Albany, N.Y. – March 14th, 2016 – Auto/Mate Dealership Systems (http://www.automate.com) today announced new features in its dealership management system (DMS) Accounting Suite. The updates are designed to streamline processes that typically involve countless hours of labor by accounting personnel. New features include inquiry screen data entry, automated inter-company accounts payable, automated inter-company general journal postings and cash receipt templates.

"A common problem with DMS accounting suites is that the end user is required to navigate through many screens in order to access, enter and change information," said Mike Esposito, President and CEO of Auto/Mate. "Our updates make it possible for a user to access everything from a single menu, which greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to accomplish certain tasks."

The following updates were made to the Automotive Management Productivity Suite (AMPS) Accounting Suite:

Inquiry Screen Data Entry. The inquiry screen is an often-used feature in dealership accounting systems. Personnel use the inquiry screen to research and drill down into cash accounts, expenses and more, as well as to view schedule details and specific transactions. Now users have the ability to make data adjustments right from the inquiry screen. No longer do they have to back out of the screen and perform a separate function to enter or change data.

Users can also do multi-G/L inquires within one company or multiple; as well as build accounting set-ups that allow the user to have predefined sets of accounts they look up regularly.  

"The feedback from our customers who have tested this feature is that it's a huge time-saver and they absolutely love it," said Esposito. "Now they can live and work within that one screen instead of having to navigate back and forth between different parts of the system."

Automated Inter-Company Accounts Payable. This new feature gives users the ability to automatically post expenses across multiple companies or accounts, eliminating the need to manually divide and post individual expenses. For example, a dealer group with multiple stores might have each store pay a percentage of the monthly electric bill. Previously, accounting personnel would have to manually figure the percentage amount, then log into each company's account to enter the amount due in accounts payable.

"A staff member in an eight-store auto group told us that to reconcile all the inter-company accounts took her an average of two to three days every month," said Esposito. "Once we set up the system to figure and post all these expenses automatically, her time spent reconciling inter-company accounts was reduced from three days to under two hours every month."

Automated Inter-Company General Journal Postings. This new feature allows inventory to be moved between companies without having to transfer the inventory manually. For example, if Store A wants to sell a car in Store B's inventory, previously Store B would have to first "sell" the vehicle to Store A. This would require a salesperson to generate a deal and the accounting personnel to manually enter several transactions. Now this type of inventory transfer can be completed with a simple journal entry.

"It's not uncommon for an auto group to have an 800-line journal entry to reconcile at the end of every month, which can take hours if not days to complete," said Esposito. "Automating journal entries virtually eliminates the need to create dozens of manual transactions along with the need to reconcile them."

Cash-Receipt Templates. For non-accounting personnel, entering cash receipts into the accounting system can be challenging if they don't know how or where to post everything. This creates extra work for accounting personnel because they must double-check all cash receipts, spend time correcting errors and assign receipts to the correct accounts.

Auto/Mate now allows the accounting office to create user-defined cash receipt templates for each individual or role in the dealership. For example, a sales person typically receives payments for a pre-defined list of circumstances, such as a down payment for a vehicle. Accounting personnel can create a cash receipt template for a salesperson that gives them one or two options for how they can post that type of receipt into the system. Every staff member in the dealership can have their own specific template that defines where and how they can post receipts, virtually eliminating posting errors.

The updates also allow accounting personnel to automatically generate a deposit slip based on cash receipts just added to the system. On a Monday morning or after a holiday, this can save a significant amount of time compared with having to manually write all cash receipts onto a deposit slip before heading to the bank.

To see a demo of Auto/Mate's accounting suite, stop by Booth #1853C at the 2016 NADA Convention & Expo. Make an appointment here: http://www.automate.com/nada

For more information on Auto/Mate's Accounting Suite, visit http://www.automate.com/DMS or call Auto/Mate at 518-371-4331.

About Auto/Mate

Auto/Mate Dealership Systems is a leading provider of dealership management system (DMS) software to retail automotive dealerships, typically saving dealers thousands of dollars per month from their current provider. Our Automotive Management Productivity Suite (AMPS) is a user-friendly, feature-rich DMS in use by more than 1,200 auto dealers nationwide. Auto/Mate has received DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Auto/Mate’s employees have more than 940 years of combined experience working in franchised auto dealerships, the foundation of its “Designed By Car People For Car People^TM” slogan. Auto/Mate is committed to winning its customers’ business each and every month with no long-term contracts and free software upgrades. For more information follow us on Twitter @AutoMateDMS and subscribe to our blog at www.automate.com/blog