ProTargeting small to medium-sized companies, Bravo V35 from BravoSoft, LLC offers 12 modules that deliver good capabilities, a relatively low learning curve, and much future potential. Bravo can run remotely over the Internet or wide area network without Citrix or Windows Terminal Services. Using the included source code, you can extend Bravo. Pricing is not based on user count. Bravo supports Microsoft SQL, Oracle and Interbase, including migrating from one database to another.
The General Ledger (GL) offers accounts with up to four segments, and accounts can be password-protected. Statistical accounts are not supported, but non-financial information can be inserted into reports created with the built-in Financial Report Writer (F9 is also supported). The multi-company GL also supports multiple open periods, percentage allocations, and other typical features. An unlimited number of budgets can be created, and data can be imported from spreadsheets.
Accounts Receivable (AR) supports an unlimited number of ship-to and bill-to domestic and international addresses, each with a default tax code. In addition to standard payment terms, AR lets you specify a day of the month. Unlimited customer notes and comments may be attached to any customer record, plus an unlimited number of files containing images, contracts and other documents. User-defined fields are available, as is an unlimited transaction history. Bravo includes typical payment in addition to the acceptance of electronic funds transfers. Finally, prior-period aging reports can be produced. Accounts Payable mirrors AR. Query options for vendor invoices include vendor, store, project, due date and other filters. When selecting invoices to pay, the payment, discount and other totals display. Bravo supports MICR checks and electronic funds transfer. A nice timesaver is the reinstatement of an invoice when payment is voided.
Inventory capabilities include unlimited virtual and physical warehouses and unlimited stock, sale and purchase units of measures and conversion ratios. Each item code can have up to five segments to accommodate characteristics such as size, color, SKU, etc. Safety stock, reorder quantity, minimum/maximum and other values can be defined. Serialization, bar codes, data import from hand-held devices, unlimited sales and purchasing descriptions, and kits are supported. An unlimited number of files can be attached to an item. Bravo supports all standard valuation methods.
Sales Order offers separate order entry, shipping and invoicing functions for different departments as well as a combined function. It handles cross-referencing customer, vendor and marketing part numbers, pricing and other areas with ease. Inventory quantities show on-hand, on-order and allocated to sales. Extended descriptions can run for pages if you need to include critical documentation. Due dates (original and revised) can be tracked by line item. For sales commissions, you can apply the rate to an entire order or individual line item, and they can be overridden with a password. Two sales reps can split a commission. Commissions may be for booked orders, paid orders or a mix. Standard setup calculates commissions on the net sale. However, Bravo has been customized to use gross profit margin, tiered and bonus commissions.
Purchase orders can be classified by type (in-house, stock, etc.) for reporting. Lookup capabilities are good. Also, original and revised due dates can be tracked by line item and are used to calculate lead times and vendor performance. A purchase order can be linked to a sales order or sales order line number.
Bravo supports e-mailing or faxing invoices, order acknowledgments and packing slips to customers (as well as purchase orders to vendors) one at a time or in batches. In addition, Bravo offers extensive statistics and history with drill-down capabilities. On the other hand, while the Bravo reports are useful, they are not extensive. Missing reports include cash expectations and cash require-ments reports (in development) and an inventory turnover report. Crystal Reports partially offsets this deficiency. Output options include e-mailing reports and export to spreadsheet and HTML formats. Bravo would be better if reports could be stacked and scheduled for printing.
Other Bravo capabilities include eCommerce and Accounting Agent. eCommerce is a B2B solution that allows customers, sales reps, vendors and others to access Bravo information via the Internet. Accounting Agent alerts users to situations like low inventory and credit limit problems. You define the data to monitor and determine who is to receive an e-mail or e-mail paging message. Accounting Agent clearly boosts productivity, but it cannot monitor complex conditions such as eroding gross margin trends across periods.
Bravo employs tree-style menu/submenu navigation and is keyboard friendly. You can add, rename and delete menu items and reports. Data entry is clean and uncluttered, utilizing efficient tabs. Extensive lookup and search options are available. Buttons for supporting lists (e.g., sales taxes, terms, freight codes) display next to fields.
Overall, Help is useful, with topics that are easy to scan. However, more explanations, examples and screen shots are needed. Similarly, Bravo manuals are good but in need of improvement (indexes, links from the table of contents or *.PDF bookmarks to sections). Bravo is a good system with a lot of potential. It is best suited for smaller companies in the target market range.
2004 Overall Rating:
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