Issue 1

October 2008

 

 

Inside this Issue:

News and Events

Software News:

Sage 200

Sage 200 Business Intelligence

Manufacturing

Construction

CRM

Sage 50

Payroll

Support

Hints and Tips

General

Sage 50

Sage 200

Sage 100

Customer Stories

FYI - Minimum Wage

Sage 200 is not just an accounting system but a complete suite of applications and is our core product having implemented the system in nearly 100 business. In addition to the Financial and Commercial modules, the Sage 200 range also includes integrated CRM, Project Accounting, Manufacturing, Construction and Retail solutions.

The latest version V5.10 was launched on 2 April 2008 and is another milestone in the Sage 200 roadmap, with a number of exciting enhancements, including:

• Sage 200 CRM (v6.10)
• Full Microsoft® Vista support (Business and Ultimate editions) across the Sage 200 Suite
• Full Microsoft Office 2007 support (Standard and Professional editions) across the Sage 200 Suite
• Reconciliation enquiries for both Debtors and Creditors
• Financial statements for next year
• Import & Export of financial statement layouts
• Purchase invoice validation
• Excel integration improvements, including both performance and formatting enhancements
• Goods received - receive all and invoice options
• POP accruals to include non stock items
• Stock take improvements, including stock take for traceable items, new stock take criteria and stock take templates

If you are currently using Line 50 or Line 100 but would like to know more about the advantages of Sage 200, why not attend our Sage 200 seminar on October 16th.

Sage 200 Business Intelligence

The Sage 200 Business Intelligence solution enables you to extract real intelligence about your business from data accumulated every day in the normal course of operations.  Sage 200 BI provides a powerful analysis and reporting tool which will transform your data into meaningful intelligence.  This can be used and understood by all users as technical knowledge is not required to use the tool.  

The initial launch delivers cubes which report on financial data within Sage 200 with further analysis cubes reporting on Commercial and CRM data set to follow in 2009.  Sage 200 BI ensures you receive the maximum benefit from your business systems and data helping organisations in all sectors to build a significant competitive advantage.

For more information please call us!

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Manufacturing

The powerful Sage Manufacturing system is tried and tested over many years as part of a Sage Line 50 solution. In December 2007, Sage launched Sage Manufacturing for Sage 200 and it is proving to be hugely successful. Hardly surprising given the power and flexibility of a system that allows manufacturers to take control of Materials, Works Orders, Production Planning, Forecasting and Scheduling with ease.

If you are a manufacturer and not using Sage Manufacturing, please call us to request a brochure or better still, attend our Sage 200 seminar on October 16th which will feature Sage Manufacturing.

Construction

In November 2008 Sage will be releasing Sage 50 Construction version 11.53, this release will make Sage 50 Construction compatible with Sage 50 2009 Accounts and Payroll.  Sage will be sending out Sage 50 2009 Accounts and Payroll but we would advise you to contact us before installing them.

The early part of 2009 will see the release of Sage 200 Construction and Sage 50 Construction version 12.  This release includes a completely re-written client billing module and even more R5 reports converted into Sage Report Writer to give you greater flexibility to customise reports.  We have had a sneaky peak of the new client billing module and think it looks really good.

Mid 2009 will see the release of Sage 200 Construction and Sage 50 Construction version 13.0 which is written in .NET.  This is a technology release that will make Construction compatible with Vista, 64 bit server, SQL 2008 and Windows 2008.

Also on the horizon for Construction is the release of Intelligent Construction Analysis (ICA) which will enable you to use Microsoft Excel to extract and organise data from Sage Construction.  At the time of writing we are unsure how this will be delivered but we will keep you posted.

 

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CRM

 

April 2008 saw the release of Sage 200 CRM v6.1 and another milestone in the Sage 200 roadmap.  

 

Sage 200 CRM is an internet-based CRM solution, designed to bring the real benefits of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to your organization.  Sage 200 CRM will allow you to quickly analyse, manage and synchronise sales, marketing and customer service activities across all points of contact.

