Sage Line 50 contains a variety of accounting features that are all intended to make your business run more smoothly. For example (please note these options and lists are by no means exhaustive):

Customers/sales ledger:

Customers are the most important assets to almost every business and Sage Line 50 makes it easy to maintain accurate customer records. From the Customers option you can:

• Record general customer information, including their credit details.

• Analyse your customer's invoices, credits and payments over a period defined by you

• Display balances for customers over a specified time period.

• Enter batch invoices and credit notes

• Apply credit charges to customers who do not pay on time.

• Print customer labels, letters, statements and reports

• Set an account status for individual customer accounts

• Select a department to be used for analysis, and a discount percentage to be used in raising invoices and credits

• Use extended credit control facilities, e.g. hold credit review details, such as date account opened, last credit review date and application date, and a memorandum field for further credit information

• Phone your customers via a modem link from your computer

• Set up multiple delivery addresses for customers

• Use customised price lists for each customer, and/or select an additional discount scheme

• Memorise and recall batch invoice and credit entries

• Set up and maintain customised customer price lists

• Keep a record of contacts with customers, and raise contact invoices using the information entered

• E-mail statements to your customers

Suppliers/purchase ledger:

Your suppliers can be just as important as your customers and Sage Line 50 provides you with everything you need to keep track of what you buy and how much you are paying. From the Suppliers option, you can:

• Store the information for each supplier, including general information, credit details, settlement discount period, payment due days, terms and account restrictions.

• Analyse supplier's invoices, credits and payments by month.

• Graphically analyse supplier's purchases.

• View full details of activity on supplier accounts.

• Use the BACS option to make online payments to suppliers.

• Display balances for suppliers over a given time period.

• Enter batch invoices and credits

• Print supplier labels, letters and reports.

• Set the account status for individual supplier accounts

• Select the department to be used for supplier analysis.

• Store a credit reference and bureau for each supplier.

• Hold credit review information, including date account opened, last credit review date, next credit review date, application date and date application received.

• Phone your suppliers via a modem link from your computer.

• Set up multiple delivery addresses for your suppliers.

• Memorise and recall batch invoice and credit entries.

• Keep a record of contacts with suppliers, and raise contact invoices using the information entered.

Nominal ledger:

The nominal or general ledger combines data from all of your ledgers to give you an accurate balance of your accounts. It can be tailored to fit your specific business needs. Within the nominal ledger you can:

• Record information for each nominal account, including the nominal code, name, balance, account type, monthly actuals, monthly budgets and monthly prior year figures.

• Graphically analyse nominal activity.

• View the full details of the activity on each nominal account.

• Use the memorandum facility to record additional details.

• Enter manual double-entry transactions and import nominal ledger posting files.

• Maintain your chart of accounts and generate figures for financial reports.

• Print a range of nominal reports.

• Memorise and recall skeleton journal entries.

• Set up prepayments (to adjust accounts for payments or invoices that have been paid in advance) and accruals (adjust accounts for any payments or invoices that have been paid in arrears).

• Use the simple journal reversals procedure to remove incorrect journal postings.

Bank ledger/cashbook:

Your Bank option manages all of your bank receipts and payments, including direct debits and standing orders. You can set up multiple accounts, including your credit card accounts, and immediately see your balance for each account. Within the Bank option, you can:

• Record information for each bank account.

• View the full activity details on each bank account.

• Use the reconciliation option to check your actual bank balance with your Line 50 records, so you can get an accurate reflection of your cashflow.

• Enter batch bank payments and receipts.

• Record the payments made to suppliers against purchase invoices received.

• Record any payments received from customers, and easily allocate the money received against sales invoices raised.

• Use the bank transfer procedure, to move money between bank accounts

• Set up and process recurring entries quickly and easily, e.g. standing orders.

• Print a statement for any bank account, showing all reconciled bank payments and receipts.

• Take advantage of the online banking facility, including e-payments and e-reconcile routines, within the e-banking option.

• Print bank reports.

• Memorise and recall batch payment and receipt entries.

