Sage 50 Accounts Solution for WFS Farm Supplies

WFS is growing company and as such needed to roll out Sage 50 Accounts to all users to allow them to process orders, produce delivery notes and pass this information to the Accounts department for Profit & Loss, month end accounts and produce VAT returns.

Sage was previously installed on only one computer and to allow everyone to have access a server had to be installed.

As the business suffers from Slow broadband speeds Eitex installed a Small Business Server to minimise broadband usage, manage file shares, email, and of course provide Sage to all users. The work originated from our telephony partner Yorkshire Telecom who provided network cabling and a new phone system as well.

“The service offered by Eitex was fast and efficient, what’s more is that all work was carried out over a weekend to minimise disruption to our business” commented Elizabeth.

As part of the cloud solution Eitex are also offering Pro-Active IT Support.

If you would like to enquire about the products and services offered by WFS please get in touch!

If you would like to see what Sage 50 Accounts can do for your business please contact Eitex.

Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Sage 50 integration for Hygiene Company Branta

Following a company restructure The Branta Group needed to bring their IT up to date to fit with their new dynamic business model.

Branta chose Eitex as they were able to offer everything from hardware leasing to Cloud Solution Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft CRM Online and Sage 50 with full CRM Integration. Both companies are also located in West Yorkshire which is an added bonus.

“We were pleased to be offer a complete solution which was designed by our engineers and senior development team, and all within budget.” commented Dean from Eitex.

As part of the cloud solution Eitex are also offering Pro-Active IT Support.

The Branta Group own the following brands:

If you would like to enquire about the cleaning and hygiene products offered by Branta please get in touch!

If you would like to see what Office 365 and Cloud Computing can do for your business please contact Eitex.

Access Sage on the Go with Sage 50 Mobile

New in Sage 50 Accounts 2012 - Sage 50 Mobile:
Sage 50 mobile allows you to access live Sage data on your smartphone. The system is ideal for people who do not have access to a desktop computer, or need to access live accounts data while on the go.

Sage 50 Mobile will initially be available for both IOS (iPhone and soon iPad), and Blackberry OS to provide secure read and write access to commonly used data direct from Sage 50 Accounts.

The system will provide regular users of Sage 50 with added flexibility as well as opening up the relevance of Sage to new users who would otherwise not directly interface or find use for Sage 50 Accounts data.

Benefits:

• Simple and fast to set up users
• Provides greater flexibility about when and where users of Sage 50 Accounts access data
• Provides direct access to data for users that would otherwise not have access to desktop
• Provides levels of access according to individuals differing business needs

Want to find out more about Sage 2012? Get in touch.

Sage 50 Accounts 2012

Sage 50 Accounts 2012 is due for release early August. Pre-Order your copy today with Eitex and receive 10% discount on the RRP*.

Key new features include:

• Lock Date - you can now lock down a period so that no further postings can be made.
• Chart of Accounts - Increased flexibility in the chart of accounts including structures for more business types, updated nominal codes and increased support for the needs of different business types.
• Quick Search - Increased efficiency with the ability to search for items quickly.
• Quick Print - Save time by defining a default layout for printing your invoices or orders.
• Performance - Sage have increased investment in the development of the Sage 50 Accounts Infrastructure.

To pre-order, or for a no obligation quotation please email dspencer@eitex.co.uk, or call 0845 508 3238.

*Offer ends 30th July 2011 and is subject to availability.

IT Support Yorkshire

Eitex are one of the market leaders in providing IT Support throughout Yorkshire and Lancashire.


On the 22nd July Eitex are moving into bigger and better premises which will allow the provision of more services including Microsoft Lync, Microsoft SharePoint and Sage.


The new offices based in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire provides additional space to allow in-house product seminars. “We will be demonstrating new technologies such as Microsoft Lync as well as Microsoft CRM, Sage, Cloud Solutions, Office 365 and more" commented Andrew Aedy, General Manager


All services are managed by our IT Support helpdesk which will be at the core of the building.


“These are exciting times for Eitex" commented Dean Spencer, Director. "The additional products and services will pull us even further away from our competitors.”


If you would like to enquire about IT Support, Microsoft CRM, Microsoft SharePoint, Sage or Microsoft Lync, get in touch via our Enquiry Form.

All the jigsaw pieces, in one place

Having seen hundreds of companies you realise that patterns begin to form. Inefficiencies and bad habits repeat over and over.

I don’t believe though that companies wish to operate in this way, they are simply made to do so by the software they use. This is not to say the software is bad, quite the opposite, the problem though seems to be interoperability between applications.

Applications which we see often are:

Sage 50 – for Accountancy, Sales Order and Purchase Order Processing

Microsoft Office
    Word - Word processing
    Excel - Financials / budgets / forecasting / calculations
    Outlook - Used for emailing, Appointments, Contacts
    Access - Database application used for storing information

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) product, usually one of the following:

Microsoft CRM
Sage Act
Goldmine

Industry Specific Software

Almost all of the software we come across is very effective, but seems to work independently to the next. Because of this islands of data are created in each application which usually has to be copied and pasted from somewhere else. Company and Contact information for example is stored in Sage, and in Outlook, maybe in Microsoft Access, and in CRM. Sales Order information may be replicated and stored in Sage, CRM, Access, Excel maybe?

I don’t believe companies can see the impact that these inefficient processes have on their businesses. Additional man-power is employed to cope with busy and hectic workloads, which simply don’t need to be that way. It just seems to be the norm, and is accepted by almost everyone.
 
There is a better way:
 
By taking one common application which is or can be used by everyone is the starting point. For this we generally recommend Microsoft CRM. Why? Well MS CRM can integrate with Sage, fits in nicely to MS Office and Outlook, connects with database systems and more.

With MS CRM you can therefore view different information, from different applications all in one place.

Ok granted, sometimes ‘middleware’ is required to interface between one application and another, but the cost of such systems can be insignificant if measured against the benefits:

- Imagine if you were able to cut down your labour costs, or admin costs which are continual cost savings

- Imagine if you had all your company information at your fingertips, all in one place, all instantly searchable

- Imagine if you could produce quotes, proposals, orders in seconds, rather than minutes, or even hours

- Imagine if you could access the same information from your mobile phone, laptop, at home, abroad, anywhere

- What if you could present information back out to your clients?

The next step:

We don’t offer a revolution out of the box. We recommend a staged approach which starts by mapping your processes, and streamlining them with the use of efficient technology.

In the current market every penny counts, don’t pay wages to cover inefficiencies in your business, get lean and get efficient.

The reason I like Microsoft CRM #MSCRM

We have recently been migrating our IT Support helpdesk from Frontrange HEAT, to Microsoft CRM.

When I first started using Microsoft CRM is was a real culture shock! There seems to be a lot of clicking, in a lot of different Windows. Simple tasks suddenly became arduous and time consuming. At first some of the boundaries of CRM seemed imposing and inflexible. How wrong was I!?!

The more I used CRM the more I became to like it. I began to find my way around much quicker and more easily. The look and feel of the product began to feel more natural, intuitive and ergonomic.

The number of clicks is still an issue, but due to the flexibility of CRM we have been able to enter default values in many fields eliminating the need to click at all. Workflows have also been used heavily to automate tasks which previously were very time consuming. The transfer of data for example from one object to another is seamless and effortless.

The downside to CRM is that it is many things. To get the most from it therefore considerable development has to be invested. This though could be considered as a good thing though, as Microsoft CRM can be moulded and sculpted around your company to fit it's exacting needs. No package can offer this level of refinement out of the box.

The possibilities of Microsoft CRM seem endless, each time I use it I think of ways to improve it, tweak it and tune it to make our companies' processes and procedures even more efficient.

Currently we are looking at @scribesoft to link to @Sage. CRM will ultimately send letters to customers reminding them that their account is due for payment. Letters will be stored and tracked in CRM. Again another example of automation!

If you would like a demo of this amazing product please just get in touch.

Sage running slow when using Sophos

For Sage to run at optimal performance Sage recommend excluding certain file extensions from with Sophos or your anti-virus software.

The following file types may be excluded from the file scan:

Data Files:

*.DTA
*.DTH
*.COA

Report and Layout Files:

*.SRT
*.SLY
*.SLT
*.SLB
*.RPT

Sage 50 Accounts:

*.report
*.layout
*.letter
*.label

Memo Files:

*.SLM
*.PLM
*.NLM
*.ILM
*.BLM
*.CLM
*.DLM

Criteria Files:

Note: In the case of criteria files, the * represents the Sage Accounts user name that created the file. For example, Manager.slc

*.SLC
*.SLI
*.PRC
*.PRI
*.NMC
*.NMI
*.BKC
*.BKI
*.SKC
*.SKI
*.IVC
*.IVI
*.SPC
*.SPI
*.PCC
*.PPI
*.PCI
*.REC
*.REI
*.SAC
*.SAI
*.IPC
*.IPI
*.PDC
*.PDI

Sage Reports:

Edit Logon.bat > \\servername\NETLOGON\logon.bat

Add these lines:

cd C:\Program Files\Sage\Accounts\
mkdir Reports_Temp

1. Open the Windows registry and locate the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ODBC\ODBC.INI\SageLine50v15

2. Within this key, create a new String Value called TempPathname.

Note: TempPathname is case sensitive. Using the wrong case causes an error message when running reports in Sage Accounts.

3. Modify the String Value and in the Value data box, type in the path to the folder where you want the temporary files to be created (This is the location of the folder that is being created in the logon script)

4. You can now configure your anti-virus software to exclude the following file types specifically in this folder:

*.TMP
*.000
*.001
*.002

All reports will be placed in here and not scanned by Sophos.

Hope this works for you. If you have any issues please feel free to contact us.

Dean Spencer
Eitex IT Support