Now you might have to administer collection of another set of Taxes!!

However, Sage Micropya can help you with this.

Check out the following on how this process works.

http://sageireland.com/1OIX-1EXY7-9LLVY1-KBCWC-1/c.aspx

Sage Line 50 Accounts system is a relatively inexpensive “Off the Shelf” accounts product.

However, most companies require additional or different information to that provided by “Off the Shelf” products.

Compuland, as a Sage Business Partner, can amend or create reports to cater for your requirements. I have set out a sample of our most requested reports and some interesting standard Sage reports.

Aggressive Aged Debtors Report. This report simply shows aging by: Current, 1 month and adds all other months together, which helps decide who you should be contacting to collect old debts. This report also includes a phone number and space for taking notes. You can enter details of the calls directly to Sage…..but lots of people still like using the pen and paper when talking on the phone and hence this report.

Sample of an Aggressive Debtors Report – Aggressive Debtor Report PDF

Prior Year Report. This is a standard report in Sage that most people do not use. It is a great report and I am on a mission to get more people to use this. It compares this month versus last year’s same month….and compare this year’s YTD against last year’s YTD.

The other interesting thing is the layout of the incomes and expenses. While some companies still have a single sales figure, which is a shame, we can arrange anything you want on the left hand column. We can split this to show any type of grouping you like which should help you manage your Gross Margin. Please note on the attached how we listed different car sales but we could have summarised further if required. It all depends what suits you.

Sample of a Prior Year P&L Account – Prior Year P&L Report PDF

Profit by Month. This is an unusual report but can be helpful for certain business. Also you can export this to Excel and you can get some cool graphs showing the movement in each expense line.

Sample of Profit by month – P & L by Month PDF

Finally, I recently read an article about a company that has created a multimillion euro software package selling intelligent software that maps where your products are sold. This is in Sage already, for free!!

At the end of a month usually you would try to reconcile your Gross Margin which can be difficult. Sometimes it helps to see where you sold your key products. There is a report in Invoicing – Product sales to Customers so you can select a single product and see who bought these. You can also get a list of your key customers as a group or individually and see what products did they buy. This can also be applied to services!

Sample of Product Sales to WHICH customers PDF  Sample of What Did Customers buy PDF

Point being…..there are loads of reports in Sage Line 50……but there are also additional ways of extracting info that suits your business…..Just ask us!

So, if you have any queries about Sage contact us on (00353) 021 4544 144.

 Best regards,

 Mark Murphy

021 4544 144

Sage have announced that they are no longer supporting or offering price support to Take 5 Accounts Software or to Take 5 Easypay payroll systems.

So if you are still using Take 5 (Take Five) software then you need to change to something else as this system has not been maintained by software developers for over 10 years.

We recently had a case were the revenue demanded that a company stop using Take 5 as it was not reliable!! We were then asked asked to work with this company to transfer /import all the data from Take 5 to Sage Line 50. Client is now happy that they are on a fully supported updated package and while there were issues learning a new system the client sees a number of benefits to using Sage Line 50 – especially able to easily drill into prior period reports.

If you are on Take 5 Accounts – please contact us so that at least you are aware of your options – 021 4544 144.

Anyway as of today….15^th March 2013, it is almost impossible to obtain Office 2010. So we supplied and installed Office/Excel 2013 for this users PC. Sage confirmed that the products are compatiable and should be no problem.

To be fair this would be a reasonable assumption as well.

The information was wrong. Sage 2013 and Excel 2013 are NOT compatiable with each other. It took us about 8 hours of work and testing on various systems and numerous calls to Sage Ireland and Sage UK to confirm this fact.

What alternatives are there……client has to wait until Sage come out with a patch…..we are also searching to see if we can get a copy of Office 2010….but to be fair the client is not happy with either option.

Life is not meant to be this difficult!!

So if you are using Sage Line 50 Accounts Package and you are about to purchase Office / Excel 2013….proceed with caution.

