http://www.gotoadvantage.com/ en bill@ideassquared.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-02T13:56:46+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/agency-accounting-software-year-end-closing/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/agency-accounting-software-year-end-closing/#When:14:56:46Z Have you completed your year-end accounting?  If not, Advantage can help!Year-end is here!  Advantage provides tips and tools for quickly and easily closing the accounting year along with information on what reports to analyze and what tools are available for looking back and preparing for the future. Advantage’s robust accounting and finance applications are especially designed for agencies and marketing firms and are fully integrated with media and project management features! If you’re not using Advantage or want to learn even more about how you can benefit from the tools available, visit our users portal at www.gotoadvantage.com/portal for more information! Contact our Client Relations Director Brian Hess today at bhess@gotoadvantage.com or 800-841-2078 if you would like to discuss maximizing your use of the Advantage system. Advantage blue general release on Friday, February 3, 2012! Advantage blue transforms the electronic workspace and provides advanced features based on the feedback of 600 agencies of all types!  This new version includes new, enhanced and re-written versions of popular programs using new technologies, all based on your requests.  The new product design allows for more fluid and flexible workspaces along with more information placed at your fingertips.  The Advantage “blue” campaign is derived from the vibrant colors found on the new Desktops and represents the visual and flowing approach to the delivery of information. For more information about Advantage blue, including a personalized tour of blue, please call Brian Hess at Contact our Client Relations Director Brian Hess today at bhess@gotoadvantage.com or 800-841-2078. 2012-02-02T14:56:46+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/ad-agency-business-report-writer-in-advantage-blue/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/ad-agency-business-report-writer-in-advantage-blue/#When:16:02:45Z The new Report Writer in Advantage blue brings you the same features used by professional report writers! Advantage blue ad agency software launches on February 3, 2012 with our general release for ad agencies and businesses that need powerful project management software matched with incredible business software supported by thousands of custom reports. You already know that Advantage Software’s reporting options include flexible formatting of forms such as job orders, creative briefs, spec sheets, work orders, change orders, client invoices and estimates, as well as vendor forms like purchase orders and media orders. The popular Auto-Email PDF feature delivers custom forms to your clients or vendors with a single click! With the release of Advantage blue, many Advantage clients are looking forward to the new Report Writer.  The Report Writer features include easy-to-use Dynamic Reports as well as an Advanced Report Writer that gives you the same features used by professional report writers. Instead of writing code from scratch, blue includes pre-defined data sets for the most commonly requested report types! Contact Advantage for information or to setup training. For more information about Advantage blue and the software general release on February 3, 2012, please contact Advantage Software at 1-800-841-2078 or visit our blue website at www.whatsblue.com. 2012-01-25T16:02:45+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/advantage-blue-launches-on-friday-february-3rd/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/advantage-blue-launches-on-friday-february-3rd/#When:14:41:07Z Advantage blue is set for general release on Friday, February 3, 2012!The date of February 3, 2012 is set as the date when Advantage blue will be released for your agency and business.  Blue has been beta tested by over 50 agencies since its original release date of November 4th in 2011.  We’ve received very positive feedback and great suggestions from our beta testers that have resulted in further improvements and refinements to this very new and improved version of Advantage and Webvantage! The expected general release date for blue is February 3, 2012.  This general release will include Advantage Blue and Webvantage Blue.  Blue feature highlights include: » All new and re-written applications using new technologies that improve usability and intuitiveness as well as facilitate increased productivity. » Advantage - With the addition of .Net, applications in Advantage are being re-written using new standards.  The use of .Net in our Client/Server applications will enable us to deliver more on the web later! » Webvantage - Using HTML5 and other new tools, we’ve greatly improved the look, feel and usability of this popular browser-based application! » All new menus and navigation » New, consolidated Security combines both Advantage and Webvantage » New Broadcast Media - allowing daily, calendar, and broadcast month schedules » Report Writer for both Advantage and Webvantage » Additional Billing Command Center features » New Webvantage Calendar, Project Management and Risk Analysis features » See our release notices and Users Portal for complete details » Make sure to review the updated hardware and software minimum requirements for blue Are you ready for blue?  