Sage have just announced the new accounting integration feature for Act 2010 is now available to download for existing customers, you can go to sage.co.uk and log in to your account if you would like to download it immediately.  It will also begin shipping today, although there may be a backlog so you could have to wait a few days for delivery.

In order to enable the new Accounting Integration, you will also need to download and install the Sage 50 Integration update for Sage 50 Accounts  (once installed you will then need to enable the new Sdata framework in Sage 50 Accounts by going into Tools> Internet Options> SData Settings and checking the Sage 50 Accounts box).

Note: ACT! Premium for Web does not contain the new Accounting Integration functionality. The DVD you receive is labelled as 12.20 but contains the software version 12.0.

To use ACT! Premium for Web in the same environment as ACT! Premium 2010.20, you must apply the ACT! Premium for Web 2010 Service Pack 1 update, available from the Sage website

A few tips on making sure your Sage 50 Payroll 2010 is set up right for the payroll year.

1. Make sure you are using the right legislation for the new tax year by checking the Help/About menu.

2. Check employee tax codes, as although there were no general increases in L suffix tax codes, your employers may have had P9 notices from HMRC for specific employees, containing tax codes to use in the new tax year. Please be sure you actioned any notices.

3. Checking small employer relief status (if eligible) is just a case of making sure you have marked the relevant check box within the software, this will help in recovering the right values for statutory payment such as maternity and paternity pay.

4. Remember that your year end returns for 2009/2010 must be submitted to HMRC by 19th May, or you are likely to receive a penalty from HMRC.

From 01/04/10 Sage will be applying their lifecycle policy to Sage Payroll v12 and 2007.  So from March 31st 2012 support will be withdrawn for both versions.  Even if you do not have support with sage for either product at the moment, it could still affect you as you would not be able to buy Sage Cover for them in the future.

The software is under constant development, so as the years roll on, older products are discontinued.  This enables Sage to focus support on the latest products, whilst enabling the development team to take advantage of new technologies.

Your software will not stop working, it’s just the support which will be withdrawn, this will happen in a phased approach.  Please also consider that once support is withdrawn for a particular version of Payroll, there would be no guarantee that a simple upgrade could be run if you did decide to upgrade much later, as testing will not be done once a product is effectively obsolete, so you could find that you have to manually transfer any data.

There are some special offers available for those who wish to keep using these versions for the time being:

Until 31/05/2010 you can get 10% off the price of an upgrade or sage cover extra (this is valid for 15 months and entitles you to upgrades free of charge) Plus a free £50 voucher for any authorised Sage training course.

During the testing of Sage 50 P11D 2010 on Windows 7, several major issues have been identified, these will take significant time to develop and test before release.  Therefore a decision has been made to release the 2010 version of P11D for Vista, XP and 2000 only.  The alternative would have been to delay the release, this was decided against.

It is assumed at this stage that next years release will be fully compatible with Windows 7, but please do check this when the time comes, either with Sage directly or with Ledger Services.

The current pricing on our online Sage software shop is due to increase from next month.  Therefore if you are planning to purchase any of the Sage 50 range of products in the near future, you only have one more day to take advantage of the discounts available.  Prices will be going up again from 5pm tomorrow.

For the next 2 weeks only you can buy Sage 50 Accounts, Plus or Professional with Act and receive further discounts.

We have teamed up with Sage to offer these fantastic deals, but only until the end of September 2009, so if you are considering buying both products, now is the time!  You can go directly to our SPECIAL OFFERS section of the website and chose which of the accounts products you need, Act is included with each version.  The prices listed are all for single user systems, so if you need multiple users or companies please call us on 0845 2576905 so we can provide pricing.

The new release of the UK’s most popular CRM software Act! Is available for purchase from today.

A powerful contact management system, ACT by Sage 2010 is simple to use, centralises your contact information, organises your diary, tracks sales leads and can organise marketing campaigns.

Happy customers are the key to business growth. And with ACT 2010, you’ll learn how to keep your current customers on your side, and ensure that you’ll never miss an opportunity to win a new one.

The new release of Sage Act this month allows users to customise opportunities within the system. Historically many other aspects of the software could be customised, however due to user requests, this has now been extended to the opportunities tab.

The new Sales Tracking functionality, means that opportunities can be tailored for your specific sales process, so helps to maximise the way in which you manage your opportunities.  The opportunities now appear and behave in the same way as contacts, groups and companies, for added flexibility. You can add multiple fields to the opportunities, add extra fields to products and track the activities and history in relation to a specific opportunity.

The new 2010 version of Sage Act is due for release this September, here is an update of the new features:

Updated User Interface – better navigation with new “easy-click” buttons for common and related tasks. The new welcome page has tools, tips help and news.

Customise Opportunities – The new detailed view of opportunities will allow users to add new fields, customise products and services, change the layouts and track history and activities.

New Reports – 13 new standard reports are included, so you can view the information you need even more easily.

Social Media Integration- Act 2010 can link to social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, to find more information about the contacts in your database.

E-Marketing- An integrated e-marketing tool is now included to help you run successful online marketing campaigns directly from your CRM software.

The latest version of Act (Sage’s most popular CRM software) launches for presale on 17/08/09, the last orders for version 2009 will be taken on 14/08/09 and shipped immediately, however we can still make a download of 2009 available if required.

We are expecting our “Test Drive” facility on the main website (the feature where you can log on to a live fully working version of the software online) to be updated to the new 2010 version week commencing 10/08/09.