Sage 200 Blog

Business Intelligence Software for Sage Users

Ashley Williams — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:50:41 +0000

The Business Intelligence module in Sage 200 allows you to quickly get key information about your business to help you make informed decisions. This in turn allows you to make decisions based on facts and not ‘best guesses’ or ‘gut feelings’.

Answers to these questions are easily accessible through the Sage 200 Business Intelligence module and the data is always up to date with the latest information on your business. These answers enable you to strategically plan for business grow by allowing you to identify key trends and patterns so you have a better understanding of what your customers are doing.

You don’t have to be an expert in business intelligence or have the technical knowledge to produce advanced reports either as there are many pre-defined reports that you can access straight away. Additionally, Sage 200 Business Intelligence allows you to export your data directly into Microsoft Excel, so you can make full use of Excel’s powerful features and still easily work with the latest data on your business.
How else it can benefit your business:

Increased control:

Enables quick access to Sage 200 data
Multi-dimensional analysis
Increased visibility of your data
Pinpoint exception areas and highlight opportunities for business growth

Increase Productivity:

Fast and easy tool which can be deployed in a few hours
A superior alternative to complex, time consuming, spread sheets
Save essential time on reporting and analytics, reducing data duplication

Smarter business decisions:

A unified view of all your data with complete management dashboards and analysis as standard as part of the Sage 200 Suite
Make informed business decisions by analysing metrics and KPIs
Enables you to embrace strategic planning for business growth
More responsive with the ability to support future planning and identify opportunities

Business agility:

Gives you the insight that you need to achieve business agility
Powerful data cubes enabling real intelligence
Richer data and dynamic reporting

If you are a user of Sage 200 and would like to take advantage of the free user license you already have you can contact us on 0800 0433 106 or alternatively email us on email@hbp-group.co.uk for more information.

Sage Helpsheet: Distribution Journal Posting

Ashley Williams — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:18:09 +0000

The new helpsheet from our Sage 200 Support team will help you to learn how to create journal templates in Sage 200 based on a percentage split between other accounts. For example, if you have costs which get posted to a main account and you want these to be split using a given percentage over several cost centres then you can set up Journal Templates to do this for you.

This helpsheet, along with others, has been created by members of the HBP Group Sage Support team and you can see all of the support material created at http://hbp-group.co.uk/support

[View the helpsheet]

Less Than a Month till educate2011! Book Your Place for Sage Related Seminars now

Ashley Williams — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:13:22 +0000

Have you remembered to book your place at educate2011? Taking place on the 18^th November, there will be many free seminars such as a Sage 200 Hints & Tips session as well as a look at how you can improve your cash flow and save yourself time. Read on for a list of Sage related sessions and visit ourÂ educate2011 site to register your place…

Sage 200 Hints & Tips (10am)
Hints & tips on using your Sage 200 system more efficiently.

PAYE & Pension Reform (11am)
An explanation of the upcoming payroll changes.

Lunch! (12am)

Implementing a successful document management system (1pm)
See how to implement the perfect document management system.

Cash is King by Draycir (2pm)
Improve your cash flow and save time with Credit Hound from Draycir.

Getting the Right Insurance Cover at the Right Price (3pm)
Learn how to save money and get the right cover for your business.

A full list of seminars can be found on theÂ educate2011 websiteÂ so if you want to create your own schedule you can easily do so on our website.

Six Simple Tips for Social Media

Phil Denham — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:49:05 +0000

Getting your social media marketing right is not easy. There are so many sites to join, so many people to follow and so many potential opportunities to promote your business that you may not know where to start or, if you have started, where to focus your attention.

As relative newcomers to social media at the HBP Group we’ve put together some tips which we’ve found have helped us get to grips with using sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

1) Don’t Do It All

I know we made this mistake and I’m sure lots of other people have too. When you decide that social media is the way forward you set off and set up a Facebook business page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn profile and countless other pages which you think will give you excellent coverage. A week down the line and you’re wondering how on earth anyone has time for all of this. Be realistic – if you’re short on time then just set up one of the three (whichever you feel is most appropriate to your audience) because it’s better to manage one social media campaign properly than to lots of them badly.

2) Get Involved

Social media is all about engagement and getting involved in the conversation. If you can find an opportunity to offer your expert advice, your opinion or even to ask for some help yourself then social media is the perfect platform for this. The more involved you become the more “human” you will appear and who knows, you could end up speaking to your next customer.

3) Keep It Regular

You don’t have to be Tweeting or updating your profile every five minutes but you also don’t want to be simply making a token effort once a month either. Try to keep it regular by posting updates whenever you can and whenever they are appropriate. News about your business activities, win stories or any events happening at your office are all worthwhile shouting about.