• Print and maintain supplier remittances. ˇ Print and maintain supplier remittances.

• Print cheques directly from the program, using supplier payment information.

• Use the batch option to list all outstanding transactions across all supplier accounts, so the user can select to pay all transactions in full, individual transactions in full or part pay transactions.

Products (stock control):

Your products option allows you to keep track of what you sell, whether it is a product or a service. Within the Products option, you can:

• Store product details.

• Analyse each product's monthly sales value and quantity sold.

• Graphically analyse product activity.

• Use the advanced discount capability, to set up multiple discount schemes for each product.

• Set up and maintain product price lists.

• Check if stock levels have fallen below the re-order levels set on product records using the shortfall option and automatically generate purchase orders if required.

• Make use of the extended functionality for product items, e.g. the department to be used for analysis, item type, quantity in stock and cost price.

• Use the transfer procedure to increase the in stock quantity of product assemblies using components that are currently in stock.

• Record damaged or faulty goods that have been returned, or are being returned, to a supplier using the simple returns procedure.

• Use the 'Check BOM' (Bills of Materials - the list of the components needed to make up a product) option to see if there is enough stock available to make up a quantity of an assembly.

• Set up stock items in addition to non-stock items.

• Adjust stock in and out.

• Use the simple stock take procedure, to automatically post adjustments to stock levels.

• Associate images with stock items, e.g. for use with a Web catalogue.

Invoicing:

This option automates the invoicing process so you save time and improve the accuracy of your records. Within the invoicing option you can:

• Create and edit invoices and credit notes for products and services

• Invoice in euros or other foreign currencies

• E-mail invoices to your customers

• Update invoices to the relevant nominal ledger accounts

• Print invoices and invoicing reports

• Raise quotes and proforma invoices for products and services

• Automatically download invoices from Sage WebTrader and WebTrader Pro.

• Check the profit made, as product invoices are entered, calculated using the cost price from the product record

• Access the price lists option directly from the product item dialogue, to select a sales price to be used for an individual invoice

• Mix and match products and services on the same invoice

Sales Order Processing:

This option enables you to keep track of the items that your customers are ordering. Within this option, you can:

• Create and edit sales orders, proformas and quotations.

• Allocate stock to sales orders.

• Despatch goods against a sales order, adjusting stock levels, and create invoices for items despatched.

• Amend quantities to be despatched, or select to cancel an order, place an order on hold or unallocated stock against an order.

• Use the shortfall option to display product item quantities required to fulfil sales orders, and raise purchase orders for the required items.

• Print sales orders, delivery notes, labels and sales order reports.

Purchase Order Processing:

This option lets you keep track of all the orders that you generate. Within the POP option, you can:

• Create and edit purchase orders.

• Place purchase orders on-order.

• Deliver goods against a purchase order, adjusting stock levels, and create purchase invoice details for items received.

• Amend quantities to be delivered, or select to cancel or place an order on-order.

• Create purchase invoice transactions for goods received.

• Print purchase orders, goods received notes, labels and purchase order reports.

• Maintain records of previous deliveries against purchase orders using the good received process.

• Automatically update the purchase ledger from the POP module.

Financials:

This option automatically creates your management accounts and VAT Return and carries out budget analysis. Within this option you can:

• Create and print your management reports, presenting vital information in easy to read graphs, tables and reports, including your profit and loss and balance sheet report, enabling you to see how your business is performing.

• Instantly run your VAT calculations, saving you hours. The VAT wizard automatically transfers VAT from your control accounts to your liability account so you can make a simple bank payment to the VAT office.

• Use the quick find option to locate specific audit trail information.

• Use the quick ratio option to see immediately the current 'liquidity' of your company.

Fixed assets:

This option allows you to keep track of the value and depreciation of all your fixed assets. Within the fixed assets option you can:

• Store your fixed asset information, including asset details and posting information.

• Display and print a valuation for all fixed asset records.

• Dispose of a fixed asset, using the fixed asset disposal wizard.

• Print fixed asset reports.

