www.mercury-erp.com

Mercury is an integrated set of software tools, specifically designed for the micro and small business. Mercury isn’t just a CRM or a Billing software, or a Project Management software. It is all of the above and more, on a single web-based platform.

Why we built Mercury

Mercury is the brainchild of current CEO of Alcassoft, Almir Cajic, forged out of sheer need, and his frustration with the lack of available options. The idea came about as his company, Alcassoft, was starting to grow and he and his team were feeling the strains of coping with that growth.

Other small business owners he spoke to agreed – the job of running a small business would be made much easier if they had more of a handle on their finances, tasks, projects, to-dos, communications both internally and with clients and vendors. All these, in a simple package without the need to invest too much time in reading up user manuals or attending day-long training sessions, or money in hardware, infrastructure, and maintenance, In a small business, every resource and every minute counts.

Alcassoft Solutions Sdn Bhd was incorporated to further develop and market Mercury – Small Business ERP. Alcassoft Solutions was awarded MSC status in November 2010.

Mercury is a quarter-finalist in the ongoing mYprize 4G Global Developer Challenge, organised by YTL. Go to www.myprize.my for more information.

see PLANS & PRICING. 30-day FREE trial. No credit card required.

Who is Mercury for?

Most micro and small businesses, in whatever field or industry, tend to use spreadsheets for everything – from creating invoices to keeping track of spending to staying on top of their daily to-dos. All well and good, but at the end of the day (or week, month or year), the files are everywhere (though usually on just one machine and not shared), invoices may or may not have been paid, or even sent out, and to-do lists get forgotten.

Mercury is as simple to use, yet does so much more! Track your invoices and spending (get pinged on unpaid invoices, know who owes you how much and for how long), create tasks and set up reminders, know what’s on your plate and what’s lagged behind. Mercury is a complete micro and small business management tool to help you run – and stay on top of – your business.

Why Mercury?

• Affordable
  • Package starts from RM120 per month for a 3-user license
• Secure
  • Fully encrypted using 256-bit keys (SSL security) on all pages (not just the login page, as with some software apps).
• Virtually risk-free
  • Utilising the ‘Cloud’ and needs no initial investment of hardware, training, IT tech person
• Easy to use
  • Based on the latest technologies and trends in software where accessibility and ease of use are paramount, AND,
• Simple features that are tailored for the micro and small enterprise
  • NO complex systems that take months to configure and implement, or weeks for users to learn
• Get the big picture
  • All-in-one small business management software that lets you see the bigger picture, so you can stay on top of your business, simply.

see PLANS & PRICING. 30-day FREE trial. No credit card required.

Alcassoft wishes you a Happy Chinese New Year!

The team @Alcassoft and @Mercury_ERP wishes you a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year! May the year of the Golden Rabbit see your businesses grow in leaps and bounds!

Happy Holidays to all!

Stay in touch with us 

p.s. Our offices will be closed on Feb 1, 3 & 4 for the Federal Territory and CNY public holidays.

The mYprize Global Developer Challenge is organised by YTL Communications, in conjunction with the November 2010 launch of its nationwide 4G network in Malaysia. YTL is one of Malaysia’s largest conglomerates, with interests in construction, utilities, hotels, property development and technology.

mYprize aims to challenge innovators and creative entrepreneurs around the world to submit original ideas, create unique applications or devices for the YTL 4G network. It was announced in January this year. The closing date for submission of entries was November 2010.

Mercury was a late entry – submission was made very close to the closing date. Barely two weeks later, on December 16th, the team was informed that its entry for Mercury Small Business ERP had been shortlisted, due to be presented a few days later. Needless to say, this was very welcome news for the Mercury team. The presentation to YTL Comms went well as the team went well-prepared with presentation slides and screencasts for the demo.

The synergy between YTL Communications’ Yes 4G network and Mercury Small Business ERP is obvious. With 4G technology, mobile access – via increasingly popular mobile devices including laptops, tablet pcs and smart-phones – to critical business data, business management tools, collaboration tools and voice, as provided by Mercury, is positively impacted. Yes 4G is three to five times faster than conventional mobile technology, and is more reliable because it was made to handle data rather than voice alone. Additionally, its coverage is nationwide. In short, Yes 4G will give Mercury users the edge in terms of accessibility, speed and reliability.

The Mercury team’s presentation will now be submitted to the panel of international mYprize judges, which includes Google’s New Business Development for SEA, Ishi Singh and MDeC CEO, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali.

To learn more about mYprize, visit www.myprize.my

For more information on Mercury Small Business ERP, go to www.mercury-erp.com

MSC status approval

In November of the same year, Alcassoft Solution’s application for MSC Status was approved.

About Mercury
Mercury is an integrated set of software tools, specifically designed for the micro and small business. Unlike single-purpose productivity tools,  Mercury is a complete micro and small business management tool to help business owners (and their internal team) run – and stay on top of – their business. Features in Mercury include Invoicing, Payroll, Claims, CRM, Projects & tasks, Calendar, Contacts, File sharing & storing, Messaging and Chat. Mercury will be made available as software-as-a-service (SaaS), allowing users to sign up and pay a monthly fee to use the online service.

For more information on Mercury – Small Business ERP, please visit mercury-erp.com. Mercury is currently in closed beta. Click on the ‘Request an Invite’ link for a sneak peak.

