Sage introduced the Paperless Office Module with version 4.3 of Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200. Here are a few tips we have picked up in implementing it:
If you have run across anything else like this you want to share about Paperless Office, please post a comment here.
Friendly Systems announces that it is now authorized to sell and support Intuit’s QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 9.0.
Get accounting and business management software delivering the power and flexibility your growing business needs with QuickBooks’ legendary ease of use. Manage your business finances, inventory, customers, vendors and employees for thousands less than other more complicated accounting software systems, backed with local support and training in the Atlanta, Georgia area from Friendly Systems, a company with over 25 years experience helping small and medium sized businesses.
QuickBooks Enterprise version 9 Offers:
Need More Information?
Call Friendly Systems at 678-273-4010 x 1 to get answers and advice from a Quickbooks Enterprise Solutions consultant. We can determine whether your company’s needs are met by Quickbooks Enterprise Solutions.
Report selection functions are now much easier
Selection options for reports are now on the main screen, rather than a separate tab, so all information is visible on one screen.
You can now enter value fields in report selection without having to select the operand.
Example: To select a customer for a report, enter 01-ABF as customer, the operand will automatically default to Equal-to in the operand column. This makes selection much quicker.
Also note that for AR, AP,GL & SO reports, if there are User Defined Fields setup for the primary report file, the User Define Fields appear on the report selection screen. You will have to scroll down the selection screen to see them, as they appear after the primary fields, but they can be used with the various selection options to choose records for the report. The User Defined Fields do not print on the report however, unless you add them using Crystal reports.
There’s a great new option to automatically return to the report selection screen after printing or previewing so you can change the selection options and print/preview again without having to start over. See the bottom line to the right of the printer selection where it says: Keep Window Open.
Previously announced on June 25th, 2008 the Sage Software Customer Support Knowledgebase was publicly available without requiring a user logon and password. 13 days later, on July 7th, Sage retracted this access based on feedback from their reseller community. They decided to re-evaluate this decision and continue requiring a valid user logon and password for accessing their support site. This site contains troubleshooting and support tips for many Sage products including Mas90 & Mas200, Sage Businessworks, F9 and FRx.
Do you ever have business situations that catch you by surprise (of course, we all do). If key people are out of the office, can they or anyone keep track of important developments that require immediate decisions? Business Alerts can trigger automatic e-mail alerts to one or more people based on the data in your accounting system. The actual alert triggers can be set based on the formulas that are important to your business.
Examples:
The purchasing manager can be alerted when:
An item is below its minimum stock level at a warehouse. Never run out of a best selling item.
The cost of an item received exceeds the standard cost for that item or the cost varies by a high percentage from the usual cost of that item.
Salespeople can be alerted when an inventory item’s price changes.
Account managers can be notified when one of their customers has an invoice that is past due by 30 (60,90,etc.) days or more.
Notify the sales manager when an order does not ship by the shipping date.
Contact us at Friendly Systems if you want to learn more about using Business Alerts to work for your company.
Just announced on June 25th, 2008 the Sage Software Customer Support Knowledgebase is now publicly available, and no longer requires a user logon and password. This site contains troubleshooting and support tips for many Sage products including Mas90 & Mas200, Sage Businessworks, F9 and FRx. You can see frequently accessed questions, or select a module and do a text-search for questions you may have. This can be a helpful addition to the help-text already provided in your Sage software products.
To access the Sage On-line Knowledgebase, go to:
Paperless Office features example - archiving Journals and Registers
Functions: Ability to e-mail, fax and store PDF’s of forms, registers and reports with no additional software required.
Advantages: fast transmission of information to customers, employees and vendors. Archiving and easy retrieval of forms, registers and reports. Eliminate filing time and paper storage and expense.
Example - Sales Order Sales Journals: You set up your company ABC for Sales Order Sales Journals to create pdf documents and store them in your pre-designated folder for Sales Order Registers. When you select the Sales Journal, a PDF file of the report will be created with the name in the pre-designated folder in the format:
ABC_SO_DailySalesReports_SO-000010_000.PDF
where ABC is the company code and SO-000010 is the Sales Journal number.
Accessing the Journals & Registers
OK you need to see or print a certain Sales Journal from 2 weeks ago, how do you find it? Go to the Paperless Office module selector option for Journal & Register Viewer. A grid will be displayed with all the Sales Journals for your company including the journal name: (Daily Sales Reports/Updates), date-printed, User-code, and whether the journal was updated or not. There is a search feature so you can retrieve journals by journal number or user. Simply click on the report you need and it will be loaded into the viewer for you to review, print or e-mail. No more looking through files in the file cabinet. In the setup, you may specify a password for these documents so that information is kept confidential.
Paperless Office features - great for saving time and money in printing, filing, transmitting and retrieving forms, registers and reports.
Ability to fax and e-mail orders and invoices to customers and vendors
Ability to archive and easily retrieve registers, journals and reports and view, print or e-mail them.
Documents can be passworded to maintain confidentiality
New Business Insights Features
New views are included for G/L, A/P, Inventory and Purchase Orders.
Quicker drill down to information and data entry without lengthy menus.
New Chart tab allows you to view and chart data from several areas and customize the titles - then you can copy the chart into other applications such as Microsoft Word documents. Great for presentations.
Improved Business Insights Dashboard
Place detail or summary views on the main Dashboard.
Generate Dashboard pages independent of internet connectivity.
Charts are now printable.
Greater security features for setting up dashboards for different users.
Report selection functions are now much easier
Selection options for reports are now on the main screen, rather than a separate tab.
Enter value fields in report selection without having to select the operand.
Example: To select a customer for a report, enter 01-ABF as customer, the operand will automatically default to Equal-to in the operand column. Much quicker.
Great option to return to the report selection screen after printing or previewing so you can change the selection options and print/preview again without having to start over.
New E-filing options for Payroll State & Federal info, and for AP 1099 data.
Improved Financial Reporting Features
Sage Mas90/Mas200 version 4.30 CD’s have been shipped to customers who are currently on a maintenance plan. Friendly Systems recommends you contact our support line at 678-273-4010 ext 2 so we can review the requirements and effects of upgrading your system. As we noted in our June newsletter, installations with custom modifications, extended solutions or 3rd party products should not contemplate upgrading to 4.30 until each of those changes has been certified for version 4.30. In the coming weeks, we’ll be adding blog entries describing the new features in version 4.30.
Most businesses realizing that their systems and/or processes need improvement look around and total up the costs of making the changes. What will new software cost? What will it cost to train 5 new employees? What will a bigger warehouse cost me each month? It’s easy to quantify those answers, because you can get on the phone or on the Internet and get quotes that put it in green and white.
What’s harder to quantify is the cost of not changing. Just keep doing what you’ve always done is safe, right? Studebaker probably thought so…
Each of the “what does it cost to?” questions should immediately bring up an equal and opposite “what is it costing NOT to?” question. What is the old system costing in lost productivity? What is it costing in employee morale and stress-induced errors to not make sure that employees have the tools and training they need for the company to be the best at what it does?
These numbers affect the bottom line just as much as the numbers on the checks, and good decisions take into account all the facts.