Best Regards

Lydia Horan

Sage Support

021 4544 144

Short Video on Sage Line 50

www.compuland.ie or phone 021 4544 144

“Sales Aged Balance disagrees with the Debtors Control by ” or “Purchases Aged Balance disagrees with the Creditors Control by ”

What this means is that the Debtors Control Account says you are owed a figure …say …150,000 but the Actual Debtors List says you are owed 151,000. Obviously there is an issue.

You need to investigate this ASAP to ensure everything is balanced and correct and that there are no other issues.

In most cases the above relates to year end journals.

A typical yearend process requires some journals to clear some accounts which might involve writing off a customer balances or deleting customers etc. For some reason Auditor’s become involved in the actual posting of these journals. But Auditors are usually only concerned with total balances and hence post journals to control accounts. However the net result will be that the Control Account will NO LONGER match the list of Debtors and you will now have a WARNING every day as per above.

If you are doing any clean-up work on Debtors or Creditors….it must be at the Customer/Supplier level which will automatically adjust the control account. For yearend journals this makes the process slightly slower….but can still be done quite easily.

So before the Auditors carry out yearend journals will you consider what they are doing and ensure they do NOT amend the Control accounts or if in doubt, ring us first.

A follow on from this is that if you do have differences with your control accounts you can usually go to

Nominal,

Select the control account in dispute,

Then Activity,

At the Top of the screen go to top Left ..Select Custom range,

Then in the middle section

Select Display all Journal CRs and then display all Journal DRs.

If you have the above warnings I am pretty certain that you will see some form of journal that should not be there. You will have to do a reversing journal (with the same date)…..and then do a corresponding entry to the customer/supplier account (with the same date). It can be done….but just proceed slowly and ensure you have done a few back-ups before you start!

Again if you need help in this area then contact us.

Best Regards

Lydia Horan

021 45 44144

Compuland is a long term partner of Microsoft and Sage Software, specialising in Sales,

Installation, Customisation, Training and Support of Office 365 and Sage Software.

Short Video on Microsoft Office 365

Some videos on Sage Line 50

www.compuland.ie or phone 021 4544 144

In the good old days no matter how old your Sage was you could just upgrade your software. Sage have now brought in a new concept in that if your version of Sage is 2008 or older, then from the 14^th of December, 2012, you can no longer buy an upgrade.

So assuming you are on version 2008 and on Financial Controller/Professional…..on the 13^th of December if you upgrade to the latest version it will cost approx. €699. But on the 16^th of December the same software will cost approx. €1,400.

Apologies, our database cannot identify which version of the software you are on…so this is a note to ask you to check which version of software you are on….So, Go to, Help and About.  You will see the version number listed.

If you are on version 2008 or older will you contact us to find out the upgrade price. You can then decide whether to proceed or not.

If you ring us after the 15^th of December the upgrade prices will be about double the price that you can get prior to the 14^th of December.

PS. Don’t worry  your existing software will not collapse…you can still use…..but you do know you will have to upgrade at some stage…and you have only one week left to get an upgrade price.

Best regards,

Mark Murphy

021 4544 144

Compuland is a long term partner of Microsoft and Sage Software, specialising in Sales,

Installation, Customisation, Training and Support of Office 365 and Sage Software.

Short Video on Microsoft Office 365

Even More videos on Microsoft Office 365

www.compuland.ie or phone 021 4544 144

Also there is so much infomation available about 365 that we could overburden our clients with data……but in our experience viewing videos of peoples experience with 365 is the only way to fully understand the product.

Microsoft have created a website where they are hosting hundreds of videos about 365 and they are always adding more. If I may suggest go to this link and add to your favourites and periodically browse through these videos….either to learn about 365 or to see how other users are making the most of their 365.

Videos about Microsoft Office 365

Enjoy!!

Regards

Lydia Horan

Lydia Horan

021 4544 144

Compuland is a long term partner of Microsoft and Sage Software, specialising in Sales,

Installation, Customisation, Training and Support of Office 365 and Sage Software.

More details on Microsoft Office 365

www.compuland.ie or phone 021 4544 144

The routine of backing up Sage data is only half the process. Frankly, the process is a waste of time UNLESS you check the data before you back up. When you back up your Sage….the software will ask you “do you want to check your data” (Yes or No).

