FAQ

AdvantageCS has been developing developing software for publishers, membership organizations, and service companies since 1979.

Not at all. Advantage clients include small publishers, too. They choose Advantage because they have more sophisticated needs in areas such as marketing, flexible pricing models, packages, analysis, or integrations that cannot be met with more basic systems. 

Yes. AdvantageCS will host your system in the cloud and provide services such as backup scheduling and integrity checks, disk space management, database administration tasks, and a menu of other services. Alternatively, you can license the system for on-premise use on your servers.

WHAT ARE MANAGED SERVICES?

Managed Services can include any or all of the following: management of the Advantage application processing and reporting, Advantage system performance monitoring, user administration, Web services administration, interfaces and uploads management, application configuration management, 3rd party software monitoring and updates, Advantage upgrades/updates.

• Members Advantage: an integrated solution to manage both memberships and publishing
• Single Sign-on:SSO in Advantage is a cloud-based solution that gives your customers seamless access across your web applications
• A fully integrated eCommerce platform named Cider, with advanced shopping cart and self-service capabilities, a marketing portal for marketers to create and assign promotions, a flexible administration portal for customizing the look and feel of the site, and built-in support for third-party plug-ins. 
• Contact Center: a collection of features all designed to streamline the order entry process, including telephony workflows, fully customizable scripts, easy to use drag-n-drop capability, simpler access to customer information for data quality, tighter integration between telephony and promotions and immediate generation of customer service letters when closing a call.

The application runs Windows, using MS SQL Server as the database.

We will be happy to schedule an overview software presentation with you. Generally, an initial presentation is an hour long, and if you are interested in learning more about Advantage, we can do a more in-depth demonstration, usually on-site.  Click on the red envelope in the upper right corner to request a demonstration.

A typical implementation lasts from six to nine months. It can be done in less time, but we highly recommend that companies use this time to evaluate their business procedures and take the opportunity to streamline processes wherever possible. As publishers learn more about the capabilities of Advantage, they are often able to eliminate time-consuming tasks that may have been done manually or in multiple steps.

• Subscription management for digital and print products
• Product orders
• eCommerce
• Billing
• Accounts Receivable (Debtors)
• Inventory
• Customer service
• Campaign/Promotion/List management
• Business Intelligence & Reporting
• Credit card authorization/Direct Debit
• Duplicate consolidation

• Advertising
• Book Club
• Conference and Event Management
• Commissions
• EDI Interface
• Members Advantage
• Reprints
• Royalty
• Sales Tax Integration
• Scribe Connector
• Standing Order
• Telesales

No. Our largest site to date has 500 concurrent users, but that is not a limit.

There is no practical limit; we support very large publishers in Advantage.

Advantage is a top-of-the-line system, that offers unsurpassed functionality and flexibility. Because it offers more, it costs more than a shrink-wrapped package. If you need the functionality, it is well worth the price. The cost depends on the number of users and the optional modules you might require, as well as whether you choose to license the software or pay monthly for use (SaaS). We can give you an estimated cost if you answer a few basic questions about the size of the business that will run on Advantage and your specific requirements. Contact us for more information.