The work of SAGE 300 ERP with Me in Lusaka, Zambia

We were trying to address the issue of going green meaning working in a paperless environment. We benefit in many ways as we had reduced on stationery cost, and work become faster as processes were integrated in the systems. It still requires improvement and the environment in which it works does not fully support or become compatible with local Vendors. The advice I would give to others is that they need careful planning so that they only ask for installation of packages suitable for their environment.

Pros

It automates manual work of processing purchase orders and eliminates physical postage of paper documents to third party (Suppliers). It integrates separate pieces of transactions into one, making work easy and shorten the overall time spent on processing one simple transaction e.g. Purchase requisition is generated by someone else then converted into a purchase order without altering many details. The system is able to make basic or advanced calculations of cost and taxes hence eliminating the burden of errors and omissions.

Cons

It is somehow expensive to run as it requires a perpetual subscription to be made. It is a system that cannot just be installed on the PC for a lifetime.
Room for improvement is still available because it has a lot of steps (clicking is too much).

We could not achieve the go-green aim as most of the time we were printing out physical copies of contracts as the environment in which we used the system did not have many vendors connected to the internet.

Getting the Most out of your (ACCPAC) Implementation

SAGE 300 ERP Accounting (ACCPAC) is on of the simplest accounting platforms to use out there; however, make sure you have proper guidance when setting up your source files; messing those up or not setting them the way you want exactly upfront can be a real pain when it comes to getting your financial reports. Also make sure to enter all required fields - it won't tell you what all of those are until you see gaps in your data on the financial reports. Hardware requirements won't break the bank and its a simple client-server installation that most can do in their sleep. Training can be accomplished in a few days to a matter of hours depending on your skill level (acumen). The standard package is your GL, AP, AR and your SM. If you have those you are ready to run your business. Add the PO module and you can deal with purchasing as well. This application is for small to medium size businesses. If you reach fortune 500 status or have more than 20 users start looking else where or be prepared to purchase a mega load of third party add-ons.

Pros

Easy to use
Simple hardware requirements
Semi-decent financial reports out of the box

Cons

After 20 concurrent users, cost of ownership becomes pricey
To get enterprise level controls and process flow - you must purchase third party add-ons.
Not enough levels of security for larger accounting departments
No built in auditing - third party add-on required

Functionality

Pros

Strong Data entry features - Sales order, ICT, AR, AP

Customer Inquiry reports drill down - flexible

Cons

Negative stock quantity can be entered at order detail line and goes undetected so long as the order total remains positive

Lack of restriction on Stock Warehouse selection during Order Processing-- There is l no control in place to restrict users to access stocks in specific system warehouse that they are assigned. A user can receive, transfer, sell stock in any warehouse in the system without any restriction
How to handle PO Cancellations not available

Reporting (supplier activity reports) not detailed as like provided in Accounts Receivable

Difficulty is posting of Discount allowed to customers into General Ledger

Suppliers Inquiry reports drill down -NOT flexible

Room for improvement but does what it needs to & reliable! Excellent customer service

We have worked with Sage for many years and will continue to. They are always improving and building on existing features. Customer service is excellent.

Pros

Design / layout is organized, easy to find what you're looking for. I love the items wizard for adding in parts. It catches errors or omissions very well. Customer service is always excellent when troubleshooting. They have helped us recover lost data when errors were made.

Cons

Difficult to customize features.
Can't email invoices or order confirmations directly from this program, have to export every single time which is more time consuming than it needs to be for accounting.
Notes function is very buggy, freezes often. Also freezes often when creating an invoice or receiving a PO.

Good enterprise accounting software

Pros

Sage 300 is a fairly easy accounting software to learn, especially if you are required to train persons within your company. The report feature is quite good with lots of option for creating charts. This is a good tool to invest in if you want to take your business to the next step. The installation of the client side application is easy, with a few click and the application is installed. System Administrators will have no problems deploying this application.

Cons

The application user interface needs an overall to a more modern looking interface. Sage 300 interface does not scale well with high resolution monitors because the menu buttons become very smaller as the resolution increases.

Full Ledger Accounting Package

I work in the IT Industry and I've worked at a company that sold Sage Products to multiple customers. Sage300 is a great system for workplaces that need a Full Ledger accounting package. It is sold in the standard modular state, if you need a feature, you buy it and add it on. AR, AP, GL, Bank Reconciliation, etc. It can integrate with multiple database solutions if I recall. They started out producing for Pervasive SQL, but I think you can get it for MSSQL now too. A bit of a learning curve to get used to it. One of the nice features is the security of it. You can limit any user's rights to a very fine level.

Pros

Modular, great security, solid product. Fantastic support from the manufacturer.

Cons

A bit of a learning curve for both use and administration.

We switched from Sage BusinessWorks to Sage 300 last year at the office with very mixed results.

Ultimate the primary reasons we upgraded to Sage 300 were to automate the receiving of EDI orders from our largest customers (Walmart, Amazon, etc) and to facility an automated shipping label generation process and it has accomplished those things relatively well.

Pros

It makes things like receiving and bulk printing sales orders via EDI channels much faster and easier than they were before during our 20 year run with Sage BusinessWorks.

Cons

It's made some things much easier, in fact things that we needed to become easier in order to continue in business, but has added a layer of complexity to manual order processing functions making these much more difficult to manage. The consensus at the office is that BusinessWorks was easier to use for purposes like keying in orders, invoicing orders manually and then bulk printing or emailing those invoices, etc.

