Accpac ePOS 5.3 Sage Software has released a new version of its Accpac ePOS point-of-sale software for small and midsized retailers. The new version, 5.3, has a number of features for customer retention, including the ability to handle loyalty points programs, gift card or certificate tracking and processing, and loyal-customer discounts. It also speeds up transaction processing times, and has simplified, single-step returns and exchanges, to get customers out fast.

For retailers with a global reach, ePOS handles varying tax tables and different currencies, and its screens can be translated into any language using the provided XML-based translation files.

Price: Server component (one register license) - starts at $2,000; POS register component - $1,000.

Sage Software

www.accpac.com

(800) 945-8007

PlanMagic Business 9.0

Coming up with an idea for a business plan may require months and months of headscratching, but actually writing the plan shouldn't be that hard. PlanMagic Business claims to let you write one with complete five-year financial projections in just a day. You enter the basic data and certain assumptions, and the software does the rest.

Version 9.0 has a print module for printing a selection of predefined areas; the ability to export multiple worksheets to values-only workbooks for sharing; templates for a variety of specific businesses; and the ability to handle any currency. There's also an Advanced Edition with a Web marketing guide and a number of state-of-the-art financial analysis tools.

Price: Download - $84.95; CD-ROM - $99.95; Advanced - $174.95.

PlanMagic Corp.

http://planmagic.com

Assessing SOX risk

While the many regulations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have undoubtedly helped to restore public confidence in the markets, they have conversely sapped the confidence of many businesses - by making them worry over whether they're in compliance with the act's many requirements. To deal with one aspect of this uncertainty, Prevari has introduced its Technology Risk Manager, a solution that measures and quantifies the gap between the requirements of the law and a company's existing technology environment.

Even better, the TRM creates detailed visual reports and illustrations of how close each potential technology change will bring a company to compliance, so users can judge which steps will be most effective in closing the gap. For now, the solution is only available as a service from Prevari, but the company has plans to license it as a product in the future.

Price: Midsized companies - approximately $50,000; global firms - between approximately $200,000 and $500,000.

Prevari

www.prevari.com

(763) 377-3241

Wonder what they're up to?

The Shadow may know what evil lurks in the hearts of men, but he's clueless when it comes to the evil that lurks on your employees' desktops. That's a job for Spector Corporate Network Edition, which you can remotely configure and install from any computer on a network to any computer on a network, viewing the results on any other network computer. The software automatically captures and lets you review e-mails, chat conversations, instant messages, Web sites visited, applications launched and keystrokes typed - it'll even send e-mail alerts when certain words or phrases are typed or viewed by the user. It's pretty powerful stuff, so you'll need to remember to use it only for good; the Shadow's got his eye on you.

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