Sage 50 Payroll Annual Licence Plan

This is a new Sage 50 Payroll proposition offering for businesses with up to 25 employees (including leavers in that year).

The software is the same as the current Sage 50 Payroll offering however customers will buy it on an annual licence plan.

There are 3 annual licence plans available – Explore, Exchange and Extra. All are designed to meet the specific needs of small businesses at competitive prices.

New Sage 50 HR

Sage 50 HR is a simple and intuitive HR solution that keeps all employee data at the users’ fingertips. It’s benefits include;
• Quick and easy entry of employee’s holiday and absence
• Up to date performance details and development needs for employees
• Automatically and easily create statements of employment for employees including working hours, holiday entitlement and notice periods
• Comply with legal requirements by attaching documents such as work permits, right to work and CRB checks to an employee record.

What’s new guide ‐ Sage 200 Suite v2011

Sage 200 Suite 2011 is scheduled to launch in summer 2011. This latest version of the Suite builds on Sages market led strategy and takes us further on our journey towards our vision of Sage 200 for a connected world. We have listened closely to feedback, utilising wish lists and focus groups, as well as adding new features which support those trends in the lower mid‐market which are relevant to our customers, highlights of the release include:

• New improved Web, Time & Expenses
• New Migration Utility
• New Business Intelligence for Project Accounting
• New improved Sage 200 mobile – now includes iPhone
• CRM v7.1 Integration

The 2011 release builds on the key themes of:

Accessibility – Market trends tell us that customers want accessibility of information and immediacy of response – our customers want the ability to make smarter faster decisions. This release takes further steps to providing customers with the choice of how they access their data wherever they are on using whatever device they choose to use.

Information Management – Our phased approach to the information management strategy continues by the delivery of business intelligence for Project Accounting, giving business intelligence an even broader reach within the Suite.

Improved Usability – We want systems that are easy for our customers to use and require little or no training, so we have really focussed on improving usability within this release, particularly for Web, Time and Expenses (WTE) and the new migration tool. So far we have conducted over 30 usability tests with end users, partners and internal candidates who had never used the system before. These hands‐on tests helped us spot design flaws early on and makes us confident that users will find it easy to use.

The new version of Sage 200 Construction will be issued following the release of Sage 200 v2011 – expected in June/July 2011. The next release will include a number of bug fixes and update the user interface for purchase documents. We will be providing additional details of the contents of this release over the coming weeks. Please note this means that any Construction customers wishing to upgrade to Sage 200 v2011 will only be able to do so following the release of Construction later in the summer, as no compatible CD will be issued in May.

The new release of Sage 50 Accounts for SQL, which was due to be released in 2011 is no more. Sage have decided not to further develop the product for release

Steve Attwell, the General Manager of Sage Lower Mid Market Channel said:
“As you are aware we have been working on the concept of Sage 100, which takes our existing successful Sage 50 platform and migrates it to a MySQL database. During the course of this project we have also been taking a long hard look at future market and customer trends including demands such as SaaS, on demand delivery and how these impact our technology roadmap. As a result we have taken the decision not to release Sage 100 in its current guise and development has stopped.

This is not a decision we have taken lightly, however we feel it is the right decision if we are to meet our long term goals. I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for all the time and effort you have given in supporting us throughout the development stages so far and hope that we can continue to rely on your support in our future plans. Your input and feedback are crucial in making sure we have the right propositions to bring to market.

We firmly believe that the opportunity still exists within the market for a premium offering for expanding and growing business that have larger customer and supplier bases, larger transaction volumes and an expanding user base. Some growing Sage 50 Accounts customers need an accounting solution that has the increased capability of growing with their business, without having to move to the additional complexities of the Sage 200 Suite.

We are currently reviewing the relevant technologies which will allow us to deliver our Vision.”

The New Release of Sage 200 Has been Delayed

The latest release of Sage 200 (version 2011) had been scheduled for release in January of next year along with the integrated Sage CRM v7.1. Sage CRM is an optional extra for Sage 200 users to provide a fully integrated contact management solution with the accounts system. They will now both be made available from May 2011.

The launch date of Sage CRM has been revised, as a result of this the upcoming release of Sage 200 has also been delayed so the two can be released simultaneously.

This is what Sage UK have said:
“This decision to revise the launch date not only allows us to adopt the very latest CRM version but it also brings added benefits by enabling us to test 2011 with live hand held sites throughout our customers year end procedures. This ensures we maximise the benefits of the hand held site process and our stringent testing procedures and reflects our commitment to delivering high quality, reliable software.”

Whilst it is always disappointing when a product release is delayed, we are confident that it has been done for all the right reasons, we will, of course, keep you updated with any further developments.

Sage 50 Price Increase

It has just been announced by Sage that there will be a slight price increase on most Sage 50 software from 4th October 2010. Whilst not a major difference (around £10 on most software) this will apply to every Sage Accountant Partner and Business Partner, so from the start of next month you can expect to see the increase on all web shops offering the Sage 50 range.

So our advice is if you are planning to buy anything in the near future, do it in the next 2 weeks or it will cost you that little bit more.

