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Review: Sage 50 Accounts 2010
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Sage 50 Accounts 2010 went on sale at the beginning of September, sparking the annual debate among users and commentators about the need for year-on-year enhancements to an already mature and complex desktop accounting product.
Following our preview of the application, Sage 50 Accounts product manager Michael Page gave AccountingWEB.co.uk a more detailed tour of the new features and addressed some of the issues raised in members’ comments.
Some of the interface changes in the new addition are relatively minor, for example the ability to set up recurrent payments quickly, or suppress warning messages when posting out of period transactions.
“These little bits appear to be insignificant, but deliver far more customer value and efficiency because they save users time and money,” Page said.
Hands on with Sage 50 Accounts 2010
Interface improvements - Sage 50 was one of the first accounting applications to use graphical flow charts to help users navigate around different modules. This is a particularly useful feature if you use the application infrequently, Page said. For this community, Sage has added a selection of interactive video simulations to demonstrate how different modules should be used.
Usability is an increasingly important issue within the software industry. Most accounting applications do the same thing, so being able to do it more easily can make a real difference for users. Being able to customise and save screen views and sort grids of data by clicking the top of a particular column (date or name for example) is now expected - and Sage has done the work to ensure the new version complies.
It also added date range and pull-down options to let users select records and enter data more quickly. Using right mouse-click commands, you can now select someone from your Sage 50 Customer list and choose the Add an invoice option or even raise a credit note and allocate it to a particular invoice for that customer (see image below). Another option within Bank and other transactional accounts opens a dialogue box to generate recurring entries. [NB: a small flaw has been discovered in the initial commercial release of the application that affects the recurring entries routine in the Sage 50 Banking module. The bug only affects users who are upgrading from older versions and Sage is working on a fix that should be available in the next couple of days - see comments below for more information].
In our preview article “The Fishmonger” took Sage to task for disregarding common Windows shortcuts and cursor navigation. While some quirks persist, Sage has added its own shortcut commands, so that pressing Ctrl plus one of number keys from 1 to 7, will take you into the relevant module listed on the Task menu at the bottom right of the main user screen.
Previously if you posted a transaction outside the current financial period, Sage 50 would pop up a warning message. For those who have to enter bunches of retrospective transactions (for example from the client’s plastic bag of invoices), Sage has added an option to suppress the warning for the session.
The developer has also compiled file maintenance and back-up information into a single overview screen to encourage users to be more aware of their data management practices.
Reporting- The real purpose of an accounting application is to deliver better management information. The data held in Sage 50 is exposed to the user in new ways via the main user dashboard. This screen has been adapted to display the most important information for the company’s cash position including customer and supplier debts, payments due and late payments and disputes.
For sourcing and distributing system reports, a new Report Explorer (pictured below) shows a menu of report templates, plus a listing of most commonly used and most recently run reports, along with a user-definable Favourites list on the main user desktop.
The Sage 50 Excel Wizard has been the focus of considerable activity to support the legion of users who extract data for further analysis in their spreadsheets, and those who want to bring data back into the application. The wizard includes a collection of templates to handle common information types and a semi-automatic data mapping tool to handle minor tweaks. The tool will match data items that have the same name in the source and destination files, and will highlight mandatory fields with an asterisk.
Once the data import format has been specified, it can be stored and used again for any similar data imports. The tool is the same as in Sage Payroll and will alert the user to any errors in payroll data that would not pass HMRC’s validation checks.
Payment processing- A couple of years ago, Sage acquired the online payments processing service provider Protx and has been working to integrate the online payment facilities with its accounting applications. Sage 50 Accounts 2010 brings that project to fruition.
Once you have used the new screen controls to sort outstanding invoices for settlement, you can allocate payments to invoices, post them to the relevant accounts or check them off for payment, which invokes Sage Pay and connects you to the online server.
For improved cash flow, however, Page emphasises the benefits of using Sage Pay for collections. Sage 50 can raise electronic invoices as PDFs and the latest edition has a facility to include a “Pay Now” button which will take the customer into the Sage Pay website, where they are given a variety of payment options including credit cards and PayPal.
Once the customer has settled, Sage Pay feeds the details back into the Sage 50 ledgers. “The research that drove this showed that businesses who are offered the opportunity to pay an invoice immediately will do so. It gets payments into the business quicker than if someone prints out the invoice and sits on it,” said Page.
As part of the promotion around the new version people who buy Sage 50 Accounts 2010 will get three free access to Sage Pay for three months, he added.
Bank reconciliation - A couple of AccountingWEB.co.uk members highlighted bank reconciliation as an area where they were looking for improvements in Sage 50. On closer inspection, this module is still a work in progress. Michael Page explained that the main enhancements stem from the new capability to download payment data from Sage Pay.
“We’re starting to look ahead to what we can do in the next version and bank reconciliation has been earmarked for more work going forward,” he said. However, he added, “It’s too early to confirm what we’re going to do next year.”
Cash Register module - It may not amount to a better reconciliation system, but the new Cash Register module in Sage 50 does cater for the needs of cash-based business, allowing them to enter cash collected and any enter discrepancies between their point of sale data and the money in hand. It also makes it easier to log and adjust the size of the user’s cash float.
The module itself is derived from a popular recent addition to Sage Instant Accounts. “If one thing works well in one part of the business, we try to replicate in other areas,” Page said.
The desktop software development process
Along with bank reconciliation, improved integration with Sage’s ACT! contact management failed to materialise in the new version. A built-in Diary adds some CRM-like functions to the accounts program by allowing users to schedule “to do” tasks, but the ability to connect between live opportunities in ACT! with customer records and transactions in Sage 50 Accounts will have to wait for the next upgrade, Page said.
The will it/won’t it appear syndrome is a feature of software product management and the batch nature of packaged software upgrades. It also breeds frustration among users that online software as a service providers have exploited.
The Sage 50 Accounts 2010 product manager is aware of the trade-offs that surround the application and acknowledged complaints that it is getting too complex. Yet in terms of user numbers, Sage 50 remains the undisputed market leader and its success is driven by two factors, he explained.
First and foremost, Sage does a lot of market research. Page commented: “We want to focus on the elements customers say they want and improvements on what it already does. Customers expect to see the product evolve and for us it’s about improving that customer experience and enabling them to deal with processes.”
The other factor that complicates the lives of business software users and developers is legislation, which in the next few months will extend to changes in VAT and EU sales list reporting, plus mandatory PAYE e-filing for companies with more than 50 employees.
“Unfortunately for business, there is rarely a decrease in the volume of compliance regulations you have to conform to,” Page said. “People out there are looking for something to help them deal with financials, business information and compliance as quickly as possible. Our aim is to let them concentrate on marketing and running the business while Sage worries about the bits they don’t want to spend time doing.”
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John Stokdyk sadly passed away in June 2023. He had been with the site since 1999, rising from news editor to editor in chief, global editor and head of insight. As a roving editor, he investigated the profession's use of technology around the world. He devoted his spare time to technology history and an oddball collection of stringed...
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Sage Accounts 2010
A number of enhancements are made year on year which must be quite costly, yet there are a few areas that I believe could be improved at virtually no expense at all.
On much earlier versions, when requesting a Profit & Loss or Balance Sheet having entered transactions for a period, the package automatically offered the period just entered - eg August.
Now one has to scroll to print out the latest month and "To Date" figures.
It would also be helpful to have a shortcut key to change the VAT code to T9; when entering a large amount of transactions by a sole trader scrolling to T0 or T2 is relatively quick but it is easy to scroll past T9 and typing the figures in is time consuming.
I find myself wondering why these relatively simple matters are not addressed?
Thanks (0)Sage 2010 update
Sage won't listen.
There are too many costly updates; it's too expensive; it has become too complicated; and it's too unforgiving of operator errors. Sage is a company that has grown by acquisition, not innovation and this growth path is reflected in the state of its present offering. The new product seems best suited to mid range companies. Any SME wanting a frills-free, efficient accounting package would do well to look elsewhere.
I have found companies such as VT Software far more supportive of their customers' needs. I am sure there are other smaller software houses that could make that claim too. Sage has had its day. It can now only charge its customers for features they neither need or will ever make use of.
Miles Cary
Thanks (0)Product upgrade warning - fault discovered in Recurring entries
I've just received a call from Greg Ford at Sage, who asked me to alert existing Sage users that a small fault has been discovered in the Recurring entries routine within the Banking module. If a new recurring entry is added, the payment will be made, but apparently the transaction will be stored in the wrong place.
The issue only affects Sage 50 users who upgrade from an older version; customers installing the program for the first time will be fine, Ford said. The problem was discovered by a beta test user after the formal testing programme had finished and Sage's programmers are working on a fix that will go out via its AutoUpdater system by the end of the week.
Ford said only a small number of Sage 50 users (circa 300) had installed the upgrade and contacted AccountingWEB.co.uk to try and ensure that potential upgraders were aware of the situation. More news follows shortly.
