Sage 50 cost centre limitations

Sage 50 cost centre limitations

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I have a client currently using Sage 50 with a bolt on called Protean that manages stock and servicing.  Protean only links with Sage, QuickBooks and Pegasus Opera.

My client needs to work out profits per department, but it seems Sage 50 is very limited in this respect.  The next step up is Sage 200, which is a huge leap in terms of cost because resellers sell the software and conversion/training as a bundle - approx split is 30:70 software cost to training/transfer costs.

Is there an add on which allows Sage 50 to give more departmental analysis e.g. split purchase invoices, etc between more than one department, etc so my client can get reasonably accurate reports of profit/loss for each of three departments?

Alternatively are there companies that supply data transfer/training on a more cost effective basis than Sage resellers  (client is in North of England)?

Replies (12)

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By NDH
02nd Sep 2014 15:38

Sage 50 should work sufficiently well for this if you use the departments. The only caveat to that is for all reporting requirements you would be best linking Sage with excel and extracting the info that way.

It would take a while to set up the spreadsheet initially but if you know your way around excel you should be fine.

I can give a bit more info if this solution interests you.

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By RFL H
02nd Sep 2014 15:54

Additional Nominal Codes

If there are only 3 departments you should be able to handle it by creating nominal codes for each department (This is pretty much how Sage 200 does it anyway).

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By BryanS1958
02nd Sep 2014 23:21

Invoices for more than one department

Many thanks for the comments.

My client seems to think that Sage 50 only allows invoices to be allocated to one department, so if an invoice has a number of lines that need to be allocated to more than one department it can't cope.  Is this correct?

I did think of using multiple nominal ledger accounts, but it is a bit cumbersome. However, for the difference in price probably makes it worthwhile.

My preference is QuickBooks, which is much better in my view, but not sure how good it is for 3+ users and also my client isn't keen on moving away from Sage, so that knocks that on the head!

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Replying to BryanS1958:
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By Robert Czik
05th Feb 2021 21:27

Hi Bryan
You cannot achieve Cost Center accounting by having multiple Nominals since the same AMOUNT needs to be accounted in different Dimensions - without splitting the amount into different Nominals

At present, I am not sure that proper Cost Accounting can be achieved in Sage Line50 but I would be pleased to hear if anybody has done this and how?

Thanks
Robert

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Replying to BryanS1958:
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By Robert Czik
05th Feb 2021 21:27

Hi Bryan
You cannot achieve Cost Center accounting by having multiple Nominals since the same AMOUNT needs to be accounted in different Dimensions - without splitting the amount into different Nominals

At present, I am not sure that proper Cost Accounting can be achieved in Sage Line50 but I would be pleased to hear if anybody has done this and how?

Thanks
Robert

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By RFL H
03rd Sep 2014 08:11

3 Nominals will work

Providing the invoices are being raised on different lines for each department 3 nominals can be posted to from the invoice itself.

If not you can post a journal to reallocate the sales as you wish.

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By JKnight
03rd Sep 2014 08:24

Practice company
You can use the practice company within Sage 50 to post test transactions and find out what it can do. If an invoice is split over three lines you should be able to code it to one nominal and three different departments. For apportioning overheads, journals can be coded to the same nominal but different departments.

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Replying to JKnight:
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By Robert Czik
05th Feb 2021 21:34

This solution will not work if you want to post a sum on say £90 to a Nominal but also £90 to Cost Center B and £90 Cost Center C

Posting the same amount to different Dimensions is more complex. With proper Cost accounting, you should be able to Post to a Nominal £90, and post the same amount to Dimensions/Cost Centers.

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Sarah Douglas - HouseTree Business Ltd
By sarah douglas
03rd Sep 2014 10:08

No Sage can cope with more then 1 department per invoice

Hi 

You can allocate invoices to as many departments as you like.   As long as you make sure you have the same invoice number in each line you can enter as many nominal codes or Department codes, Project costs you want ( helpful to use F6  it will appear as one in the creditors ledger and you can allocated as many as you like .   In the creditors Ledger you will see ...... which means more then one line. 

In Sales this is the same procedure for batch entry .  If you are using the invoice module each line has a background to it so if you press the arrow key you can enter the department.

 

Sarah Douglas   Douglas Accountancy and Bookkeeping Services Glasgow  

 

 

 

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Replying to sarah douglas:
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By Robert Czik
05th Feb 2021 21:47

Hi Sarah

I would love to understand how the marking of a transaction per Department, can show the same value in several different departments - do you have a solution to this? To clarify my point: I need to post £100 to a Nominal A but the same amount to Department 1 and the same again to Department 2. In this case, each Department is a Dimension and it accounts for the same sum in different Dimensions.

Thanks
Robert

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By NDH
03rd Sep 2014 11:23

As others have said each invoice line can be posted to different nominal codes and departments.

Do you produce the info for invoices on Sage or the add on Protean? If it's protean i'd imagine in that there would be options to allocate various department codes/nominal codes which would then automatically transfer across to sage.

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By Robert Czik
05th Feb 2021 20:26

I do not think that creating different Nominals solves the cost center needs since the Cost center concept is that the same amount (on an invoice line) needs to be recorded in separate Cost Centers and the scenario is not the splitting of the amount between different nominal codes. For instance, we have a sales invoice transaction for £600 and this is posted to a nominal 20001- Brand A but we want to register the same amount as CostCenter called Wholesaler.

Solution A. A marking on this transaction as Wholesaler (no amount) and create a report that picks of all the transactions marked as Wholesaler + the £600 shown on the line

Solution B the £600 is posted to the Nominal as before but also posted separately in a separate column outside the Nominal structure.

I have used big accounting systems that use Solution A which can be summarised as follows: The financial transaction is only posted to the Nominal account but the Cost Centers are only markings in different columns where each column represents a Cost Center Dimension (eg in the above case, the Dimension is a DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL ie Wholesalers, Pharmacies, Stores etc. and the Cost Center (eg Wholesaler) is turned into a Cost Center P@L, in a bespoke report that picks up the £600 (from the Nominal) and filters by Wholesalers.

I am aware that this sounds complex but I cannot see another way of accounting for the same amount for different purposes? In other words, accounting by NOMINAL is one Dimension, accounting by Distribution Channel and accounting by Brand can be a third dimension. Each Dimension can have multiple Descriptions (Values)

I am happy to further explain the logic of cost centers and I would be pleased to hear from other users or experts, how can a Cost Center P&L be achieved in Sage Line50

Robert

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