Its that time of year where Pastel are asking me to pay their annual "cover subscription". In my case I'm using Pastel Partner and they require about R6k from me.

Its essentially a maintenance and support contract for the year and includes any upgrades. My problem is that I have not asked Pastel for support in more than 5 years. In fact I'm of the view that if my accounting software requires any support after the first year, then their help manual is faulty and I want nothing to do with the product.

If I only upgrade every 2 years, without the cover option, then it'll cost me less. They also have the cheek to say that their newsletter comes in as part of the subscription. Its nothing more than an advertisment for their product ... but now I'm nit picking.

My problem is that they have an add on module called bank manager which allows you to download your bank statement and it auto allocates your transactions into your ledger. Its quite a time saver. However, for some unexplained reason, you can't have this module without the cover.

My question to any Pastel insiders is: Why does this module require the expensive cover - remember I don't need or want the support, upgrades or newsletters.

My question to the rest of you is: Do any other accounting packages offer this automatic download and allocation of banking transactions? I can't find anything similar in Quickbooks or Omni.

I must admit that this compulsory annual fee irks me. If I'm actually renting their product, why did they tell me that I had bought it