4) Don’t SPAM

If you’ve said something once then you’ve probably said it enough. You might get away with twice. Any more than that and you’re risking annoying your audience and potentially losing some of your followers/subscribers. Make sure you mix up your messages and rather that repeating the same message over and over again think about the best time to reach your audience – when are they most likely to be online? If you are using Twitter you can get a free report which tells you the best time to tweet from whentotweet.com

5) Understand Your Audience

The three main social media sites, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, are very similar in their premise but each has differences that you have to be aware of which affect how communications take place. LinkedIn is primarily a business site which means promotion of goods and services is part and parcel of the site whereas Facebook is a lot more personal so any news or offers you promote should give genuine incentives to visit you or buy from you (as you are probably interrupting personal time. Twitter is somewhere in between and allows you to mix business updates with personal but with limited space for messages available (140 characters) you’ll have to make them short and snappy.

6) Remember the Point

Whichever social media site or sites you choose to use make sure you remember why you’re there. If you’re there to create new business opportunities make sure you’re monitoring how that works and that you’re recording your opportunities in your CRM system. The CRM solutions we provide at the HBP Group (Sage CRM, Sage 200 CRM & ProspectSoft CRM) are used for exactly this purpose so make sure you don’t waste all of your hard work by missing out on some golden business opportunities.

If you’d like to know more about Social Media join us for educate2011, where David Beard, Sage’s Social Media expert, will be presenting a seminar on how to use social media as part of your marketing and customer strategy.

Sage win at SSA 2011!

Phil Denham — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:46:30 +0000

Sage 200 was one of the big winners at this yearâ€™s Software Satisfaction Awards, scooping the Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management prize. The award was received at a sparkling awards ceremony, compered by Alastair Campbell, on 18^th October in London.

As well as receiving the top prize for Sage 200, Sage were also runners up in several categories includingÂ the Enterprise Account & Finance category for Sage 50 Accounts, the Enterprise Payroll category for Sage 50 Payroll and the SME Accounting & Finance category for Sage Instant Accounts and Sage 50 Accounts. Another runner up

The award won by Sage is testament to the powerful Business Intelligence module which every Sage 200 customer has at least 1 seat of (it comes with 1 free seat!). Sage Business Intelligence offers the ability to extract data from your Sage 200 system which helps to make intelligent business decisions and if you wanted to know more about this join us for our Sage Hints & Tips seminar at educate2011. In this seminar Dale Rivers from Sage will be looking at some areas of Sage 200 which can help you use the software more effectively â€“ including Sage Business Intelligence.

educate2011 Preview: How To Achieve an Effective Marketing Mix

Phil Denham — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:03:10 +0000

At this yearâ€™s educate2011 we are delighted to have secured a speaker from the Chartered Institute of Marketing. From the very basics, right through to the advanced the Chartered Institute of Marketing set the standard when it comes to professional marketing accreditations and in Gillian Shepherd we will be joined by a Chartered Marketer who was one of the first on the CDPD scheme. Gillian has been a member of the CIM for over 20 years and served for several years on a local CIM committee, setting up links with Hullâ€™s Bondholder scheme and latterly as their Education Ambassador.

Gillian’s experience includes working as Corporate Communications Manager at the Pindar Group, Communications Director at Yorkshire Coast College, Marketing Manager at The University of Hull and currently as Strategic Development Officer for the Salvation Army. In 2009 she won Yorkshire Marketer of the Year and through her work and CIM role she has presented and delivered training to businesses in B2B, education and the voluntary sector.

In her seminar at educate2011 entitled â€˜How to Achieve an Effective Marketing Mixâ€™ Gillianâ€™s session will take a practical approach, aimed at small and medium sized businesses who employ a small marketing team or one person tasked with marketing. The session will help you to analyse how to promote your product and get it to the right place at the right time at the right price! For those familiar with marketing theory (or if you read our Blog post last month!) the marketing mix is based around the 4 (or 7) Ps which affect all companies whether providing a product, service or experience.

This seminar is very much about â€œthe practical building blocks of marketingâ€ which, once in place, will help your company to maximise turnover.

Register today for educate2011 and book your place on â€œHow to Achieve an Effective Marketing Mixâ€ with Gillian Shepherd from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Need help with Sage 200?

Phil Denham — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:47:45 +0000

Did you know that the HBP Group support staff regularly produce help sheets for Sage 200? These help sheets offer step by step guides on how to carry out tasks which weâ€™ve had questions about on our support desk or that we know are often problems for users.

There are currently fourteen different help sheets available to you as a customer of the HBP Group (HBP Systems, Kamarin Computers, Monpellier) which are added to as often as possible. The current help sheets include help with issues such as the cashbook month end procedure, deleting accounts transactions, importing nominal budgets and purchase invoice authorisation.