Task manager:

Reminds you of actions you need to take and bills that you need to pay, how much you are owed and the status of your accounts. Within the task manager you can:

• Display a list of 'To Do' items, bills to pay, accounts due, account status, recurring entries and invoices,

• Display lists of stock information, e.g. out of stock, below reorder level, on order and allocated.

• View sales orders, contacts and purchase orders.

• View your sales and purchase order processing details including, SOP to allocate, to despatch, cancelled and completed, and POP to order, to deliver, cancelled and completed.

e-Commerce options:

These functions allow you to expand your business into e-trading and take full advantage of the business opportunities of the Internet. The e-commerce functions allow you to:

• Use the built-in Web browser, so you no longer have to leave the program to view or manipulate Web-based information.

• Have direct access to Sage.ie and SageCover, so you can get immediate information and support by being taken straight to the relevant site.

• E-mail technical queries directly to Sage Technical Support.

• Send e-mails from within the program, allowing you to send free format e-mails using any e-mail client of their choice by means of an option provided on the file menu.

• Set up suppliers for BACS and electronic payments. Supplier payments will be able to be made electronically - this option allows you to specify and record the bank details for each supplier.

• Make electronic supplier payments via online banking, providing speed and cost savings over traditional methods.

• Use the electronic bank statement reconciliation facility, providing speed savings in reconciling bank accounts and giving you more up-to-date information, i.e. bank statements can be obtained daily.

• Ability to save any report as a HTML file. This is a universal format, which can be read on any machine running a Web browser.

• E-mail any report to any recipient from within the print preview window. An e-mail feature has been incorporated into the report generator which means that any report currently produced with the report generator can be distributed by e-mail.

• E-mail any report to a group of recipients, offering you benefits in the growing business-to-business e-commerce arena, as reports such as invoices and statements can be sent to a range of customers by selecting a single option.

• Use customer credit checking facilities over the Web. An automatic link with any user-defined credit-checking bureau can be used to determine customers' credit status prior to taking orders or despatching goods.

• E-mail any customer, supplier or bank report, e.g. letters, statements, and reports, directly to your customers, suppliers or bank.

• Publish a Web catalogue.

• E-mail invoices and credit notes.

• Download invoices and sales orders from Sage WebTrader to speed up the ordering process by reducing the need to key in orders manually.

• Use Web-based invoice and delivery tracking.

• Use Web-based invoice and delivery tracking.

• Use supplier credit checking facilities over the Web via the provision of an automatic link with any user defined credit-checking bureau. This can be used to determine suppliers credit status prior to sending orders or making payments.

Additional key features of Sage Line 50 include:

• ActiveSetup: guides you through the setup of your new accounting system in a quick and straightforward way.

• Passwords and security access: set passwords and restrict which areas of the program that individual users have access to.

• Wizards: making your tasks simpler, wizards take you through complex procedures in a step-by-step approach.

• ActiveSearch: speeds up your data entry by matching what you are typing to common entries, so for example, the first letter of a customer's name suffices.

• Multi-company capability: licences can be purchased for additional companies, where each set of data can be run independently or merged into a parent company report to represent the whole group.

• Multi-user capability: licences can also be obtained for multi-user versions of Sage Line 50, if you need to have a number of people working on your accounts, e.g. one entering sales orders and the other entering invoices.

• Multiple delivery addresses: stores multiple addresses for the same organisation so that particular addresses can be selected from a list, which saves time and makes it easier to deal with large organisations with multiple sites.

• Reporting: gives you a wide range of automatically produced reports, including profit and loss, balance sheet and budget reports. You can customise the reports to suit your own needs, prepare them at a touch of a button and either print them out or e-mail them to interested parties.

• Version control: prints out the name of the user (on multi-user versions) who has produced your reports, such as your audit trail report.

• Euro and multi-currency: makes your currency transactions easy with in-built currency converters and full euro compatibility.

• Cheque printing: saves time and prevents mistakes by producing your cheques and printing associated remittance advices automatically.

• Microsoft Office integration: links with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Outlook