Overview

Sage 50 Accounts 2010 is packed with features to help keep your business truly organised and ensure you get paid on time

As well as improving cash flow, Sage 50 Accounts 2010 helps you to manage your other day-to-day finances - everything from VAT returns to year-end accounts. So you'll be more in control of your finances and be able to free-up time for other areas of your business.

There are also features that allow you to manage your customers and suppliers more professionally, while its flexible management reports give you a greater insight into your business.

Choose Sage 50 Accounts 2010 if:

• You need software that is easy to use and covers all your accounting needs, from VAT returns to credit control
• You want full control over your business finances
• You want a payroll system that integrates with your Sage accounting software
• You need an accounts system that helps your company to grow, allowing different people to use the system at the same time
• You require accurate management information and reports
• You need software that integrates with your other software to develop a more efficient business system

SageCover is a complete package of support services designed to ensure you always have someone to turn to for help and advice when you need it.

SageCover is designed to offer you peace of mind by providing support for your Sage software.

Get the information and business advice you need with access to our award-winning telephone support, and a database of over 1200 technical guides and frequently asked questions.

As a SageCover member, you'll also receive free software updates and discounts on our software and services

What's new

• Prioritise your daily workload
• See an instant credit position of your business
• Help chasing money, help paying suppliers
• Store more information about your contacts
• Batch reports, and run them off in one go

Features

Manage all your VAT tasks in one place: With our new VAT Ledger you’ll save yourself time dealing with your VAT tasks as you’ll find them all in one place. Use the VAT Ledger to help you prepare, generate, reconcile, adjust and submit online, to keep on top of your VAT.

Store a complete history of your VAT return: We make sure it’s easy for you to access the transactional detail behind your VAT returns - saving you, and the auditors, valuable time searching for information.

Submit your VAT return online: From 2010, all businesses will have to start to file and pay their VAT returns online – but our HMRC-recognised software lets you get ahead of the game with maximum confidence and minimum effort. And because our software has been fully tested and achieved HMRC recognition for filing VAT returns, you know you are submitting the right information, totally securely.

Simple manual adjustments: Adjusting your figures, for whatever reason, is simple and straightforward, and you can record and trace the reason for each adjustment.

Increase the accuracy of your VAT returns: A VAT return can be generated and completed at the touch of a button, in hours rather than days. This feature checks your customers’ data for accuracy and helps prepare for an audit. It also identifies suspect/duplicate transactions and runs checks for possible VAT queries and errors.

Easily track your VAT returns: Each transaction is now flagged with a unique VAT return number for easy tracking when it comes to audits or inspections.

Dealing with “carousel” fraud legislation: Companies that trade computer chips or mobile phones with a total net value of more than £5,000 with other VAT registered companies are now subject to different recording and reporting methods. Our software lets you produce on-screen reports and submit online directly to HMRC.

Your EC Sales List: If your business trades with other EC countries, you can see the EC Sales List as an onscreen report which automatically calculates the value of sales from individual customers.

Make the most of online banking: Make payments online to save time, reduce costs and improve relations with your suppliers. We make no additional charge for this, and we now offer a greater choice of major banks whose online services work with our software.

Managing your finances: The Nominal Ledger is an essential part of your accounting system, where all your business information is held, and forms the basis of your Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports, making sure you can perform important business tasks with ease.

Instant information about your accounts: This feature lets you see the Nominal Ledger as an on-screen set of charts that can be investigated in more depth by drilling-down from the same screen with just one click.

Quicker and easier bank reconciliations: You can record multiple bank accounts and their details, enter payments and receipts and save your bank reconciliations part-way through. And to keep track of your banking without all the paper waste, you can use our software to download a bank statement and automatically reconcile payments and receipts against both statements. ‘Smart Totals’ allow you to see the value of any highlighted transaction. And with our new retrospective bank reconciliation report, you’ll be able to see the reconciled balance of your account at any given time – particularly useful at month and year-end.

Better business insight: Use the accounting information stored within your software to generate both Balance Sheets and Profit and Loss Sheets at the touch of a button.