To see the full range of Sage 200 help sheets visit the HBP Group Support page.

Cash is King at educate2011

Phil Denham — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:49:18 +0000

We are delighted to add Draycir to the list of companies joining us at educate2011 on Friday November 18th which weâ€™re sure will be of interest to any Sage 200, Pegasus Opera II, Pegasus Opera 3 and IRIS Exchequer users. Richard Haywood will present a session based on the Credit Hound product which has been designed to automate and streamline the processes in good credit management.

All of the issues Richard will cover will look at ways in which time can be saved whilst still following best practice credit control procedures and ultimately improve your cash flow.

By following these techniques and applying them correctly you will be able to reduce bad debts, manage disputes effectively as well as saving time and improving cash flow.

To see more about Credit Hound you can watch this online demonstration.

Marketing and the 7Ps

Phil Denham — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:04:26 +0000

On Friday November 18^th at educate2011 we will be joined by Gillian Shepherd from the Chartered Institute of Marketing to present â€˜How to Achieve an Effective Marketing Mixâ€™. This will gives you the basics of how to use the marketing tools at your disposal to best effect.

It will look at how to identify your stakeholders and you need to tell them to make sure that they remain â€˜on sideâ€™, which will help you to build up a clear brand. To achieve this Gillian will guide you through the wide variety of marketing methods available to you – from advertising and PR to the web.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing Â are the leading body in the UK when it comes to marketing best practice and their certifications and qualifications are recognised by marketing professionals in every industry.

In their guide to â€˜Marketing and the 7Psâ€™ a brief summary is given of the basics of marketing and the 7Ps which make up the marketing mix. Traditionally there were 4Ps â€“ Product, Price, Place and Promotion but as theories have developed and marketing has become a more sophisticated discipline additional Ps were added â€“ People, Process and Physical Evidence.

These are now known as the 7Ps of marketing, or the marketing mix.

Download â€˜Marketing and the 7PSsâ€™ to get further details about the marketing mix and how it works.

To register for â€˜How to Achieve an Effective Marketing Mixâ€™ at educate2011 on Friday November 18^th register at www.hbp-group.co.uk/educate

educate2011 Interview with Gary Ging from Sage

Phil Denham — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:12:41 +0000

At educate2011 Gary Ging and Catherine Willis from Sage will join us for a presentation on the upcoming PAYE reform and the changes to pensions. Their seminar begin at 11am in Room 1 and we expecting a busy turnout as the changes affect so many people regardless of the Payroll software they currently use.

We spoke to Gary to find out a little more about the upcoming changes and about their presentation at educate2011:

Hi Gary. For anyone that has not heard about the upcoming PAYE changes could you give us a quick overview of what will be changing?

At the moment, an employer must send in-year information, such as P45/P46s, and end of year information (P35 & P14s) electronically to HMRC. This is a good process but it means that HMRC does not get a clear picture of an individualâ€™s tax & NI payments until after the relevant tax year, which often leads to under/over payments and tax code adjustments in subsequent tax years.

HMRCâ€™s introduction of Real Time Information (RTI) submissions means that an employer will be required to send to HMRC the details of payments made to an employee at the time the payments are made, so instead of only having the complete picture after the end of the year HMRC will now know â€˜in real timeâ€™ how much tax/NI has been deducted and whether or not it is correct based on the employeeâ€™s circumstances.

And what about the changes to Pensions?

New Pension Regulations are about to come into force which will require all employers to make available a â€˜qualifyingâ€™ pension scheme to all of their employees, and they must automatically enrol their â€˜eligibleâ€™ employees into the scheme. The employee can then decide to opt out of the enrolment if they wish, although the employer must then re-enrol them again after 3 years (and the employee can opt-out again and then repeat ad infinitumâ€¦). There are minimum requirements for a qualifying scheme, initially there must be a minimum contribution of 2% and at least 1% of this must be paid by the employer, and an eligible employee is somebody who earns over a certain threshold (currently Â£7475 but this will change), is aged 22 or older and is eligible to work in the UK. Most pensions providers will either already, or intend to, have a qualifying scheme although there will also be a new scheme available which is provided by NEST (National Employment Savings Trust).

Who will be affected by these changes and who should attend your presentation?

All employers will be affected, so anybody who is involved with or advises others on these areas should find the session useful

For RTI, HMRC are running a pilot from April 2012 and then it will be mandatory for all large employers (>=250 employees) from April 2013 and for all other employers from October 2013.

For Pensions, there are numerous staging dates spread over the next few years from 2012 until 2016, again starting with very large employers.

To register for Gary and Catherine Seminar at educate2011 please visit www.hbp-group.co.uk/educate