PLEASANTON, Calif., Aug. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Avanquest Software, a leading developer and publisher of business and consumer software for the global PC market, today announced the release of Checksoft Premier, a new feature-packed upgrade to its best-of-breed Checksoft financial management solution for the small business and home office environments.

Checksoft Premier's powerful and easy-to-use financial management features enable small businesses to achieve improved cash flow, experience significant cost savings and maintain accurate bookkeeping through automation of daily accounting tasks, innovative design and print capabilities and seamless integration with QuickBooks accounting software.

Checksoft Premier's easy-to-use Check Design Wizard lets small business users print their own checks for savings of up to 80 percent over the cost of preprinted checks ordered from their bank. Users of the popular QuickBooks accounting program can upload QuickBooks transactions directly to the Checksoft printer driver installed in Windows, a one-step check creation process that saves time while cutting costs.

Checksoft Premier also generates professional invoices and estimates and eliminates the hassles of day-to-day accounting tasks. It lets users stay on top of payroll and operational expenses and avoid late fees through automated check-generation and update of account registers using the Bill Scheduler Wizard. For past-due receivables, Checksoft Premier's Interest and Late Fee Wizard calculates and adds any interest and/or late fees to the amount due, while providing office account managers with reminders of all outstanding payments

Using Checksoft Premier, small businesses also can speed cash flow through automated Check-Draft generation for easier payment collection and processing. They simply obtain customer information, such as bank account and routing number, create an authorized check without the need for a signature and deposit it directly to their small business account.

"Avanquest is very pleased to provide the market with this new feature- packed edition of our leading finance management and financial services solution for the small business and home office user," said Anne Anderson, Executive Vice President, Avanquest Software Productivity Division. "We know small business users throughout the U.S. and Canada will be impressed with Checksoft Premier's useful tools for improving their cash flow, reducing their costs and automatically keeping their business accounts balanced."

The latest version of Avanquest's Checksoft also scales to meet the needs of any growing small business thanks to network support for up to 10 users, the most of all check writing programs in the market. Leading features of the new small business financial management solution include:

* Additional savings in the easy design of custom bank deposit and withdrawal slips, invoices, statements and estimate forms; * Availability of 100 pre-designed check templates through the Check Design Wizard and one month's free access to the 6 million-plus photos and images available though Clipart.com; * Easy set-up of credit card merchant accounts through CC Services(R), facilitating collection of credit card payments from customers; * Automated import of online bank data or transactions from leading payroll and financial software, including Quicken(R), VersaCheck(TM) and Microsoft(R) Money; and, * Provision of detailed income and expense reports from real-time data for quick and efficient account reconciliation, ensuring that all deposits and withdrawals from the business' checking account have cleared and balance figures are accurate and up-to-date.

Checksoft Premier, part of the popular MySoftware small business productivity line from Avanquest USA, is available at thousands of leading U.S. and Canadian retail outlets and directly from the company website for a suggested retail price of $69.95.

Checksoft Premier integrates with Avanquest Bookkeeper, Intuit Quicken(R), QuickBooks, Microsoft(R) Small Business Accounting and Microsoft Money. Existing Checksoft users wishing to upgrade to the Checksoft Premier edition will receive a discount over the retail price if upgrading directly through Avanquest USA's website: http://www.avanquestusa.com/ .

About Avanquest Software

Avanquest Software is a global developer and leading publisher of best- selling personal and professional software designed for utilities, office productivity, communications and mobility worldwide. Avanquest Software products are marketed in over 100 countries, through e-commerce, OEM partnerships and IT resellers. Founded in 1984 as BVRP Software and listed since December 1996 on Euronext (ISIN FR0004026714), Avanquest Software forms part of the Eurolist, NextEconomy segment and SBF 250 index. Additional information on Avanquest Software is available at http://www.avanquest.com/ .

CONTACT: Tom Howell, tom@thepengroup.com, or Alan Penchansky, both of
The Pen Group, +1-305-529-1944, for Avanquest Software

Web site: http://www.avanquestusa.com/