Using Sage Line 50

Sitting on the bus one Friday night on my way home from work I realised why people around me were looking at me. Yes, it was my mobile telephone. To them it was something out of the dark ages.  Even though it was only about three years old, to me it did what I required it to do. It did however make me stop and think about the world we live in these days. So much in life is centred around technology. Could life become simpler by making use of the technology that is all around us? Not known for letting the grass grow under my feet, first thing Monday morning I switched on my computer and logged into Sage thinking how can I make my working life easier, is there a better way to do things? We use Sage Line 50, one of the most commonly used accounting systems on the market, along with Excel spreadsheets and procedures we’ve been using for a number of years. While this works very well for us, I decided to investigate whether we could improve our process in any way, focussing on two key areas, Purchase Order Processing and our Month-end Procedures. After putting the kettle on for that all important morning coffee, I opened up a book that has been sitting on my desk since the day I started with Excellimore two years ago “Sage 50 Accounts for Dummies” and set up a dummy training company so I could explore Sage without compromising our working accounts.

Purchase Order Processing

At present we only raise sales orders in Sage which works very well for us as we very often part-invoice our clients. We don’t however use purchase order processing to create our purchase orders, choosing to use an excel spreadsheet system instead. Using the dummy company I had set up, I worked through the process of creating purchase orders and processing purchase invoices. The process was very easy and straight forward to use. However I decided not to use the Sage purchase order processing system for the following reason: we order IT equipment which is very often broken down into smaller components and purchased from different suppliers, and we then invoice our customers for the complete product. Sage’s purchase order processing system did not allow the flexibility to allow us to do this in an easy way.

Month-end Procedure

At present we use Excel spreadsheets to monitor all our prepayments, accruals and depreciation then process manual journals at the end of each month. Although this does work very well for us, a lot of the entries in our monthly journals are the same each month. By setting up and using the prepayments, accruals and depreciation facilities within Sage they can be automated to run on the last day of each month. For other journals you can use the memorise facility which brings up previous journals but will allow you to make any necessary changes. Even the very best book-keeper can make errors when posting journals, mixing up your debit and credits is very easy to do. Using the journal reversal facility makes any errors very easy to rectify. To conclude I think the process we use at present for our purchase ordering works well and I don’t propose to change it at present. However going forward I will examine in further detail using the prepayments, accruals and depreciation facilities and possibly implement them at the start of our new financial year. As of this month I plan to start using the reversal facility (not that I am planning to make any errors) and most definitely the memorise facility which will save me a lot of typing time. As Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said “Time is Money” On a personal note you will be glad to know I have moved into this century and now have a new mobile telephone, having great fun exploring all my new apps. No more funny looks on the bus!