domorewithsage.com - Sage Instant, Sage 50, 200 and 1000 consultancy and high-productivity add-ons

BeBook e-book reader

admin — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:33:57 +0000

One more off-topic post and then back on track I promise! If you have lots of PDFs kicking around on your computer but never really read them then maybe you ought to consider getting an e-book reader. With this device you can store hundreds of PDFs, text files and HTML files on a memory card and view them in portrait mode using electronic ink which is easier on the eyes and increases battery life massively. The one I bought is this one here http://mybebook.com/ and if after looking at it you decide to get one you can put in my email address gary@domorewithsage.com at the checkout page (it will say something like redeem coupon) and get a 25 euro discount!

A new browser enters the market

admin — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:55:47 +0000

OK, so not exactly Sage specific but hot news all the same is the new release of a web browser from Google. Having tried it today I have to say the interface is very slick and it performs very well. However before you jump in with both feet you might want to read the small print. The licensing terms seem very restrictive and quite worrying, they are

“By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services.”

So before choosing it as your web browser of choice you might want to bear that in mind!

Marketing Campaigns with Incentives and Targets

admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:42:00 +0000

I get to work in alot of vertical markets because of what I do. Today I was with two guys who work in and around the motor trade. We were looking at creating some software that can incentivise your existing base to increase their spend by setting ‘uplifted’ sales targets. It was something I had never seen before. So here’s how it works. You create a campaign and lets say that campaign runs for three months starting tomorrow (02/07/2008). You then select what customers you want to add to that campaign. Then using historical financial data you get the sales figures for each customer for the same period in the previous year (or go back 2,3,4 years). You then apply a percentage uplift to each customers historic sales and this then becomes their target for the current campaign. Now where it gets really interesting is you also take your current gross profit figure and then apply that to the uplifted sales figure. What this will do is tell you how much in actual revenue you will receive from each customer if they hit target.

Lets look at an example. Customer X has sales for the same period of the previous year of £100K. We use an uplift of 20% which means that customer has to hit £120K of sales during the current campaign. If our average gross profit is 30% then we make £6K if they hit target. So of course we can incentivise the customers to hit this target with some really compelling (and quite expensive) prizes in the knowledge of how much money there is to play with. And of course if they dont hit the target they dont get the prize!

Integrated CRM and accounts

admin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:07:57 +0000

The holy grail of systems. CRM is a hot topic but guess what? Integrated CRM and accounts in the Sage world is a myth. It simply doesn’t work 100%. Why because the Sage 200 suite and Sage 1000 comprise of nothing more than two products loosely coupled together. With the Sage 200 suite you get a windows based legacy application bundled with a web based application; two applications and two databases. With Sage 1000 you get a Sage Line 500 webclient (which uses Java) and the same web-based CRM (which doesnt use Java). So what happens when you want to raise a quotation for a prospect in Sage 200? There you are in the web-browser and as soon as you hit the quote button up pops the a windows application window from Sage 200! As this site is focused on business productivity and not specifically Sage productivity I am watching with interest a product called Interprise suite. It is the only completely integrated accounts, CRM and webshop on the market. The single user version is completely FREE and it is priced between Sage 50 and Sage 200. A demo can be downloaded from this site.

Dashboard for Sage Instant or Line 50

admin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:50:02 +0000

The completely FREE dashboard I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Is now ready for download. If your a user of Sage accounts, either Line 50 or Instant you can check out the features and get the software from this page.

How to find the best small business accounting software

admin — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:51:01 +0000

The eternal question “I have just started a business, what accounting package should I use?” crops up time and time again. Now of course this site is dedicated to Sage but I do not sell Sage software, I merely help businesses achieve more with it so I have no real preference. Many start-ups go with what their accountant suggests. Of course this is good practice as it makes moving all the data to and from your accountant much easier. However if I had a pound for everytime I heard “I just want a simple invoicing program” I would have accrued a fair amount of money by now! The problem is that vendors think that by offering more features in their product it makes it more appealing….wrong! It just makes it more bewildering and complex to the untrained user. Sage Instant is a fantastic product, it just does what it says on the tin and is very cost effective. There are plenty of options in the marketplace so look around, what you after is an accounting system that allows you to remain productive so raising an invoicing should take less than 60 seconds.

Dashboard for Sage 50

admin — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:39:21 +0000

I have written a ‘dashboard’ for Sage 50 which shows basic sales performance figures for your customer base as well as basic credit control information. It is going to be released in the next few weeks and will be completely FREE of charge to Sage 50 and Instant users. The biggest positive about it is that it queries the data without taking up a user licence so you can provide additonal staff with access to key information without buying additional seats!

Stay tuned!

Reporting Services with Sage 200

admin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:34:59 +0000

If you’re wondering about using reporting services with Sage 200, this can easily be done. Sage 200 uses a Microsoft SQL Server to store the data now anyway so adding reporting services functionality is easy as it will either already be installed or be available to download and install from either microsoft.com or your SQL server CD.

Why use reporting services over the standard reports? For a start you can create reports that make use of additional field information in S200 (analysis fields for example), you can easily export reports to excel, CSV or PDF and you can also provide data to users who are not S200 users and save yourself the license costs in the process. A good example is an aged debt report, you could have a credit controller who doesnt actually need a user licence but give them access to a report which gives them all they need to chase money!

Project Accounting is ‘broken’

admin — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:31:28 +0000

OK, technically it isn’t actually ‘broken’ but it is missing a small piece of functionality that more and more sites are flagging up. That is you can raise a PO and record it against a project but you cannot raise any sales orders and record them against a project. All that happens is that field where you enter the project reference is greyed out, simple fix you would think? I heard the current estimated fix date is many, many months away, o dear!

Microsoft Visual Studio cannot shut down because a modal dialog is active

admin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:19:10 +0000

If you have ever encountered this error when using Visual Studio 2005 to build reports there is a hotfix available which should fix the problem. It is very annoying and is one of those problems that can manifest itself occasionally or multiple times in one day. You can get the fix here and you can use your passport sign-on (i.e. hotmail sign-in details) to access the download area.