Store your company data: You can archive a complete set of company data before running the year-end. You can then analyse and report on the archived data, and access it immediately without having to restore a back-up.

Manage your departments effectively: Your business is likely to use departments for many different reasons but now, no matter what you are using department analysis for, you can monitor performance more closely and efficiently than before. Enjoy extra control by setting up budgets and producing reports for each department or nominal code. To help you plan ahead, you can also set budgets for now and your next Financial Year.

Support for charities: We’ve developed our software so that it is as effective as possible in meeting the needs of charities, with specific functionality including Fund Management, charity-specific financial reports and Gift Aid Reporting.

Get the most out of your accountant: Easily exchange information with your accountant while you continue working on your accounts. The Accountant Link automatically lets your accountant update your journals, bank and VAT reconciliations, so they always have your most up-to-date records.

Managing your customers and suppliers

• Keep track of the flow of your money: Our improved dashboard let’s you see an instant view of the credit position of your business. You can see where your money is, how old your customer or supplier debt is, what’s due, what’s overdue, what’s disputed, what’s promised to pay and what’s still to be allocated all in one place.
• Chase the right payments to keep your business breathing: Always know who you should be spending time chasing for payments; for example what’s overdue, when money is due in and who has promised payment. Promised payments are automatically added to the diary, and if payments are not received you’ll be reminded to follow them up.
• Plan ahead to avoid the crunch: You can now see who you need to pay based on supplier and age criteria. So you can see what payment commitments you’ll need to make in the coming weeks and months, helping you plan ahead.
• Give the right person the right message… on time, every time: Different people like to be contacted at different times in different ways. That’s why you can now record and store names, telephone numbers, email addresses, office addresses, preferred contact times and mailing preferences for all of your contacts, all in one place. And when you make invoice, letter and statement runs, you can be sure that the documents have been sent to the correct person, ensuring action will be taken quickly.
• Build your communications, build on your professionalism: Payment disputes? Information requests? All contact can be recorded on your communication history, together with a follow-up, so you’ll always have the right information to refer back to. Whenever you generate a letter or statement, these details will be automatically recorded into the communication history. Keep your customers and supplier relationships strong with flexible payment methods: Your suppliers might insist on being paid in different ways. That’s why you can now do a cheque run for all suppliers who like to be paid this way, or an e-payment run for those who want BACS payments. With Sage Payments Solution*, your customers will have an easier way to pay as well – directly by card. This can be done over the phone or even by Internet, then posted directly into your accounts to ensure that everything is kept up-to-date.
  * Additional charge applies
• Speed up your invoices and orders: Reduce costs, improve the efficiency of your business and increase your service levels by managing your invoices and orders electronically – send and receive them via email directly from your Sage 50 Accounts software so there’s no need to re-key information.
• Professional invoicing: Generate invoices for your customers by using the product records you created or details of the services you provide.
• Make the most of discounts and deposits: You can clearly see and change discounts as you enter invoices and orders. A range of discount options is available, from basic percentage discounts to invoice-value discounts and stock-quantity discounts. Whether you want to apply one-off discounts or discounts across the board, Sage 50 Accounts 2010 helps you provide your customers with a clear indication of the total discount allowed.
• Refunds in one single transaction: Customer and supplier refunds are easier to handle: one simple transaction will automatically update all your records.
• Handle quotations with ease: Create quotations and proformas and choose whether you want to turn a quotation into an order or invoice, or whether you want to keep the quotation for your records. Analysis and reporting tools help you to monitor the top performers and how many orders you win and lose, as well as allowing you to track the conversion of quotations to orders.
• Store your documents: You can store, view, modify and print attachments such as letters, price lists, delivery and assembly instructions, letting you keep control of all your documentation within Sage 50 Accounts 2010.

