Wish you had more control over your Sage 100 ERP Chart of Accounts?

You do.  As the person in charge of your company’s chart of accounts (COA’s), you can control new accounts and changes to existing accounts.  Always make a backup before making changes.

• Restrict the Sage 100 ERP Chart of Account (COA):  Account numbers can consist of the main number + segment(s).  To restrict how new accounts come into existence, turn the option for “on the fly additions” off in your general ledger options.  Now to create a new account, we would use the general ledger utility to “generate new accounts” based on valid main and valid segment combinations.  Further, restrict who has access to account maintenance.
•  Fix existing Sage 100 ERP accounts:  two utilities are available to assist you in either renumbering accounts or merging accounts.  Go to general ledger, utilities, and chose either Delete Accounts or Change Accounts.
• Correct account descriptions:  Some businesses like proper case while others prefer all upper case descriptions.    You can correct this in account maintenance.  Also, you may wish to correct segment descriptions in your descriptions for uniformity.
• Restructuring your COA:  you may find that you did not allow enough range of account numbers in any particular segment of your COA (for example, current assets).  You can modify this in setup, account group maintenance to expand or contract an account group.

If you need assistance, contact us!

Selecting an accounting system is no small task.  There are so many accounting systems available which one is right for your company?  Today we'll discuss common accounting system selection mistakes and how to avoid them.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #1:  Failure to establish a solid technology project management committee.  Establish a manageable technology project management committee where each company department is represented.  It is important the needs of every part of the company are considered.  Try to keep this team under 7 members.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #2:  Failure to perform a detailed needs assessment with a qualified local accounting systems expert. Needs assessments can reveal performance needs, instrumental needs, conscious needs, unconscious needs, organizational needs, individual needs and causes for needs.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #3:  Failure to develop a comprehensive business process assessment.  This process documents the measurement and assessment of the existing business processes.  This can come in the form of a checklist defining a weighted value of importance to the individual business processes critical to the company.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #4:  Failure to define your milestone and budget projections.  It is important for the technology project management committee to prepare a project time line and prelimminary budget.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #5:  Buy on emotion instead of fact.  Everyone has opinions.  It is important to make a rational fact based decision based on your needs assessment and business process assessments.

Accounting Systems Selection Mistake #6:  Too much focus on the ERP initiatives and lack of focus on other important business initiatives.

According to a 2011 study conducted by Panorama Consulting Solutions titled: ERP Failures and Lawsuits: It's Not Just For the Tier 1 ERP Vendors, ERP failures for Tier II and Tier III ERP implementations are just as likely to fail as Tier 1 implementations from SAP or Oracle.  The reasons for failure can be related to employees having trouble acclimating to the new system, versus malfunctions in the software itself.  So the goal is simple:  choose the right local accounting systems expert and the right accounting system by matching company needs to the software capabilities and including every department in the fact-based decision making step-by-step accounting systems selection process.

Picture available on Hiking Artists.com Flickr photostream

We are excited to announce our new video on Sage CRM Sage 100 ERP highlighting how to manage contacts and more...

• How do I add contacts in Sage CRM?
• How do I send a mass email to a group of contacts in Sage CRM?
• How can I see Sage 100 ERP contacts displayed in Sage CRM?
• How can I select a group of contacts to be reflected in Sage CRM?

Watch our quick video overview to learn more!

Question:  Does Sage CRM sync with Microsoft Outlook or other calendar management applications?

Sage CRM and Microsoft Outlook is completely integrated no matter where you start your task or appointment.  The information is a bi-directional sync so wherever the appointments are set-up they are synced with the other integrated application.  Bring over the contacts you need to view from Sage 100 ERP.  Book meeting rooms, assign people and resources to activities.  Manage employees by monitoring activity completion.  Set notification s management if tasks are not accomplished within the time specified.  View and notify managment of incomplete tasks.

Please watch Sage CRM's powerful calendar and task management by capabilities in the short video below:

Question:  How do I set-up my Sage CRM dashboard to reflect the data I need from Sage 100 ERP (formerly MAS 90 MAS 200)?

• The purpose of the Sage CRM dashboard is for the user to get to all the information they access most frequently all in one spot.
• You can have any of your Sage 100 ERP information displayed from the Sage CRM dashboard
• Each Sage CRM user has their own dashboard view configured on a user by user permission basis.  Step-by-step instructions are provided.
• Sage CRM users can access social media information of each contact in their database if a social media profile exists.

Please view our complimentary Sage CRM Sage 100 ERP accountants perspective demonstration:

Front Office Meets Back Office with Sage 100 ERP (formerly MAS 90 and MAS 200)

The back office accounting processes are the backbone of any business.  The financial balance statement can make or break a company.  Accountants are well qualified for what they do.  The front office sales and customer service teams can help your back office accounting teams accomplish objectives.  Here's how:

Sage 100 ERP (formerly MAS 90 MAS 200)is now combined with Sage CRM to extend the functionality you have become accustomed to in the back office to your front office.  Sage 100 ERP is combined with Sage CRM to allow for a single view of your customers interactions with your company.  Now your sales teams can become focused on the profit objectives of your company using Sage 100 ERP, providing an enterprise-wide, consistent view of customer activity and opportunities.

• Is your accounting business management system disconnected from customer service and sales?
• Is it important to have integrated business management systems between departments?
• Has your company experienced miscommunication between your back office accounting teams and your front office customer facing teams?
• Have your sales people sold to customers on credit hold by mistake?
• If your back office accounting personnel had access to your sales forecast would it be helpful in budgeting?
• When a sales quotation turns into an order does someone have to re-key that duplicate information into your Sage 100 ERP system?
• Do your sales people use a separate system to record notes about customers that could be useful to accounting?
• Is your sales forecast important when it comes to budgeting?
• Do your sales people miss opportunities to collect on open invoices because they lack visibility to them?
• Do your sales lack visibility to customer item sales history, potentially handicapping their customer relationship?
• When a sales prospect becomes a customer does your accounting staff have to re-key the customer information into Sage 100 ERP? 

If you answered yes to any of the foregoing questions, please join us for a complimentary one hour webcast May 18, 2012 at 12 PM CT to learn how Sage 100 ERP combined with Sage CRM can solve these problems and more.

(Image provided by hayley valleyo on flickr)

Shape-up and Ship-out!  It sounds like something my mother would say.  We are really talking about shipping software and it's no joke.  It is a serious matter.  If you have something to sell and a customer buying you want your product to make it there.  Eliminate the manual data rekey process with automated shipping software.  Let's face it your customers want quick access to their shipping data information in order to track their products in route. 

To learn more please sign-up for our MAS 90 Integrated Shipping Solution webinar on Friday, January 27, 2012!

• Do you have to deal with 1099 reporting?
• Do you want to automate this onerous task and decrease your risk of IRS audit!