Sage is a very popular product, and many companies buy and install Sage either having bought the software direct from Sage, or maybe your friendly accountant has helped get you started with your Sage software.
More commonly though the people I meet through being a sage trainer in Northampton have learnt how to use the software from the previous bookkeeper or just by getting on and using is, and they have never been trained to use Sage themselves.
The accounting software is used as a basic data entry tool, and you may have never thought about how you could make the software actually work more for your business.
Basic Accounting
Often when Sage is first installed and used companies just start off by using the basic accounting functions. Many companies don’t even use the system to raise invoices and track payment and receipts. The software is used purely in order to produce the figures for the accountant to be able to create the annual accounts, with perhaps the VAT returns being submitted too. But did you know Sage can do so much more?
By looking at the way you produce your invoices in Sage, how you use products or service invoicing, and the nominal code structure in the background, you can use your Sage to produce useful and meaningful management reports throughout the financial year, so you can actually make important business decisions before it is too late to do anything about it.
Raising Invoices
Does your company raise invoices in Excel or Microsoft Word, then just copy the information into Sage 50 afterwards? This is quite common in companies where the invoicing routine was established and in place before Sage was installed as the bookkeeping package. It is so easy to product professional looking email invoices directly from within Sage now, and they can be edited too so they don’t look like Sage invoices if you don’t want them too. These invoices can then be posted into your accounts without any re keying necessary reducing duplication and the chance of errors being introduced.
Alternatively though if you use another industry specific tool to raise your invoices, we also have tools which enable these invoices to be imported directly into Sage, more details can be found on this previous post.
Department Tracking
Companies often have sales areas, either geographical or belonging to different reps, or customer types, like retail, trade and wholesale, which they may want to report on. Would you know easily from your accounts where most of your business comes from, or even which areas of your business of the most profitable? If you have performance related pay can you tell which sales team actually bring in the most profit to your business?
People can often look very busy and might have high volumes of invoices being raised, but if costs are not tracked and allocated too you might be working really hard for little or no profit. This is where department tracking, analysis codes and project costing come into their own in Sage.
Why do you need Sage Training?
If any of my examples strike a cord with how you are using your Sage Accounts software, or if you feel you are not using the software to it’s full potential, then a Sage Training session might be just what you need. Often a session of 2-3 hours is enough to help you streamline your processes and just tweek the way you use the software to get great benefits.
Often you just need to just take time out and step back for a minute and look at how you use the software and actually think about what you want to get out of it, make your Sage Accounts software work for your business, instead of feeling like you are a slave to meaningless data entry just to get your accounts submitted each year.
How can we Help?
If you are looking for a Sage Trainer in Northampton or Milton Keynes, and surrounding areas, then we can come to your site and review how you are using Sage. If you are further afield then a consultation via Skype is also possible too, so get in touch today and see how we can help you.
