Customer Care Program

AcctVantage Customer Care Program (CCP) membership provides our users with a hassle free technical support and version upgrade plan.

What does the Customer Care Program cover?

In short, CCP membership includes unlimited Technical Support and AcctVantage version upgrades, including all major releases as well as incremental maintenance releases.

AcctVantage ERP Version Upgrades

AcctVantage ERP is constantly being improved with new or updated features, integrations and behind the scenes upkeep. These upgrades are always included in the Customer Care Program membership, whether the upgrade is a minor "maintenance" release or a major new feature add.

AcctVantage versioning follows our interpretation of the Agile method. This philosophy advocates for continual improvement, rapid deployment and flexibility.  In other words, we tend to release updates more often than other software applications in an effort to respond to client needs as quickly as possible.  Users are not required to adopt every release! When we release a new version you can review the release notes, see what's changed and choose to implement (or not) as you see fit.  When you do implement a new version, updates from versions that you've skipped are included without requiring any additional steps.

The AcctVantage versioning scheme looks like this: AV yyyy.a.b (i.e. AV 2020.1.2)

AV 2020.1:  This level denotes a 'major' release with significant new features relative to the previous major release. Customer Care Program Members are elegible for no charge upgrades to this level release.  For non-CCP members, this would be a paid upgrade. This is the typically the release level that is 'announced' as a general release for all users.

AV 2020.1.2: A maintenance or incremental release. At this level there may or may not be significant new features. Generally speaking this level release would include bug fixes, minor updates to existing features and general upkeep behind the scenes.  At this level, we may not make a general release announcement for all users.

Some releases will require an upgrade to the underlying 4D, Inc. database engine that AcctVantage is built upon. These releases typically happen when the version year changes. Upgrades to 4D are not included in the CCP membership. Refer to this article for more info: What is 4D and 4D Maintenance?

AcctVantage ERP Technical Support

We often get questions about the difference between Technical Support and Consulting. People wonder, "Where's the line?" or "How do I know when I've crossed it?" Given that Technical Support is covered by your CCP membership and Consulting is billed by the hour, these are important questions!

  • Technical Support helps you to understand why the software is doing what it's doing or reproduce any error condition you may encounter so we can get it on our fix list.
  • Consulting covers anything else, like creating reports, anything to do with custom scripts, helping you learn how to use the software (i.e training), or helping you figure out how to best utilize the software in your business, among many other things.

That said, here are our official definitions and policies:

Technical support covers:

  • Questions about how the software operates
  • Issues with standard (non-scripted) features
  • Help with feature configuration, system preferences and general usability
  • Reporting and/or reproducing bugs

Technical support is provided by experienced staff that actually know the software, are expert in its implementation and able to provide help on the first call - no escalating necessary.  You will never experience a 'call center' mentality with AcctVantage Support.  We are US based and actually answer the phone!

Our Customer Care Program commitment is that all tickets are responded to within 1 business day.  In reality, our response times are much much faster than that.

Examples of Technical Support Questions

  • How can I change my printed Purchase Order font and logo?
  • How do I make it stop copying the order quantity to the ship column on sales orders?
  • I got an error during posting. What should I do?
  • My username or password doesn't work on the AcctVantage Knowledge Base web site. Can you fix it?

What is Consulting?

Consulting is any service that's not Technical Support. The 'gray area' between support and consulting can be confusing at times; a ticket that begins as a support call may carry over to a 'consulting' engagement.  We try very hard to be accommodating in these situations and will let you know when the tipping point is approaching well in advance.

Common consulting activities include:

  • Writing reports
  • Writing scripts or modifying the system to accomodate non-standard processes or to add new features.
  • Helping you figure out how to best use the software given how your business operates.
  • Changing the priority of a Class II bug (see About Bug Reporting.)
  • Special features/programming.
  • Data and/or import file manipulation.
  • Anything that requires setting an appointment to do.
  • Installing an update or upgrade for you.
  • Step-by-step review of normal data entry.
  • Doing data file maintenance for you.

Examples of Consulting Questions

Can you help me figure out how to manage my returns using credit memos?

  • Talking about how credit memos work is technical support, but helping you design a process that uses our credit memo feature as part of it is consulting.

I'm new to AcctVantage, can you teach me how to do Payables?

  • Talking about an issue with AP is technical support, but training is consulting.

Do you have a feature that...?

  • Information about what the software can do is technical support.

I need a feature that does...

  • Feature creation, however, is always consulting.

My import failed, can you look at my import files and fix what ever is is wrong with them?

  • Talking about how an import file should be formatted or what fields can be imported is technical support, but modifying your import file for you is consulting.

I'm having trouble installing this upgrade.

  • Providing the documentation that tells you how to install the upgrade and helping you understand what that documentation is saying is technical support, but connecting to your site to install the software is consulting.