Enhancements to CRM in release v 6.1 include:

Improved Outlook integration - Tighter Sage CRM and Microsoft Outlook integration results in a more seamless user experience.  The new file and view email button enables users to quickly and easily reply to emails from within Sage CRM.

Quotes and Orders enhancements (For those companies using standalone CRM – not integrated to Sage 200)
Quotes and orders now support Find, Advanced Find, Keyword Search, Groups, Recent List, Top Content, Tab Groups and Notifications.  A new free text item button means that it is now possible to add a free text line item to a quote or order, while the new comment line item allows users to add notes to quotes and orders.

Calendar user interface enhancements – The Sage CRM Calendar day view has been redesigned to allow a side-by-side display of overlapping appointments offering a cleaner, clearer display of information and makes it easier for users of both Sage CRM and Microsoft Outlook to switch between the two systems using the different calendars.

Microsoft Office 2007 and Vista Support - Sage CRM now supports online users who have Microsoft Vista as their local machine operating system and offers full Microsoft Office 2007 support.

64-Bit Operating System Support - It is now possible to easily install Sage CRM on a 64-bit Microsoft Windows 2003 server.

The next stage in the road map will be the release of Sage 200 CRM v 6.2.  We will bring you more information on this exciting release in future editions, so watch this space.

 

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Sage 50

 

Recent launch of Sage 50 2009

Sage 50 Accounts 2009 has recently been launched and contains some valuable new features to help run and manage your business finances

New features include practice data, improvements to dashboards, debt management, bank reconciliation and cash flow.  Also included is a new diary module which will allow you to schedule follow up calls/promised payment dates as well as a new Batch reporting feature which will help with and ensure consistency with your end of month/management reports.

For more information on the above and other new features in Sage 50 2009 please contact us.

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Payroll

Changes to PAYE Legislation

In May 2008 the Chancellor announced the following changes to the PAYE legislation:

The basic Personal Allowance increased from £5435 to £6035

The basic rate limit reduced from £36000 to £34800

These changes came in to effect in the first pay period on or after 7^th September 2008.

You will need to amend your Sage Payroll settings for PAYE legislation, emergency tax code and employees’ tax codes to comply with these changes.  This can be done either using the online updates option within the program or manually.

All customers with a Valid Sage Cover agreement should have received a postcard detailing how to make these amendments.  If you have not received your card or need any assistance changing your settings, please contact our support desk.

 

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Support   

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We would like to take this opportunity to make all of our customers aware of our support e-mail address; sending your support queries to support@prosyscomputing.co.uk will make sure that your query will go directly to the support team and will have the same priority as a telephone call. 

Level 2 Support

 

Since its launch in 2007 nearly a third of our customers have signed up for our Level 2 Support Service. In addition to the 10 hours of free remote training and other benefits, the quarterly health checks have proved invaluable to customers in identifying potential problems on their systems before they arise. Please call for more information.  Level Two support customers also have free access to our quarterly workshops. 

 

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Hints and Tips

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General

Minimising Applications

Do you have many applications open at the same time, all maximised in the background and not necessarily minimised, and you feel your computer performance is slowing down?  Do you know that when an application is open or maximised it will take up or allocate more computer memory than when it’s minimised.   Therefore, it is sometimes beneficial to minimise all the screens open to enable your computer to allocate as much memory as it can to the application you are working on.  Although, if you do have an application that’s doing some general processing, it’s best to keep this maximised as the computer will allocate more processing time to it than when it’s minimised.

 

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Sage 50

Shortcut Keys

Can be found in the help menu

 

These can help speed up processes, for example F8 will delete a line and F2 will bring up your calculator.

 

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Sage 200

Sales Ledger - Available in v5.1 

Want to see a quick view of customers who take longest to pay. In the sales ledger list view select to add a new column. Under the credit section select “Average time to Pay”. The new column will appear at the end of the list. You can resize columns, change the order they appear on the screen or resort your list by this new column.

                                             

Process Maps

                             

Did you know that Sage 200 can provide you with a graphical view and interface to make processing much simpler. To switch on the Processing Maps, select the drop down list in the top right hand corner of the screen and select process maps.  Here is an example of the SOP Process Map: