The Sage Report Designer is a fantastic tool that enables Sage users to both customise and create new reports from scratch. However, the Sage Report Designer is quite complex and users often finding getting to grips with it a struggle. However, new public training courses from DMC Software, leading Sage Business Partner, make using the Report Designer simple.

The DMC  Sage Report Designer Training courses are offered at two levels, both basic and advanced, to cater for the needs and skill sets of different users. 

The first Sage Report Designer Training course dates announced are 29th Feb - 1st March in Peterborough and 21st - 22nd March in London. More dates are to follow soon!

Find out more about Sage Report Designer Training.

With Sage 200 and the Sage 200 Suite there are a number of themes and stories to be told. Sage 200 is a product from Sage that lends itself to the growing trend of business integration. The Sage 200 Suite brings together a number of products that enable efficient management of different business areas into a single suite for a more "connected business", including sales, finance, customer service and more.

 Sage 200 2011 is the latest release of Sage 200 and it introduced a number of features that build on this idea of a "connected" business:

• Accessibility: Sage 200 2011 is now even more accessible than before with Sage 200 Mobile now available on iPhone and Blackberry.
• Information management: Business Intelligence has now been extended to incorporate project data.
• Improved usability: easy access to information that bares relevance to your role with Sage 200 Dashboards.

Sage 50 Accounts remains as one of the leading accounts solutions for small business in the UK. But, what is it about Sage 50 that helps it defend the top spot?

• Sage 50 is affordable for the small business, with prices starting at £359
• Sage 50, like other products in the Sage range, are easy to use
• Access Sage 50 when away from the office with Sage 50 Mobile
• Sage 50 Accounts offers 3 levels of functionality to match different business needs
• Sage 50 offers integration with other Sage products for complete business management, including Sage ACT! CRM, Sage Payroll, Sage HR and more
• As you grow you don't have to leave the familiarity of the Sage brand - with upgrade paths to Sage ERP product 

With the start of the new year comes New Year's Resolutions, in both our personal and working lives. In a business guise, a New Year's Resolutions might take the form of business objectives, targets and goals.

The economic climate often shapes our business objectives and popular goals for 2012 could include, improve business process efficiency, reduce business costs, better utilise business data and increase customer satisfaction - did you know that all these objectives can be achieved by selecting the right ERP solution?

How Sage 200 ERP Can help your business achieve its goals in 2012

• Improve process efficiency - with all departments sharing information within a single Sage 200 ERP system it is easy to streamline and in some cases automate key business processes for enhanced efficiency.
• Reduce costs - Sage 200 includes tools that enable you to identify easily areas where cost savings can be made and business opportunities maximised.
• Utilise data effectively - with a Business Intelligence tool that graphically presents business acumen, Sage 200 enables users to identify patterns, trends and anomalies and take the best course of action to capitalise on the opportunities presented.
• Increase customer satisfaction - Sage 200 ERP facilitates data sharing between otherwise disparate departments, enhancing inter-departmental communication and in turn progressing customer service to the next level.

Sage UK comment on why Business Intelligence is fundamental to all businesses: Easy access to business critical information is essential to ensure your business runs smoothly. It also enables you to act quickly and make better connections between different areas of your business and stay one step ahead of the competition.

Are you getting the insight you need from your business software?

• Can you interrogate data easily?
• Can you easily change views and create dashboards?
• Can you quickly and easily customise reports?
• Can you easily drill down into more detailed information?
• Can you automate the regular reports and dashboards you need?

No? Then you need to rethink the system you’re using...

Visibility is essential - Good business intelligence can provide increased control. Do you know who the best performers are? Can you easily identify areas for improvement? Is stock going missing and you can’t identify where it’s going? Is there an error in your accounts and you need to drill down to invoicing or billing quickly to make your P&L balance – can you do this in a few clicks or do you need to re-run a report that takes forever?

Turning data into actionable information - Analytical tools provide the insight that you need to achieve real business agility as they can help you to make and analyse connections between different areas of your business. Business Intelligence helps you to embrace strategic planning for business growth, by identifying key trends and patterns in your data and gain a better understanding of your business, transforming data into actionable information. You can be more responsive and can support future planning with the ability to identify opportunities to increase revenue or to reduce costs.

Improve efficiency - AND the most important reason to have good Business Intelligence is that it can improve efficiency within your business and as a result increase productivity. Simple, easy to use tools that can be used by anyone across the business can help you share information across different departments, enabling you to save time on reporting and analytics. This is particularly essential if you have regular reports you need to run e.g. monthly executive reports where you need the same information each month. Sharing information reduces duplication of data and means all your figures match up. It allows you to get on with the more important things like running your business.

Find out more about Sage Business Intelligence.

Source: www.sage.co.uk/blog 

Sage 50 Accounts is the most widely used small business accounting product in the UK. Made famous by its easy to use interface, Sage 50 Accounts offers both functionality and affordability to the small business. 

Sage 50 Accounts 2012 is the latest version and it brings with it a wealth of new functionality to enhance productivity and efficiency in the modern market place. In the current economic climate it might be difficult to justify the costs of upgrading, but there are some clear benefits that make Sage 50 2012 worthy of your hard earned cash.

• Access Sage 50 when out of the office - the Sage 50 Mobile application enables Sage 50 2012 users to access Sage using a free of charge mobile application.
• Find data quickly - the new Quick Search function enables users to quickly find information by conducting a searches within a list.
• Automatic Return of Trading - Sage 50 2012 automates the calculation of your Return of Trading ensuring accuracy.

At this week's Sage Gala Dinner the top 15 elite Sage Business Partners were commended with the prestigious Sage Circle of Excellence Award. DMC Software, CRM and integration experts, received this award for the 5th consecutive year marking them as one of the leading Sage Partners in the UK. 

Mike Ramsay, Managing Director of DMC Software, on collection of his award announced, “Each year that we have received the Sage Circle of Excellence award it has been extremely humbling, and this year is no different. I am honoured that our customers continue to believe in the high levels of customer service we strive to provide.

“The economic climate has made this year a difficult one for all businesses and the Sage awards that we have won are a testament to the dedication, hard work and passion of the entire DMC team. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my loyal customers and staff alike for their continued support, without them tonight’s achievements would not be possible.”

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This week Sage have released Sage HR 2010 v4. Along with some updated features Sage have also introduced a pricing structure that is based on the number of employees over the number of users - making it Sage 50 HR more accessible for the small business. 

New Sage 50 HR 2010 features include:

•  Quick and easy entry of employee's holidays and absences
• Up to date performance details and development needs for employees
• Automatically 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 and CRB checks
• New pricing structure

Sage 200 Suite is a comprehsive suite of business management tools designed for the medium sized organisation. But what makes Sage 200 stand apart from the rest, for us, is the Business Intelligence tool which resides in the core platform.

Sage 200 Business Intelligence transforms Sage 200 data into business acumen that is easy to use and simple decipher - gone are the lengthy financial reports that consist of reems and reems of figures. 

• Sage 200 Buiness Intelligence reports are produced in Excel for easy manipulation in a familiar environment
• Graphical representations of Sage 200 financial data offer quick and simple interpretation
• Sage 200 Business Intelligence can have multi-users without taking up additional Sage 200 licenses