Amenity Land Services Limited
Mr Dick Simmons
Anagram Systems Ltd
60A Queen Street
Horsham
West Sussex RH13 5AD
22nd January 2005
Dear Dick
It is some years since we took the step to drop our Tetra software in favour of Anagram's Encore, which we did in anticipation of the Year 2000 changeover. Tetra wanted a fortune to upgrade.
I was persuaded to try Encore by a contact with another accountant I knew at a supplier with whom we had close working relations. The Anagram package was so much less expensive than Tetra that quite honestly, I would have been put off it had I not been given a good insight into its capabilities by my colleague. I was concerned that it might not be well developed or supported for the money!
I need not have worried. The package has performed brilliantly over the years and the support is always friendly, prompt and efficient. We have never yet had to 'restore' data due to this support and 'fixes' supplied always seem to sort out problems. One thing I particularly liked was that you were always able to customise some small part to suit our needs and carry those modifications forward to new releases without problems, which is not the norm in your business! Even after all these years(6?) I keep on finding new and fascinating details that impress.
Two long-term features that I have always liked is the power to 'drill down' from summarised data right through to transaction levels, quickly and effortlessly. Another feature I find particularly useful is that we now have five or six years data at our fingertips. This and the database reporting or search facilities enables me to look back into any past time frame to look at product trends, find out who bought particular products at certain times of year, prices paid, etc, etc. This is a great tool for the sales team to secure past business and generate new leads.
I have demonstrated the package to a number of prospective users over the years and have never yet had anyone who was not thoroughly impressed. On one occasion I showed it to an accountant who was a trainer/installer for Sage and told me that Encore 'knocked Sage into a cocked hat!' He was well impressed!
I've always felt that Encore should be a market leader in its field, but maybe you are happy to keep the whole thing as it is and just provide a good service from a smaller team who really understand it in depth. Whatever the reason, you are certainly to be congratulated on a thoroughly excellent product.
Yours sincerely,
Jonathan C. Carr FCA
Managing Director