Terminology

Attaché 7
Attaché 7 is a new world of rich functionality at low cost, capable of serving your business for the next decade and extending the life of your technology. Superseding Attaché Business Partner and Attaché Catapult, Attaché 7 is our next generation of accounting and payroll software. More...

AlexConnect
AlexConnect is the client-side software component of Attaché Alex that captures business documents and sends them to the Alex server. AlexConnect is available for all Attaché systems (including Payroll). More...

Attaché PRO
Attaché PRO is a configurable accounting (financials) software package for small to medium businesses in New Zealand. It comprises functionality covering Customers, Suppliers, Products & Services, and General Ledger.

Attaché Software
Attaché Software Australia Pty Ltd is an Australian owned software company with twenty years experience in Australia and extensive experience in New Zealand, the South Pacific, South East Asia and South Africa. Attaché Software's head office is in Sydney, Australia, with a subsidiary in Auckland, New Zealand. Attaché produces general accounting software for small to medium enterprises, as well as fully featured payroll software.

Business documents
Business documents are documents traditionally produced by accounting software to describe transactions. These are the documents that can be sent via Attaché Alex. They include purchase orders, invoice, pay advices and so on. Which documents can be sent via Alex?

Confidential delivery
Instead of a potentially sensitive document appearing on the screen as soon as the recipient opens or previews an email message, you can send a message containing an Internet link to the document. For additional confidentiality, you can also specify an unlock code that the recipient must type to view the document.

Confirming
When a business document is received by the Alex service it is allocated a unique registration number. This number, along with other information about the document, is emailed to the sender when a document has been delivered (fax) or opened by the receiver (email). The confirmation emails can be turned off by the sender. Confirmation and tracking of sent documents are also available on the Attaché Alex website. Find out more about tracking document deliveries.

Customer invoice
Customer invoices are documents sent to customers to provide details of goods/services supplied. By using Attaché Alex to electronically deliver invoices directly to your customers, you increase the likelihood that they will pay on time and you eliminate the possibility of documents being "lost in the mail". The benefits to your cash flow in reducing your "debtor days" can be quite significant.

Delivery docket
Delivery dockets are normally forwarded to customers with the delivery of goods to detail the contents of a delivery. While most users will still send paper delivery dockets accompanying the delivery, you can improve customer service by sending an electronic copy to confirm delivery and reduce the need for customers to ring and check on progress.

Download
AlexConnect is available for download from this website — see Test drive. The AlexConnect software enables Alex's services and allows users to enter the email/fax details of receivers.

E-commerce
E-commerce refers to the conduct of business transactions over wide-area networks, in particular the Internet. E-commerce includes both Business-to-Business and Customer-to-Business transactions. Examples include businesses making payments electronically and customers placing orders directly over the Internet.

Electronic documents
Electronic documents are business documents delivered via electronic mail or fax. With Attaché Alex, electronic documents are registered and tracked from sender to receiver.

Email
Email refers to documents delivered via electronic mail. Attaché Alex uses email to notify you about delivery of emails and faxes and non-delivery of faxes.

Email attachments
Attachments are a common method of adding files, such as spreadsheets and word processor documents, to email messages. Attaché Alex does not use attachments.

Fax
Attaché Alex provides senders with the ability to send documents directly from their desktop to the receiver's fax machine. Alex requires full international fax numbers including the country and area code (for example, +61 2 99250481).

Inclusions
When you send a document via Attaché Alex, you can also send one or more inclusions. An inclusion is a picture of any printable file, such as a Microsoft Word document, a price list you created in a spreadsheet, or even a digital photograph of a cheque or of goods. Each inclusion consists of one or more A4 pages (with a portrait orientation).

Independent confirmation
Independent confirmation occurs where a third party, not directly involved in a transaction, confirms the delivery and receipt of an electronic document. Attaché Alex is your independent arbitrator in the event of a dispute over the delivery or receipt of a business document.

Opened
Opened documents are email documents sent via Attaché Alex and opened by the receiver. Alex can report on when the document was sent and opened.

Pay advices
Delivering pay advices electronically to your employees' email accounts or home fax machines saves the cost of pay envelopes, eliminates the problems of managing paper payslips when employees work in different locations or are away from the office and helps employees better manage their documents.

Purchase order
Attaché Alex facilitates the electronic delivery of purchase orders complete with trackability and receipt confirmation. With Alex, you can reduce lead times for ordering, taking advantage of just-in-time (JIT) principles and, hopefully, reducing your "days held" for inventory.

Remittance advice
Remittance advices often accompany payments to suppliers and contain details of the payment method and amount as well as the items being paid. With so many businesses taking advantage of electronic funds transfers to pay suppliers, the ability to send remittance advices electronically makes business easier and speeds up monthly reconciliation.

Savings Calculator
The Alex Savings Calculator enables you to enter details of the current transaction and distribution costs for your business documents and calculate the potential savings to be made by switching to Attaché Alex.

Test drive Attaché Alex
Once you have downloaded and installed the AlexConnect software, you can send an unlimited number of emails to your own email address for 90 days and up to ten free emails to other email addresses during your first calendar month. Test drive Attaché Alex.

Tracking
Attaché Alex can report the date and time that fax documents are delivered and email documents are opened. Documents sent to Alex for delivery are registered with the service so that their delivery can be tracked. This reduces the likelihood of dispute over the delivery or non-delivery of documents.

Unopened
Unopened documents are email documents sent via Attaché Alex which have been sent but not yet opened by the receiver.

Undeliverable
Undeliverable documents are emails and/or faxes sent via Attaché Alex that have failed to be delivered because of problems such as wrong delivery addresses, unavailability of the receiver's email service or fax line, or incorrect fax number.