Sage for Contractors

The construction company I work for migrated from a small outdated accounting software to Sage over the past few years. Learning to use it has been challenging and if it wasn't for having previous users on our staff, I would still be struggling to learn it. However, now that I have started to master the basics of job cost management in Sage, it is becoming more useful. It is a very powerful piece of software and will continue to provide additional features for me to use as I further develop my skills using it. It is accurate and robust software.

Pros

Powerful, lots of built in reports and forms, relatively easy to use after some training and time.

Cons

Complicated, expensive and takes a very concentrated effort to learn.

How Sage 300 Help us in Daily basis

Sage 300 can improve its integration process with Microsoft products as well as Procore

Pros

Reporting tool help us to understand day by day how is our company working. With business intelligence we can explain to our principals how their investment in working. The tax reporting calculates directly in the currency source doing very easy our account work

Cons

Sometimes when we try to edit data the program tends to be so slow that makes terrible do our simple job. When you try to get support from the support team, the process is archaic and not effective.

Sage 300 epr

An advanced software that any account must have in the business

Pros

Sage was recommended to once implemented it was easy to use from day one. Fast and simple to use. clear useful data which instantly made a positive impact on our business. it saved us time and money within its first month of use brilliant software a must-have for any company.

Cons

Sage is too complicated to both install and set up we have to get an outside company set up and install apart from this additional cost everything else was perfect.

We have owned and used this software extensively since 2012.

Pros

Standardization. We were doing a lot of process work through excel, word, email, etc. This forced us to standardize how we operated and gave our clients a consistent experience over multiple projects. Job costing is capable of being more accurate than we need.

Cons

Lack of significant improvements to the software given the annual support and maintenance amount paid. Features tend to be minor with more significant improvements coming in the form of additional optional products for purchase.

Easy to navigate and understand, good for a medium size company where pastel is to small.

Pros

We have quite a complex business and as such required alot of custom setup luckily we had a very good company called Devote who could assist us with it. Being able to work anywhere at any time with a central server and handle the number of transactions with our reporting requirements is very handy.

Cons

The batch system can be frustrating at times if someone incorrectly deletes a batch. The crystal reporting system can also be hard to work with but if you intelligence reporter its fine.

Sage 300 is a good accounting software for job costing and capturing an enormous amount of data.

Pros

The ability to quickly search through data using conditions and parameters is what I like most. If you're unsure of how to retrieve data, the Knowledgebase gives a wealth of How-to information.

Cons

While you can customize a tab with specific fields, you cannot organize those fields. A new field is automatically added to the bottom. If you want to regroup fields at a later date, it is not an option. However, it did not prevent me from using this tool.

Sage - A great way to begin the year.

I have been using Timberline/Sage since the "gold" product. I have been impressed with Sage's continual improvements throughout the years. I am hopeful as more property management company's hear about the product that additional R&D will go into the PM module.

Pros

Sage 300 is an excellent product for both the Construction the Property Management Industry. The PM module integrates extremely well with GL, AP and CM. It's easy to enter rent, charge fees and view tenant balances. The ability to add custom fields is superb. They are easy to add and easy to include on inquiries.
I really like Inquiry Designer and the ability to export to excel.

Cons

Setting up properties requires that you set them up in both GL and PM. I understand the need for each but it would be great to set them up in PM and then the system interface with GL.

Sage 300 name change only

Thought you would have updated better drill down functionality and better reports in the system.

Pros

Hopefully once fully set up the reports in buisiness intelligence tools will save me time. Otherwise more cons than pros.

Cons

System set up is tedious and arduous and ever step of the way is manual. Reports still terrible I was expected much updated and improved from 7 years ago when I first worked with it.

We began working with Sage 300 in June 2017

More detail reporting. Also the ability to personalize the reporting to the property and company. Bank Reconciliation is quicker. JE are easier to use.

Pros

I like the idea that the Software can grow with our company. After a short learning curb I am able to create reports that are needed with little assistance. With Acumen assistance it was a pleasant change from our previous software. Many things are just easier to get done in less time. Bank Reconciliation is a major factor.

Cons

It took a a couple of months for our staff to feel comfortable with the change. Looking for information in reports and understanding the software. But once they got over the change all has been smooth.

Doesn't work on a Mac

Pros

- Lots of different reporting
- Easy to put orders in
- Once you know how to use it, it is easy to use.

Cons

- Does not work on a Mac. I have to remote in to a PC to use it on my laptop.
- I wish the reporting worked where you can run everything in one report and select what you needed. I tend to have to run multiple reports and do vlookups.

Full Year as a End User

Easy Reporting. Can send different for different uses. Hotels want certain information different than a our Corp Investment Team.

Pros

I love the ability to get the information immediately. I like the report setup and the ability to customize reports for different groups with out alot of hassle. Also Acumen does our support and they are fantastic when needed.

Cons

It took our staff a few months to feel comfortable about the change in software but after a year using it they find it easier than previous software.

User Since 2012

Pros

I like the interface of the software that makes it easy for the person inputting information to navigate the screens.

Cons

If I am both an approver and an data entry employee I can approve my own GL, AP, etc entries. This has proven to be an internal control issue when our auditors are documenting our systems and controls.

Good accounting package with lots of easy to use excellent features

Pros

Ease of use, lots of good features, simple reporting works very well. For the price it tracks job costing very well.

Cons

We have tried some of the new features such as business intelligence. We have ran into issues that do not seem to have easy solutions. I would wait until it has been up and running for a couple of years next time.