February 3, 2012 is approaching quickly.  For more information and a custom tour on adding Advantage blue to your agency and business management success, please call The Advantage Software Company at 800-841-2078 or visit us online at www.whatsblue.com or www.gotoadvantage.com. 2012-01-20T14:41:07+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/ad-agency-project-management-software-greatly-enables-users/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/ad-agency-project-management-software-greatly-enables-users/#When:22:06:53Z The Advantage Software Company announced today that project management for agencies will dramatically change with the release of Advantage blue and its robust project and resource management capabilities.“One of the more dramatic changes in how agencies will collaborate and manage projects and resources is with the release of Advantage blue,” said Ellen Coulter, president of The Advantage Software Company.  “Advantage blue uses new technologies and methods that add unique features that solve real problems and provide important management information while greatly enhancing the user experience.” Advantage blue is the result of continued feedback and input by Advantage customers.  Along with a new interface allowing for user customization, unlimited workspaces, and multiple window access, blue project management includes new options for quickly and easily creating timelines and assigning and “finding” available staff by role.  The results are rendered in the user’s choice of various graphical formats and interactive views such as Calendars, Timelines and Gantt Charts. Interactivity means that schedules and assignments may be changed from any graphical view providing many different ways for users to interact with the information.  The new Report Writer gives users the ultimate power in information management through pre-defined data sets that make it easy to write meaningful simple or complex reports. “The all new Calendar is a great example of the expanded interactivity found inside Advantage blue,” said Coulter.  “Our clients are reporting that the speed and ease of editing schedules and assignments from different perspectives is accented by the powerful project Timeline and Gantt views.”   The Calendar gives team members an instant snapshot for managing projects by viewing status completions, percent complete, and seeing who is working on what.  Team leaders can easily edit assignments on the calendar and then drill down to a full workload view by day, week or month.  The ability to see who is over or under-booked is a powerful project management tool.“We are very excited about these new capabilities that are helping our clients truly automate the project management process and reap the benefits of that automation,” says Coulter.  “In addition to the enhanced scheduling tools, the ability to balance the workload and to analyze risks through our new Risk Analysis Dashboard really gives our agencies powerful tools to make real-time management decisions armed with real-time statistics.” Risk Analysis and other dashboards such as Project Statistics and Client Time Analysis are examples of how Advantage blue transforms daily project information into key metrics that can change and improve how projects are executed. The end result is the on-time delivery of higher quality and more profitable work.   Risk Analysis Burn Rate charts and graphs show team leaders where potential problem areas exist as the project is being executed, before budget milestones are hit. This tool greatly enhances the ability for agencies to forecast, monitor and achieve greater project management efficiencies while increasing agency profitability. To arrange a custom tour of Advantage blue and learn more about how this amazing suite of agency software products can literally change your agency business, contact The Advantage Software Company at 800-841-2078 or visit us online at www.whatsblue.com or www.gotoadvantage.com. 2012-01-09T22:06:53+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/ad-agency-software-blue-changes-agency-business/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/ad-agency-software-blue-changes-agency-business/#When:17:08:48Z Advantage blue enters the agency marketplace with rave reviews following the first 30 days of Beta testing.The Advantage Software Company announced the release of a major software update called “blue” during the 2011 Advantage Users Group conference in Las Vegas October 22-24, 2011.  “Blue is the culmination of the past two years of a major software foundation update,” said Advantage Software Company President Ellen Coulter.  “The new features of blue bring incredible control, organization and collaboration tools to our advertising agency and marketing firm customers that have never been seen in the marketplace before.” Blue enhances the Advantage suite of software products using advanced technologies like HTML5 and Microsoft .NET to operate in both Client Server and Web environments.  “As a leading agency software developer and provider, we use our technology and business forecasting models as a guideline for how agencies will need to use both the emerging technologies and marketplace business trends to successfully grow their agency,” said Coulter.  “We then develop and grow our software capabilities to accommodate those technology and business marketplace forecasts.” Advantage blue is designed and developed for maximum user experience on both the individual and collaborative team levels.  Improved standards and consistency across the blue software bring our agency members multi-tasking opportunities that are very unique in the industry. “Advantage blue is built around the personal experience of one user that scales so easily for larger collaborative agency teams,” said Coulter.  “We developed blue to provide a smoother, more personal, more robust user experience with fewer clicks, interactive reports and graphs, and faster access to agency data.” Some of the major updates available with Advantage blue include easier-to-use and customizable Invoice Printing, Broadcast Media, Billing Command Center, Project Schedules, Calendars, Two-way Integration with Outlook, Document Markups, Time Entry, and Report Writer. “Today’s modern agency likes snapshots and dashboards that provide an instant picture of how an employee, department, project, and the agency are performing,” said Coulter.  “We developed a sophisticated, real-time series of dashboards that process hundreds to thousands of moving parts within the agency to provide accurate performance snapshots that help our agency clients evaluate progress and make stronger business decisions.” Advantage blue features robust Proactive Alerts that deliver crucial information to the desktop for time-critical items like Missing Time, Quote vs. Actual Results, Past Due Tasks, Upcoming Tasks and other points that users define. Project Management in Advantage blue introduces exciting, easier-to-use features and integration that agency users will covet.  “One of the most exciting parts of the new Advantage blue is how quickly and easily our users will create and manage project timelines,” says Coulter.  “They will have the amazing ability to calculate and update project schedules in phases, find available staff, view and update all schedules from a single screen, recalculate dates, edit schedule details including tasks, and track project percent completions!” The new Advantage blue Calendar is much more interactive and allows for easy editing of schedules and assignments using our new “drag and drop” feature.  Early Beta users are telling us that they really enjoy using the new Timeline “Gantt” View.  “Our new Timeline Gantt View empowers users with a real-time visual chart that displays which staff is working on which project,” adds Coulter.  “Our Beta users are very excited about the new Timeline Gantt View technology and user interfaces!” Project Management in Advantage blue empowers users with abilities like drilling down to all assignments by staff member to balance the project workload, accessing project schedules directly without leaving the workload view, and analyzing risks to find out where projects are before they go over budget using our new Risk Analysis tools and Project Burn Rate Charts and Graphs. Media Estimates in Advantage blue now include Broadcast.  “We are very excited about what blue has included for our Media users,” says Coulter.  “Just like other media types, users can now estimate proposed media expenditures, secure approvals, and then generate orders automatically with zero re-keying of data!” With Advantage blue, the TV and Radio Order applications now include Standard Broadcast and Calendar Month Buys as well as Daily Buys to handle direct response and other types of daily broadcast advertising. “These new and powerful options in Media allow for the most flexible bill and reporting options available in the marketplace today,” adds Coulter.  “We also created special features for our Media users like ‘copy’ and ‘auto create’ to quickly create new orders for any period of time using default data while drastically cutting back on data entry time!” Advantage blue contains hundreds of new and strengthened processes that have never been seen in the agency marketplace before.  “We developed blue by listening to what agencies wanted and needed from their business software partner,” said Coulter.  “What they will now see in blue are easy-to-use interfaces and navigation with identifiable icons featuring a customizable Navigation Window that allows users to create their own menu based on their preferences.” Advantage blue includes all-new applications like Dynamic Report and Advanced Report Writers that give users more control over the vast amount of data where they can write their own job summary, job detail and other reports.  “The Report Writer is a huge favorite of our Beta users because it gives them literally an unlimited amount of options to sort, display, group, and customize data on almost every aspect of agency data.” To arrange a custom tour of Advantage blue and learn more about how this amazing suite of agency software products can literally change your agency business, contact The Advantage Software Company at 800-841-2078 or visit us online at www.whatsblue.com . 2011-12-08T17:08:48+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/Whats-Blue/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/Whats-Blue/#When:12:07:45Z Introducing blue, the next generation of agency management software from The Advantage Software Company!  Visit whatsblue.com now for an introduction to blue. 2011-05-06T12:07:45+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/csi_advantage/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/csi_advantage/#When:16:08:45Z CSI Virtual MasterCard® Team joins forces with Advantage Software!CSI Enterprises, Inc., a leader in innovative financial solutions for enterprises and business, announces its new alliance with Advantage Software. The CSI Virtual MasterCard® program will be offered as a “new feature” available through Advantage as an alternative to standard check writing that offers real rewards! The CSI Virtual MasterCard® Program is an electronic payment system that works with its customers’ existing accounts payable (A/P) systems. The solution provides security and control by generating unique “one-time” use credit card account numbers for each vendor payment.  It reduces A/P processing costs and offers cash rewards on all payments made through the program. The program is offered at no cost and includes complete implementation services. Implementation includes full vendor enrollment support, maximizing vendor participation and minimizing the time commitment by the customer’s A/P personnel. CSI maintains an extensive database of participating advertising agency vendors which helps facilitate the rapid roll-out of the program. “We are very pleased to partner with Advantage Software,” explained Keith Stone, CSI President/CEO. “Both CSI and Advantage are focused on delivering innovative A/P solutions to better assist our customers.” “After hearing from our mutual clients about the success they have experienced with the CSI Virtual MasterCard® solution, we knew that a partnership would provide our clients with an extremely valuable tool,” explained Ellen Coulter, Advantage Software President. “The CSI Virtual MasterCard® Program is simpler and more efficient to deploy when integrated with our agency management software. We look forward to introducing this unique new feature to our clients and helping them understand the many benefits it has to offer.  We expect the first installations to follow April 2011 with a free overview and training webinars.” Advantage Software offers a suite of products with features an agency needs to monitor and improve productivity and increase profitability.  Advantage is completely scalable to fit the needs of any size business, whether an Advertising Agency, Creative Shop, Marketing Firm, Media Buying Company, or related organization. For more information on CSI Virtual MasterCard® visit www.csivirtualcard.com About CSI Enterprises, Inc. CSI Enterprises, Inc. provides a specific line of controlled financial payment products including business fleet fueling/maintenance payment cards, a corporate virtual payment MasterCard® and card solutions for corporate purchasing, travel and entertainment spending. Today CSI and its products operate in all fifty states including Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, with operating subsidiaries involved in municipal tax reclamation, venture capital and real estate development activities nationwide. Since 1988, CSI Enterprises, Inc. was the first and largest U.S. organization to have a successful corporate asset management and payment network throughout the U.S. and Latin America. The CSI MasterCard® is issued by Regions® Bank, pursuant to a license by MasterCard International Incorporated.  MasterCard is a registered trademark of MasterCard International Incorporated. 2011-04-01T16:08:45+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/dashboards-simplify-agency-management/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/dashboards-simplify-agency-management/#When:20:22:29Z Dashboards prove to simplify Agency Management and provide Agency Leaders with interactive, visual information to optimize decision-making!Dashboards push real-time information to the web where Agency Leaders and other key personnel can view employee productivity, realization, fee performance, project statistics and client time analysis.  These dashboards are proving to be extremely effective in minimizing the need to print or manually manipulate data for internal analysis and presentation, based on Advantage client feedback!  Additional Dashboards will include the ability for users to define their own reports on-the-fly! Dashboards available now and in upcoming versions: Employee Productivity Employee Realization Project Statistics Client Time Analysis (Available in 3.20.18) 2011-01-31T20:22:29+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/advantage-users-conference-2011/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/advantage-users-conference-2011/#When:20:11:30Z Save the Date for the Advantage Conference featuring blue!  