For more information on MSC status, go to mscmalaysia.my

B3-U5-15 Solaris Dutamas,
No 1 , Jalan Dutamas 1,  50480 Kuala Lumpur,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Our new phone numbers are:

Tel: (+60) 03 6205 5831
Fax: (+60) 03 6205 3831

Feedback from this network of real world users will be invaluable in identifying any issues that may arise. This is also a great opportunity for users to give their suggestions on what other features they would like to have included. Currently, Mercury boasts of a complete feature set of tools for the micro and small business owner, including simple contacts and CRM management, accounting for the non-accountant, a documents and file repository shared with others in the organisation (and selected external contacts), invoicing and payroll, plus collaborative tools to enhance intra-organisational communications.

One of the major goals of Mercury is to keep everyone in the organisation in the loop with everything that is happening within the office, even if the ‘office’ is a virtual one. The platform is web-based, and can be accessed from anywhere, even if employees are travelling or working from home. Documents and data are organised and easily accessible, so the old excuse of leaving that file or document ‘at the office’ can no longer stand.

Says Almir Cajic, CEO of Alcassoft, “We are excited about this new round of beta testing, extending it from our small group of associates and friends to their friends, and even to the public. The response we have had so far has been really positive, which contributed to this decision to open up our user base to an even larger group.”

As mentioned above, the current round of beta testing will be by invitation only. Members of the public who wish to sign up for the service can do so by visiting Alcassoft’s website at www.mercury-erp.com/mercury and request for an invitation.

“Think of it as ERP for micro and small businesses”, says Almir Cajic, the CEO of Alcassoft. “The micro and small business segment have so far been sidelined when it comes to having a full suite of tools to help them run their business. In fact, that was the main reason why we decided to build this platform in the first place – to help us, and others like us, to run and manage our business smoothly, to stay on top of what’s happening with team, the customers, as well as the finances.”

Users who sign up will get free access to beta test the system and to provide valuable feedback. However, due to hardware constraints, the number of beta users may be limited. More information will be available when Mercury beta is launched on Friday.

As most website owners and marketers would agree, a website – just like a brick-and-mortar office or home – needs a bit of sprucing up once every two years or so. We had, admittedly, let ours sit un-pretty for quite a bit longer than that. Although we had noticed the un-trendy décor of the old-fashioned fonts, colours and boxed-in style, we had mostly let it remain that way due to the tedious reality of prioritising. That is, until it just got too embarrassing to give out our URL. As a result, we sat down one day and chose a design, changed our minds, selected another design, and got to work customising and importing content.

On the 27th of March, in time with our 7th company anniversary, we pushed it ‘live’. This new look is an attempt to present information in a more reader-friendly way, using larger fonts and strategic use of highlight colours. The site is also fully optimised for search engines, following basic SEO guidelines.

Although it is still a work-in-progress – we are still working on optimising loading speed, enhancing the user experience with better navigability, and creating fresh new content (and updating the old) – we are extremely happy with the new look. We hope you are too!

GKP operates globally as well as in 8 regions: Africa, Central and Eastern Europe; East Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean; Middle East and North Africa; Oceania and South Asia. GKP members demonstrate ideas through projects on the ground; and they influence policy at a global level.

After an exhaustive search for a content management system (CMS) that would meet their needs, GKP’s web publishing tool of choice was Alcassoft’s SOPHIA cms.

The Enterprise Edition of SOPHIA cms allows for an unlimited number of websites to be independently managed under one license. This fits perfectly with their requirements, which include:

• Independent management of multiple websites
  • GKP’s main site
  • Regional sites, for each of the seven GKP regions mentioned above
  • Event-specific sites
• Easy update of content across all websites

The SOPHIA Enterprise Edition allows for multiple types of content contributors, including writers, editors, website managers and administrators. Access rights of these content contributors can be set by the administrator to allow for complete control of updating of content for specified websites.

Additional Customisation of SOPHIA cms and Integration with GKPnet

Each regional website under the GKP umbrella shares its content with the GKP main site – the site gets seamlessly populated with content from all regional websites by the collection and collating of specific content.

The GKP portal (main and regional sites) also benefit from shared content from GKPnet, an external system which serves as the organisation’s virtual communication and collaborative tool.

Further integration of the web portal, powered by SOPHIA cms which is built in ColdFusion, with Java-based GKPnet includes: integration of the user database, and single sign-on. Access to the GKP websites is granted by CAS authentication, while access rights are controlled by Alcassoft’s Authoriser system. With the access rights and policies in place, user access rights are restricted based on their specified roles, i.e. web admin, content editor, content contributor, etc.

With Alcassoft’s extensive background in content management systems, having built the comprehensive SOPHIA cms, the PC Guru site features a simplified content management console for the website administrator or webmaster to update the website content, i.e. articles, promotional materials, images and electronic brochures, as well as a means for external contributors or experts to sign in and share their expert opinions and advice with the website’s visitors.

The system was developed using Groovy, an agile dynamic language for the Java platform, on the Grails framework. These, together with the Spring and Hibernate frameworks that they ride on, are open-source technologies, in line with the Alcassoft policy of utilising the latest technologies without incurring sky-high costs for the client.

The PC Guru online learning portal is a joint effort between Lowyat.net and Intel Malaysia. The development of the portal was done by Alcassoft in collaboration with Firebolt Studio Sdn Bhd, which provided the user interface design and graphics, for Priority Communications Sdn Bhd, a public relations and business communications consultant.