Archive for December, 2011

Argh – my Sage has Errors – what shall I do?

There is nothing quite like that sinking feeling you get when you run a Sage Data check and find there are Errors in your Sage Data – we have had two enquiries this month.  We go months with no one having any problems at all – then all of  a sudden getting two at once seems very odd – or maybe Sage Errors are just like buses.

If you are a Sage 50 or Sage Instant user and don’t actually know what I am talking about – then you need to learn some Sage housekeeping basics.

But what can you do if your Sage 50 or Sage Instant Accounts data has errors?

First things first – don’t panic.

First of all – take a backup of your data, so that if anything goes wrong with your attempts to fix the data you can always get back to how your accounts look today.  I would change the name of the file to include ‘with errors’ in the name, so as to easily identify it.

If you have a version of Sage older than Sage 50 2012 you can use the Fix button on the File Maintenance report to attempt to fix the data.  This often fixes the problem by Sage rebuilding your data again from scratch using your original transactions.  If you ‘Fix’ the data and no errors show up when the data check is run again then you can carry on as usual.  I would make sure, though, that bank balances are correct and would check balances on all or a random selection of customer and supplier accounts, just to make sure everything is OK.

In Sage 50 2012 you are faced with the new Recovery Tools option.  Next to Recovery Tools is a link called  “How to fix errors & warnings in your Sage data” which takes you to the My Data area on the My Sage website. Here you will find information on  how to avoid corruption, a list of non-fixable errors, and Sage’s Data Repair Service. There are also links to help articles about data repair and updating your software .  To access this help, you will need to have a login to the Sage website set up; if you don’t have Sage Cover then you will not have access to some of these areas and links, in which case your local Sage Reseller will be able to help you out.

Sage Recovery Tools

If you click on the Recovery Tools option you will first be prompted to take a backup before you can do anything else. The following screen then gives you 8 options of tools which could fix your data.  You do get guidance on which area the error is in so it should be fairly obvious which tool is required.

If your attempts to fix your data fail, and you still have errors listed, then you can go back to your last clean backup (one with no errors) and restore the data.  You will then need to re-key any data that you had entered since that date.   There are more tricks which are too detailed to go into here.

If you do not have a clean backup, or the time taken to re-key data is just not practical, then we do offer an alternative to the Sage Data Repair Services through a business partner who was a developer at Sage for many years.  The service offered is cheaper than Sage and in the two recent cases we have dealt with the data has been fixed out of hours for us and returned to the client for the next morning, meaning any disruption could be kept to a minimum.

So, if you have errors in your data, don’t panic, but do something about it to remove them.  For further advice on steps to take, have a look at the Leyburn Solutions Website.

2011
12/28
CATEGORY
Sage
Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
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You never stop learning

It never ceases to amaze me that, despite having used Sage 50 for almost 16 years, I never stop learning.

I was taking a look at another blog written by a Sage Reseller, Sue Newman, www.suenewman.co.uk/blog.  And thought I would take a little flick through the hints and tips posts, never expecting to learn something new.

Now, I have always known about the ability in the settings menu to change the program date, so for example if you are belatedly doing a lot of year end journals, you can change the date to save having to keep retyping it. I had never found this much use, though, in my own bookkeeping work.

The tip which gave me a lightbulb moment is that if you have changed the date, you then need to only type the day in the date field and Sage will fill the rest in using the details from the current program date. This makes data entry so much quicker.

I was so pleased with this new useful tip that I plan to share it at all future training sessions. So at my next training I told them my wonderful new discovery – having already wowed them with instructions about Excel Integrated Reporting – and they said “oh yes, we know all about that!”

I was a little deflated, but I know that plenty of the people I train still type the date in full so I am sure I will be able to share the tip with other training clients.

Did you know about this shortcut already? Please let me know via the comments below.

2011
12/19
CATEGORY
Sage
Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
1 comment

Maximising the power of networking

Many of us realise the power of networking and how it can bring in new business, but how can you make sure you make the most of going to those meetings – and ensure that you remain in the forefront of people’s minds?

I thought I would share some techniques which really seem to work, so when people need a Sage Lady they think of me.

When I return home from a networking meeting it is usually with a handful of business cards. As soon as I can I enter the contact details of who I have met into our ACT! contact management database, with a brain dump of who the people are and what sort of business people are looking for. I include which meeting we met at and when. This means I remember who I have met, and I can easily put people in touch with each other if relevant.

Next I will send an email out following up any promises I made in the meeting, putting people in touch with each other or passing on useful information. In this email I also remind people who I am and ask if they would like to receive my monthly e-newsletters (for newsletter examples take a look at this page). I don’t assume everyone wants my newsletter, and ask people to opt in, as I know how annoying unsolicited email can be.

This two pronged approach of recording the details of meeting people, with a timely follow up, ensures that I stay in the forefront of people’s minds. It also helps me to measure the success of the meetings I go to.

This week I had a call from a company wanting an upgrade of their Sage accounts; they had got my details from their IT services provider, who in turn had heard about me from a local firm of accountants. I was able to look up in my ACT! database where I had last met someone from the accountants firm, and send a personal thank you. It turns out I had met them right back in February this year at a  Towcester Business Club meeting, but they had been receiving my monthly e-newsletters. I am sure that is why, when they were asked for an expert in Sage 50, they thought of me. By acknowledging the referral and thanking them I will hopefully be thought of again when a similar situation arises.

So make sure you too become a ‘good networker’ and make the most of the time you spend going to meetings. You never quite know where that next referral is going to come from. If you are a novice networker then take a look at the post my friend Liz Broomfield, an editor, writer and proof-reader from Birmingham, has published - Networking for Newbies.

2011
12/14
CATEGORY
Networking
Sage ACT!
5 comments

Good Housekeeping in Sage Accounts

Do you practise good housekeeping with your Sage 50 Accounts Data, or your Sage Instant Accounts?  We have had two cases in the last week of clients with errors in their Sage data which had to be sent away to be fixed, but with good housekeeping this cost could have been avoided.

So – what is ‘good housekeeping’ in Sage?  What should you be doing on a day-to-day basis to help prevent errors, or give you the ability to return to ‘clean data’?

File -> Maintenance

Sage recommend that you check your data regularly, always before taking a backup, and after restoring your data too.  I would also add that data should be checked when data has been imported also.  You check your data by going to File -> Maintenance then clicking the Check Data button.

Sage then runs through your data, checking for input errors, internal inconsistencies, missing data and invalid nominal account types, and presents you with the  File Maintenance Problem Report. The report contains 3 pages – Errors, Warnings and Comments.

File Maintenance Problems Report

  • Errors show data problems.
  • Warnings indicate serious problems which should be attended to but are not as serious as errors.
  • Comments are the least serious, and often refer to inconsistencies which probably exist just because of a perfectly valid way that you are using the data – e.g. negative budgets or negative balances on the sales or purchase ledger.
I would always recommend that you seek help from your local Sage Reseller, or from Sage Support  if you have Errors or Warnings – and you should NEVER carry on using data with Errors, but immediately seek assistance. See my post Argh – my Sage has Errors – what shall I do?

The File Maintenance Problem Report will look different in Sage 50 2012 compared to older versions.  In 2012 you have Recovery Tools and in earlier versions there is a Fix button.  I will go into more detail on what you should do if you have Errors in a later post.

If you always do a data check before running a backup, and back up when you have done any data entry, then when you find errors which can’t be fixed using the Recovery Tools or Fix button you will always have the option of restoring your last known clean data and then re-keying your recent transactions.  The problems arise if you back up without checking data first, so all your backups may well also contain the error.  This is the point at which your data needs to be sent away to be fixed.

So 3 simple rules for Good Housekeeping in Sage Accounts:

  • Check your data
  • Back up your data
  • Stop for Errors

If you follow these rules you should find you never need to send your data away to be fixed.  And sod’s law states that if you do practise good housekeeping then your data will never corrupt!

2011
12/12
CATEGORY
Sage
Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
10 comments

Small Business Partnerships

We small business owners need to stick together and support each other. We are very good at what we do, but the very nature of a small business means we can’t always solve our clients’ issues alone, or we don’t have all the skills required to promote, manage and grow our own business.

I think many of us are guilty of feeling we have to do everything ourselves, and we can’t afford to outsource work. I know this is something I am guilty of.

Shaking Hands

This is where we can help each other, stick to our strengths and set up strategic partnerships with like-minded business contacts with complementary skills. If there is a job you don’t enjoy or don’t have the skills for, when you pass that to another small business you can then concentrate on your core skill set, which hopefully you do enjoy; otherwise why did you set your business up?

I find the best scenario is when you can swap skills directly with another company. I have managed to do this a few times myself. A very apt example is to do with this blog. Liz Broomfield of Libro Proof-Reading and Copy-Editing Services proof-reads all my posts to correct my terrible spelling, mistypes and grammar, and in return I can offer bookkeeping advice.

Also recently I approached an IT company and offered to be a consultant Sage expert for them. They were then able to visit a prospective client to review their IT systems, and as it turned out they were the only ones who offered Sage support and advice as part of the service. This gave them a unique selling point which made them stand out from the IT crowd. We can now both benefit from this sharing of skills.

So think about where your strengths lie, and where alliances could be made – then we can all support each other and grow.

Photo: Aidan Jones on Flickr

2011
12/09
CATEGORY
General
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Guest Blog Posts

How time flies when you are having fun!

Alison at her desk.

The Silicon Bullet Blog is now one month old, and what a month it has been! I have found creating my new blog both interesting and quite addictive. I have to see how many people have looked at the posts every day, and the Google searches used to find it are absolutely fascinating (to me anyway – you are probably yawning already!).

I feel my biggest achievement to date has been being invited by Cath, who looks after the @sageuk twitter account, to do a guest post on the Sage Blog.  I was so pleased to be approached, having only written a handful of my own posts, as Sage has been a big part of my working life for 16 years now – it is good to get the recognition.

So, Cath gave me a subject to work with – “the added value that Business Partners bring to Sage customers; how close you are to your customers, what are the key challenges facing your customers, etc.” and my first guest post was born.

I was then given some hints and tips by Maxine, a moderator on the Uk business forums, for guest posting:

  • Be ready to answer comments and keep checking frequently throughout the day so that the blogger doesn’t have to keep asking you to answer.
  • Don’t leave the promotion of the article up to them alone – see what you can do with sharing in places such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and of course on the business forum.

So if you fancy reading my Sage Guest Blog Post, you can find it here. And please do leave a comment and let me know what you think.

2011
12/04
CATEGORY
Blogging
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Experimenting with Sage 50

If you use Sage 50, and have used it for a while, you probably have used it the same way for years.  Even if you have upgraded through to the latest version, currently Sage 50 2012 (Version 18) there are probably lots of buttons which you don’t even notice, or things that you would like to learn about but just don’t have the time.

That is where the Silicon Bullet refresher training comes in; Alison can come out to your site and show you what all the new bells and whistles do in your Sage 50, and help you apply the new functionality to your business.

But what if you just want play around in Sage yourself and learn how the new features work?

Select File > Open > Demo Data

Every Sage installation of Sage 50 and Sage Instant has a demonstration company built in, and you can play around with this with no fear of messing up your real company data. It comes with data in the form of the fictitious company “Stationery & Computer Mart UK” and allows you to try most of the functionality you would have in the main program.  Some things are not allowed, such as Transaction Email, Backup and Restore so you can’t run this as a full 2nd company.

To access the demonstration data, from the menu bar select File>Open>Demo Data, then if prompted to log in use the default user name of MANAGER with no password.  You return to your own company data by going to File>Open>Open Company Data at any time, and switch freely between the two. You can experiment in this demonstration company with no danger of influencing your real accounts.

There is also a practice mode which can be accessed in a similar way by choosing Open Practice Data – this is a completely clean installation of the software with no  customers or suppliers showing, so you can see how things work starting from a blank page.  It can be a good place to gain confidence in navigating round the software if you are new to Sage.  Again, data cannot be moved over to your real company and nothing you do here will affect your real data . Each time you open the practice data, you get the choice of continuing with the previous practice session or starting again with a blank sheet.

An Index Search within Sage Accounts Help

Remember, when you are learning new features, Sage has comprehensive in-built help files which you can access by pressing F1 from anywhere in the program;  support for the page you are in will then appear in a separate Help window.  By using the Index or Search functions within Help you can look up how to do anything you are unsure of.

If you need to put a manual together – for example for a new starter, then relevant help pages can be printed out  in order to reference later as your own bespoke manual.

So, with these tools you can start to make your Sage 50 Accounts or Sage Instant software really work for you by making use of all the excellent features which appear as standard in the software.

If you have found this blog useful and would like to read other hints and tips for Sage users, follow this link for more Sage articles.

2011
12/01
CATEGORY
Sage
Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
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