From our experience ….I promise you that when you really need to revert to a back-up…..it will be the one time that you will NOT have checked the data and invariably there will be corruptions in the backup…..and therefore you will NOT be able to go back to a previous backup.

To then proceed with your existing Sage will be very expensive either in Euro terms or in wasted time re-inputting data.

The reason that you should check the data is to ensure all the double entry has posted correctly.  Usually the corruption is due to a network issue, slowness of PC, someone trying to log on to Sage while running a back-up etc….but whatever the reason…….it can happen.

So please, can you double check your Sage back up procedures. Can you ensure that you have a process in places to CHECK THE DATA on a REGULAR basis.

As well as the above…..if you do not have a reliable, repetitive back up system in process will you come back to me as we can set up an automatic Cloud Based system for you that will keep the last 10 days data files for you. This system will cost about €150. You might be wondering…..No, this system does NOT check data files either, Sorry!

As a side issue…we do have customers saying that the process of checking data is to slow and they have not time to wait for same. Checking data should not take longer than 2 Minutes. If it is taking longer than you have a different issue that must be sorted out ASAP. Again we are there to help!

Best Regards

Lydia Horan

021 4544 144

Compuland is a long term partner of Microsoft and Sage Software, specialising in Sales,

Installation, Customisation, Training and Support of Office 365 and Sage Software.

Short Video on Microsoft Office 365

More details on Microsoft Office 365

www.compuland.ie or phone 021 4544 144

Anyway their main criticism was that Sage did not give them the information they wanted and it was useless at helping them manage cash-flow.

WOW. I am aware of several issues with Sage but a lack of information is definitely not one of them.

But it did get me thinking of how we have handled installations of Sage with our clients. Have we shown you where all the information is……how this information can be manipulated to suit your requirements, help you minimise Stock, help you make sure Debtors stay within credit terms, have relevant Monthly Accounts comparing results against budget and prior year. I hope we have spent the extra time with you explaining how to retrieve this information ….but I am sure that some slip through the cracks.

So, are you VERY happy with your Sage? Does it HELP you run your business effectively?

If NOT….then please do something about it.

Call Compuland on 021 4544144 or reply to this email and tell us what issues you are having and we will try and get you a solution ASAP. This phone call costs nothing.

Our role as a Sage Business Partner is to adapt Sage to suit YOUR requirements. By amending reports we can help improve your cash flow and improve profitability.

By the way, each of the “disgruntled” users were critical about the Sage Aged Debtors report. They wanted X, Y and Z. I showed them the following Aggressive Debtors Report. They said it was exactly what they wanted but did not know who to ask for this type of report. If you want a copy of this report for your Sage then just ask us and we will sent to you – no charge!

Best Regards

Alison Power

Sage Support

021 4544144

If you use Sage I presume you know how you can easily sort data by just clicking the top of any column…especially useful to sort the companies that owe you the most money!

Or you can add columns of info….so to quickly check out email addresses for your debtors. Go to the column headings…right click and you will then see options of columns that you can add….and select email address…or select others columns that suit your business.

Or if you want to send out statements to all your debtors that owe you money you can do a search in Customers. In the Search Option select – Where, Balance, Is greater than, 0. Then select Swap, Then statements. And then they all print or better still email out.

However, we came across a new trick this week!

Above you can see how you can add or subtract columns…

But you can also add and subtract columns in different places.

So, for example – In the area where you want to Input Supplier Invoices you normally select a supplier account, accept the date and then hit the TAB button several times to get across .. so TAB across  Ref, Ex Ref, Project, Dept. etc. and then input supplier details and the amount. Can be quiet frustrating doing all the “tabbing”.

In these areas go to the column titles, right click the mouse and DESELECT the columns that you will not be using.

Then you will not have to waste time tabbing and hence become more efficient and thus save money!.

If you want any more tips like this then just reply to me     lydia@compuland.ie or my colleague alison@compuland.ie

Regards

Lydia.