Flat Rate VAT included in Sage 50 2011

Until now Sage 50 Accounts dealt with Standard VAT accounting and handled 2 default VAT Schemes, Cash Accounting and Invoice based accounting.  It could not deal with the Flat Rate VAT scheme; customers who used the Flat Rate scheme had to use various workarounds and manual adjustments.

Using the Flat Rate Scheme you pay VAT as a fixed percentage of your VAT inclusive turnover so the VAT you pay to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) or claim back from them is the difference between the VAT you charge your customers and the VAT you pay on your purchases.  It applies mainly to small businesses with less than £150K turnover and about 10% of all UK businesses already use this scheme.  Flat rate VAT aims to minimize the red tape around administering VAT because you don’t have to record the VAT that you charge on every sale and purchase, as you would with standard VAT accounting.  This can mean you spending less time on the books, and more time on your business.  Flat Rate VAT also provides a slightly lower rate which varies dependent on the sector the business operates in.  There is also a 1% discount for businesses in their 1st year.

New to Sage 50 Accounts 2011 is the ability to deal with Flat Rate VAT scheme and produce the relevant VAT returns and stay compliant with HMRC.

Sage 50 2011 also provides customers with the ability to view the benefits / cost of being on the Flat Rate VAT scheme, giving the customer a choice in making the decision to stay on Flat Rate or not.  The customer has the option of setting up Flat Rate VAT either during initial set up or during the financial year.

Benefits to the Customer

• Simple – for customers to setup and use directly within Sage 50 Accounts 2011.
• Easier – no longer do you need to work with a time consuming work around, you can now complete the calculation automatically from within the software.
• Quicker – to complete a VAT return on the Flat Rate VAT scheme and to calculate the savings/loss to your business of being on the scheme.

Sage 50 Accounts 2011 Integration with SagePay

Currently Sage 50 customers using SagePay can automatically reconcile invoices raised in the accounts program where their customer has used the Pay Now facility. They can’t however deal with new transactions that had been added from their web store and don’t exist in their accounts system.  They would have to print transactions details from SagePay and manually enter them into their accounts software, depending on the number of transactions this can be very time consuming.

New to 2011 is the ability to integrate your web store with Sage 50 Accounts using SagePay.  So for customers who currently trade on the internet, or want to in future Sage 50 2011 will:

• Create new customers and new products
• Match current customers and current products
• Create new sales invoices and sales receipts

Benefits

• Quicker – invoices can be automatically created from the information received from SagePay. Fields are mapped to prevent the need for matching in future
• Secure – payments are downloaded automatically from your web store
• Save money – No need to buy a third party add on like Connect if they’re using SagePay

Just a brief update to confirm that Sage 50 Accounts V 2011 is now available and starts shipping from Tuesday 3rd August, so all orders received from today onwards will receive the new version.

Sage have successfully completed testing of Sage 50 Manufacturing 2009 Service Pack 2 against Sage 50 Accounts 2011. Therefore manufacturing customers who integrate these products can continue to use Sage 50 Manufacturing 2009 with Service Pack 2 to integrate with the latest version of Sage 50 Accounts.

Sage have successfully completed testing of both Sage 50 Construction 2010 (v12 of Construction) and Sage 50 Construction 2010 Release 2 (v14 of Construction) against Sage 50 Accounts 2011. Therefore Construction customers who integrate with accounts can continue to use Sage 50 Construction 2010 with the latest version of Sage 50 Accounts.

Sage 50 for SQL

The long awaited release of an SQL version of Sage 50 Accounts is on it’s way and scheduled for release in February 2011, It is to be called Sage 100. Although this will undoubtedly cause confusion with those of us old enough to remember the name Sage Line 100, this is a completely new product. Perhaps for this reason Sage will review the name and change it before the official release.

Here’s what Sage have to say about Sage 100 or Sage 50 SQL

“Sage 100 is an exciting new development for Sage UK and it’s a premium offering for expanding and growing small to medium sized businesses. It fulfils a need for a niche group of customers with key issues surrounding users and larger volumes of transactions. We have identified that the needs of these customers places them between Sage 50 Accounts and Sage 200, and Sage 100 addresses this need.

* Sage 100 will support businesses with processing departments where several users enter similar information, for example a team dedicated to entering sales invoices.
* It offers up to 25 users the ability to process at the same time while keeping the familiar look and feel of Sage 50 Accounts. This means that users won’t need to take it in turn to enter transactions resulting in real productivity and efficiency gains.
* Existing Sage 50 Accounts customers can easily move to Sage 100 plus there’s no requirement to retrain staff.

When will it be available?

We are really pleased to let you know Sage 100 will launch in February 2011 and in the mean time our teams will continue to work hard ensuring the software meets our customer’s needs.”

The release of Sage 100 is likely to provide much larger user counts because of it’s SQL database, along with much higher transaction volumes, so this should prove to be a fantastic offering for those who have outgrown Sage 50 Accounts, but would prefer to keep the familiar interface, rather than moving to Sage 200. We will keep you updated as soon as we know any more, so bookmark our blog and check back often.