Managing your business

• Clear your mind with our in-built diary: Did I remember to make that follow up call? When do I need to pay my suppliers? Our in-built diary helps prioritise the daily workload, sets reminders for recurring tasks, automates diary events (such as following up promised payments) and integrates with Microsoft Outlook. You can also link your tasks to your contacts, so you have all the details you need right then and there.
• Quickly and securely run your reports together: Our new batch reporting feature allows you create your own batches of reports and run them off all in one go. You can password protect any PDF file containing sensitive financial information, so only those with the authority to access the files have the means to do so.
• View the figures that matter: We let you choose the way reports are presented based on what’s most important to your business. With our Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and budget reports you can view your figures monthly, quarterly or by year, whichever way suits you the best. And when you need to see the detail and understand the actions that lie behind the top level figures, you can do that too - right down to individual transactions.
• Get the information you need with flexible management reports: Our Report Designer makes it easy for you to get the information you need in one report. You can tailor the overall design of your reports, adding all the fields and calculations you want, so you can have a better picture of your business.
• Excel® integrated reporting: Microsoft® Excel links directly to your software so that directors and managers can access and analyse accounts information. You can modify and refresh data ranges, change the chart of accounts used and take any report (even a report you’ve designed yourself) and use it in Excel as a Sage Data Range.

Managing your products and services

• Manage your products: You can easily create product records, review product activities and analyse monthly sales values and quantities sold. You can also apply discounts and generate valuation and profit reports.
• Your EC Sales List: If your business trades with other EC countries, you can see the EC Sales List as an onscreen report which automatically calculates the value of sales from individual customers.
• Monitor key areas of your business: Manage the performance of key areas or activities more effectively. Track your business activity, by area, with the flexibility to drilldown to more detail. Information is instantly available, so you no longer have to run reports to get the breakdown you need.

Working with Sage 50 Accounts 2010

• Keep your software fresh: You want your software to perform to the highest possible standard. Our automatic updates feature let’s you know if there’s anything you need to make your software more efficient, and quickly updates it for you.
• Mistakes are natural, corrections are easy: Everybody makes mistakes, but correcting them has never been easier. You can now find, view, correct, or even delete transaction or postings at the touch of a button.
• Breeze through the new features with ease: Our improved assistance feature means you can quickly learn these new features with ease. There’s also a library of videos to guide you through them, and you can try out a new area of the software or a new posting with our practise feature first.
• Make light work of business processes: Sage 50 Accounts 2010 couldn’t be easier to use. Each of the main areas has a map, showing you clearly how to complete business tasks such as sales order fulfilment. Each Process Map consists of a set of steps connected together to show a workflow – so you know exactly what to do next.
• Essential business information when you need it: You can choose exactly the information you want to see with our intelligent navigation, giving you immediate access to your business information.
• Import your data: Choose how you want to import information into Sage 50 Accounts 2010. The Information Import Wizard makes it simple to import customer and supplier records, transactions, stock, and project records.
• More than one company, more than one user: Sage 50 Accounts 2010 gives you the ability to store and process more than one set of company accounts. It also allows more than one person to access and process transactions at any one time (additional charge applies), improving efficiency for you.

Requirements

To get the best possible performance from your software, it's important to check that your PC meets the minimum requirements of the software and, where possible, the recommended requirements.

Recommended specification

• An IBM compatible PC with a 2GHz (or equivalent) processor
• At least 1GB RAM
• At least 1GBMB of free disk space after Microsoft® Windows has been installed
• Windows XP (recommended); Windows 2000; Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista
• Network users only: 1Gbps network cards and switches with Microsoft Windows networking

Works with Microsoft Office 2000 and all later editions.

Please ensure that the latest Microsoft updates are installed.

Performance will be improved with higher specification computers and networks.

Minimum specification

• An IBM® compatible PC with 1Ghz (or equivalent) processor
• 512MB RAM
• 700MB of free disk space after Microsoft Windows has been installed
• Windows XP (recommended); Windows 2000; Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista
• Network users only: 100Mbps network with Microsoft Windows networking

Works with Microsoft Office 2000 and all later editions.

Please ensure that the latest Microsoft updates are installed.

Performance will be improved with higher specification computers and networks.

Please note: Whilst Sage software does run on PCs with the minimum requirements, performance cannot be guaranteed.