Year Award from Software Satisfaction Awards. We are proud of our award winning services, and the continued support of our customers, having won the SSA Reseller of the Year both in 2008 and 2010 and shortlisted as a finalist in 2009, 2011 and now 2012.

We would like to thank each of our customers who took the time to vote for us. Most importantly for us, this award provides the opportunity to reflect upon the services we deliver to our customers and how we can continue to improve on them to ensure that it is our customers that gain the most.

We would also like to congratulate Pegasus on being a finalist in the Payroll (Corporate) Award and Payroll (SME) Award categories for their Opera 3 Payroll Solution.

Opera 3, Opera II & Operations II – Prompt Payment Discount

From 1 April 2015 UK VAT legislation will be brought into line with EU VAT legislation.

When processing an invoice, VAT will be calculated on the goods value before any settlement discount is applied. The change will affect any business that either receives or gives settlement discount for prompt payment of an invoice.

When the legislation change becomes effective, HMRC will expect to receive the full value of VAT on an Invoice if the settlement discount is offered but not taken and make an accounting adjustment if discount is taken. These changes will necessitate Pegasus users to consider their working practices before and after 1 April 2015.

If an Invoice is paid within time to receive an early settlement discount, HMRC expect the discounted VAT value and discounted Goods value to be recorded in the relevant tax period, this is also a change in existing accounting rules.

HMRC have confirmed that there will be no transition period at 01/04/2015 therefore any unbilled Sales Orders created before April 2015 will require billing from 01/04/2015 under the new rules.
Catering for the changes in Opera 3 and Opera II

New releases of Opera 3 and Opera II will allow invoices to be calculated in line with the PPD legislation. The following Financial applications and stationery are affected:

EC VAT application
Users who have the EC VAT application can deselect the ‘VAT After Discount (Settlement)’ checkbox of the Home Country record on the Countries form. This will allow the VAT to be calculated before the settlement discount percentage figure is considered. The Opera 3/Opera II Importer has been changed to respect this setting.

Users who do not have the EC VAT application will see a new date control on the Options tab of the Company Profiles form. This will allow the user to state the date from when VAT should be calculated before settlement discount. By default the date will be set to 1 April 2015.

From an Invoice generation perspective the software will work the same irrespective of whether EC VAT is in use or not.

New stationery – Pegasus Business Forms
A new SOP Invoice (PEG630 stationery design) and Sales Statement designs (PEG610 stationery design) will be available to assist with the new requirements.

Sales Ledger
If Prompt Payment Discounts are to be offered by a business to its customers, the invoices generated should be done so using the new PPD invoice design (PEG630). This design will highlight to the recipient of the invoice the amount of VAT that is required to be adjusted if full payment of the invoice is made by the stated dates.

If a customer takes up the offer of Prompt Payment Discount, the VAT liability will need to be reduced. This can be achieved by raising a Credit Note. Raising the transaction through the Sales Order Processing or Invoicing application will mean that documentary evidence of the PPD Credit is automatically achieved. It is the responsibility of the business user to provide HMRC with documentary evidence of a PPD Adjustment if required to do so in a VAT audit.

The user will need to consider how they want to treat the Sales Analysis of the Credit Note posting, either posting to a Discounts Allowed P&L Account or the Sales P&L Account used on the original invoice line.

When the Receipt is banked, the Invoice and Credit Note can be allocated against the Receipt to close down the transaction.
When sending Sales Statements to their customers, the business should use the new Sales Statement design (PEG610) that will display details of the second reference of the Credit Note, so this could be used to identify which Invoice the PPD Credit relates to.

Here’s an example of how PPD will work:
The customer orders £100,000 of standard VAT rated goods item on 01/04/2015 and is offered a 10% Settlement Discount (Rate 1) for payment within 10 Days and 5% Settlement Discount (Rate 2) for payment within 15 Days.

Before 01/04/2015, the VAT Charge would be £18,000 (£100,000 – 10% * 20%) and the treasury would expect £18,000 to be paid by the customer regardless of whether the early settlement offer was taken up or not. This means that the treasury are not receiving up to £2,000 on VAT due on the invoice if the early settlement offer is not taken up.

On and after 01/04/2015, the initial VAT Charge would be £20,000 (£100,000 * 20%) regardless and the treasury would expect £20,000 to be paid the customer if the early settlement offer was not taken. If full payment was made within the terms of the first settlement rate i.e. within 10 days of the Invoice date, the treasury would expect £18,000 to be paid by the consumer (£100,000 – 10% * 20%) and £19,000 to be paid by the consumer (£100,000 – 5% * 20%) if the full settlement was actioned between days 11-15 of the invoice date.

Purchase Ledger
HMRC have not mandated the need to issue a Credit Note to deal with the PPD adjustment although in Opera 3 and Opera II this must take place to deal with the required update of the VAT Return. It will be necessary for the purchase ledger clerk to have an understanding of whether the supplier is expected to confirm the VAT Adjustment required via a Credit Note. This may cause operative issues as the user may wish to pay the invoice to take advantage of the PPD offered but is not aware of the VAT adjustment required. They will have to gain confirmation of the adjustment required and it’s Supplier Reference before raising the Purchase Credit Note in order to allocate and close down the transaction.

The calculation is the same as detailed in the Sales Ledger.
IMPORTANT:

From 1 April 2015, you will not be able to process transactions that generate discount transactions through the Authorise Cheques or Authorise BACS routines – if payments with discounts are to be made for Suppliers offering PPD, they must be processed through the Payments form in Purchase Processing.

Test Link

Opera 3 Debt Management – Now Available!

We are pleased to announce that Opera 3 v2.14 has now been released, containing brand new Debt Management functionality!

For more information on this excellent new enhancement please visit http://profile.co.uk/pegasus/debt-management.php