October 18 - 21, 2011 at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas. 2011-01-03T20:11:30+00:00 http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/advantage-6.20-and-webvantage-3.20-released/ http://www.gotoadvantage.com/site/advantage-6.20-and-webvantage-3.20-released/#When:11:00:33Z Advantage Announces the Release of New Features, including Innovative Project Management Tools and Employee Utilization DashboardsAdvantage Announces the Release of New Features, including Innovative Project Management Tools and Employee Utilization Dashboards Largest release introduces new enhancements that help agencies and in-house marketing departments increase speed to market through operational efficiencies. Mooresville, NC – August 2, 2010 – In an effort to help customers to better streamline their operations, the Advantage Software Company, a leader in workflow automation solutions, announced the release of Advantage 6.2/Webvantage 3.2, the latest version of its scalable solution that connects critical advertising processes like project management, financial management, and media buying functionality using a single source database. Highlights of the release include new Alert Assignments for Project Management that facilitate task and issue routing, Employee Utilization Dashboards, and Phase II of the Billing Command Center. “For almost 30 years, Advantage has met the diverse needs of the marketing communications industry through product innovation and great customer service. The latest release incorporates over 100 enhancements to the system, and is our most significant release to date,” said President Ellen Coulter, “We’ve listened to our clients, and as a result of their guidance, we’ve created applications that streamline processes, more efficiently automate every task, and provide crucial management information to Agency Leaders in formats they can translate effortlessly.” New, Innovative ways to Manage Projects using Alert Assignments, and More! Several new features have been released that extend Advantage’s leadership in deploying project management systems in the marketing communications industry. Version 3.20 introduces Alert Assignments, a new feature that enables project managers to maintain schedule timelines at a higher level and use Alert Assignments with built-in, user-defined workflow to ‘route’ tasks and issues automatically to team members.  Project managers can spend more time managing and less time entering data while gaining complete visibility into all projects from a single, interactive view.  Task and issue routing are automatic based on the state assigned by each team member and the workflow defined.  This feature can be used to track any task or issue that requires routing, accompanying documents or collaboration, including the creative and production processes, contract or RFP participation, and issue tracking on digital or other programming projects. This slick feature speeds time to market and tracks progress, but eliminates the need to update every interaction in the project management schedule manually. Employee Utilization Dashboards for Agency Leaders The new release underscores Advantage’s commitment of pushing real time information to the web by introducing employee utilization dashboards. These new dashboards enable Agency Leaders and other key personnel to view employee productivity, realization (billability) and even client fee analysis by company/office and department at the macro and detail levels from a single, interactive browser-based application. View things like direct and indirect time, goal vs. actual, direct time by client, billed and adjusted time by client, and much more, all without printing a single report. “These new features provide information that enables Agency Leaders to analyze key utilization metrics quickly, through easy-to-read charts and graphs, so that they can adjust staffing or fees accordingly.” added Coulter. Media Billing Now Available in the Billing Command Center    In Phase II of the Billing Command Center, billing professionals now have a centralized location where they can review, adjust and bill media orders as well as production jobs.  The flexible media selection feature allows billers to select billing information at different levels of granularity, from all orders, to client, client/division, client/division/product, client purchase order, market, campaign, order number or even line number. Billers can perform a variety of tasks from the Command Center, including income recognition and closing jobs without leaving the screen.  By having all the information and tasks in one place, billers will experience a quick learning curve and become more efficient. Availability for existing customers: Advantage v6.20/Webvantage v3.20 are available for beta testing now. The releases will be available to all customers upon completion of the beta period.  For existing customers, webinars highlighting the features of these new releases will be held at no charge.  For more details and a schedule of the webinars, customers can visit the Users Portal at www.gotoadvantage.com/portal/. 2010-08-02T11:00:33+00:00