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Sage readies Line 50 business intelligence module

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10th Jun 2006
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Sage UK managing director Paul Stobart this week revealed that the company is ready to launch a sophisticated Excel-based business intelligence module for Sage Line 50.

In 2004, Sage acquired IntelligentApps, a specialist in Excel-based online analytical processing (OLAP) and reporting. The company has been instrumental in creating Sage Business Intelligence for the Line 200/500 product family, but in a radical rethink, Sage decided to repackage the same BI capabilities for its most popular desktop accounting application.

OLAP tools like Sage Business Intelligence extract transactional data to a separate database, where the figures are formatted, cross-referenced and pre-summed to support analysis from any dimension.

"Sage Business Intelligence enables you to build advanced financial reports by building a cube from client data and seeing how it's expressed in Excel," explained Stobart at the Sage Insights conference in London this week.

The Sage MD admitted what many accountants already know: "The unfortunate thing about any accounting program is that reporting is not very good - the developers are all interested in managing the transactions and the output is often an afterthought. Getting a profit & loss account and balance sheet in the format you want can be a nightmare."

Priced at £495 for a single installation (plus £100 for each additional user), Sage Business Intelligence for Line 50 is an Excel Add-In engineered around the IntelligentApps methodology.

For the Line 50 version, Stobart said, "I asked them to take Business Intelligence and start again for Line 50 users and design it around the kinds of reports those users want."

While the grown-up Business Intelligence products for Line 500 are driven by Microsoft's SQL Server database and its reporting and analysis add-ons, the entry-level version is based around extracting and manipulating .CUB files. Once it is launched for Sage Line 50, a version will come out for its big brother, Sage MMS.

Presenting a preview version at Sage Insights, BI division managing director Paul Martin said, "The days of proprietary reporting and analysis tools are dead. We need to leverage the skills and tools we have, which are based around Excel."

With the launch of the Line 50 and MMS versions of Sage Business Intelligence, he claimed, "We will be the only software vendor that can provide business intelligence from the standalone user right through to the high-end systems used by people like Reuters."

Stobart told AccountingWEB that the Sage Accountants Division would be a key channel for popularising the new business intelligence tool.

"Practitioners will be able to provide a better and quicker service to customers because they will be able to provide better reports. Because you've got the data in Excel, with dynamic links back to Line 50, you will be able expose the information in new ways to add commerical value.

"The Accountants Division is a personal priority of mine," Stobart said. "Part of this drive is to make the accountant community realise we're serious about them by enabling them to do what they do faster and better."

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By jacp400
10th Jun 2005 15:26

About time!
Interesting comment:

"The days of proprietary reporting and analysis tools are dead. We need to leverage the skills and tools we have, which are based around Excel."

Companies like Access Accounts and Exchquer and latterly Pegasus recognised that years ago, and have had solutions available for a long time.

Dont agree on the previous comment regarding pricing though - it sounds great value for money, when you consider the payback in time saved / information gained.

Well done to Sage for finally recognising what everyone else knew!

John Clough
BDO Stoy Hayward LLP
www.bdo.co.uk

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By PhillipIRosslee
13th Jun 2005 14:09

Endorse Mark Gauden's Comment
Sage plc just charge too much for a very mediocre accounting solution.There are a number of accounting applications which include crystal reports with their application at Sage Line 50's level.Simply Accounting is one and if users take time to learn how to use Crystal Reports they could analyse accounting data in so many different ways and use excel with very powerful effect.

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By AnonymousUser
15th Jun 2005 14:16

Pegasus already provide the Excel Add-in
As a Pegasus Gold partner we are showing the Excel ADD in Pegasus have developed for SageLine50!

For more info contact PCS Ltd 01675 470774 to book attendance at a Seminar at which it will be shown on 13th July 2005.

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By User deleted
10th Jun 2005 13:42

Seems a bit costly
Would any other accountancy software supplier feel justified / able to get away with charging £495 for an "add in" that, to me, is necessary to make good shortcomings in the reporting and export capabilities of their original accounting software package ?

Roll on the day when Microsoft launch business accounting software in the UK, and hopefully tax software too.

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Cascade - Sage 50 Business Intelligence
By medonaldson
04th Oct 2017 19:08

An old thread but the reporting on Sage 50 has not changed much (if at all) over this period. With the evolution of the cloud and other accounting platforms steaming ahead with online reporting and data capture, we set about the task of designing from the ground up, a reporting tool which bolts over the top of Sage 50, and brings the benefits of the cloud without needing to change systems.

Interesting to see our pricing is the same as Sage’s Business Intelligence platform at £495 or £45/month, some 12 years later. The key difference is that www.cascade.bi provides a cloud based solution, accessible anywhere, with no set up costs and it certainly isn’t just an excel spreadsheet!

For more info see www.cascade.bi

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