__________________________
John Stokdyk, Technology editor
Thanks (0)Sage 50 Accounts
John and I spoke earlier today about, what I perceive, is a minor issue within our latest release of Sage 50 Accounts 2010. I am, however, very conscious that our Accountants’ community expect for themselves and their clients a smooth transition through our upgrades, and I apologise if this issue has affected anybody to date.
This issue, which is isolated to a small group of customers who have already upgraded to Sage 50 Accounts 2010, manifests when adding a new recurring entry in the Bank module. Amending existing recurring entries works perfectly. The consequence of adding a new recurring entry is that it can over-write the first recurring item in a list. No historical transactions are lost and of course actual direct debits or standing orders, for example, are completely unaffected by this.
First and foremost let me tell you what our recommendation is. If you or your clients have received the upgrade to 2010, we would recommend that you don’t upgrade, as per a communication we’re sending out today, until you’re advised the correction is available to be applied by our auto-updates mechanism.
If you have upgraded to 2010 please e-mail us at [email protected] with your telephone number and a member of our customer services team will get back to you. My apologies again for any inconvenience this may have caused and I’d like to reassure you that we’re making good progress towards having a full solution available very soon.
Greg Ford
Managing Director of Sage Accountants' Division
Thanks (0)Sage 50 Upgrades
So version 2010 has arrived, and still no proper financial statements. I can't believe I'm the only accountant who's been asking for this for so many years.
Sage 50/Instant have always restricted you to just 4 groups in P&L and BS - no separate headings for Other Income, CT or Dividends, and hence no PBT, PAT etc. To compare my Sage P&L and BS with the formal financial statements .... I have to use a calculator. What progress.
There are other packages e.g. MYOB which have offered very customisable P&L and BS, with optional hierarchical layers, since their first release. Now I'll have retired before Sage gets round to it!
Thanks (0)Sage 50 Accounts 2010: Update from Sage
After piloting a fix with a number of business users of Sage 50 Accounts 2010 I'm pleased to share this has been successful and the fix is being made via Auto Updates. The download is available again and we are in the process of communicating this to our Accountants community, Business Partners and of course our mutual clients and customers. An easy way to check the auto update has applied is to validate the version number by opening the Help menu and choosing About, and the version number should be c16.00.16.0153
Finally my thanks to AccountingWeb, accountants, partners for their support through this process and my apologies for any inconvenience.
Greg Ford
Managing Director, Sage Accountants' Division
Thanks (0)Sage Developments
I feel that Sage should consider opening up its database interface with applications such as MS SQL Server for users to access even more powerful reporting tools offered by Microsoft's Business Intelligence Development Studio and a vast other array of tools in analytics.
I have tried migrating the native database in Sage to MS SQL Server's DBMS and it does not seem to work at all. And I have reason to believe there are a lot more people out there who have faced the same disappointment. Maybe Sage needs to be reminded that there are a host other software offerings in the market catering for small organisations who are willing to go the extra mile to provide a solution which has such capabilities.
Its time you listened to your customer needs Sage!
Thanks (0)Thank you
Cool.. It sounds like exclusive account at the beginning. So just two months left to see the result. Good luck!
Thanks (0)Sage response
I'd like to invite Greg Ford to respond to the comments made here by other accountingweb members.
Thanks (0)Miles Cary
Completely agree with you. Sage through their continued "greed" have made a fine job of alienating me against them. I have used Sage for over 20 years (initially Sage Sterling DOS) in my business but I just cannot cope with them anymore. I paid them nearly £700 to renew Sage Payroll cover and then was left waiting on hold on an 0845 number for 90 minutes plus. When I complained some arrogant prat on the other end of the phone explained in a very suspect tone how busy they were. I explained that when I am paying thousands of pounds to them each year for Accounts and Payroll support I don't care how busy they are. Get more staff!
Safe to say they have just lost a 20 year old customer. But I am sure that they will not give a damn. Companies like them never do. I am merely an account number.
I also actually wrote to Sage via email (and had a read receipt) on 3 separate occasions and also sent a letter via recorded delivery to their head office explaining that we had a slight cash flow issue and could something be worked out with the re-payments/monthly subs. That was 4 times I wrote in total and 4 items of correspondence which I know that they received and guess what? They could not even be courteous or civilised enough to take the effort or time to reply. That is how loyal they are to their 20 year old SBE customers who have spent tens of thousands if pounds with them so be warned.
Oh well, definately not my loss. I am looking at Moneysoft Payroll and VTT+ with much interest. Whistles and bells it may not be but I have never made use of any of Sage's "whistles and bells" in any event so it really makes no difference to me.
Stefan
Thanks (0)