The Sage Lady

In this post we welcome the Sage Lady, Alison Mead from Silicon Bullet. When developing your business it is most important to realise what activities net you the most ROI, or the most gross profit. Sometimes this isn’t the product or service you may think! As a guest blogger, Alison gives a few highlights and hints to show how you can make more of your business tools and make them work for you. In this instance SAGE. Are you getting the most out of it?

Sage How To Make It Work For You.

Many people buy Sage software as it is recommended by their accountant, or they have heard about it as over 800,000 businesses in the UK use it to manage their business. It is popular software and you do not need to be a bookkeeping expert or accountant to make it work for your business.

Sage is however a very complex piece of software, and you have little hope of making the best of it if you buy it and install it alone. At the very least you should ask your accountants advice, or even better get a Sage training expert to guide you through the installation and set up of your software. You are bombarded with decisions from the very start, when does your financial year start? Are you VAT registered which scheme are you on? (Standard, Cash Accounting, Flat Rate etc…). Also which ‘Chart of Accounts’ best suits your business? When you first install Sage if you answer these questions wrong then it is quite a complex business to correct them once you have started using the software fully.

Sage how To Make It Work For You

The Chart of Accounts includes the design of the nominal code list in Sage and is the secret to gaining meaningful management information from your financial accounts in the future. Not just the Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet at the touch of a button but do you know in Sage how to tell which part of your business makes you the most money? Can you easily see where you should focus your efforts for the most profit?

Sage How To Make It Work For You

In customer and supplier records there are flexible analysis codes which can be used to report on your sales and purchases. By recording the source of all your new clients for example, Sage can also tell you easily where your business has come from. Is networking bringing in new business or word of mouth referrals?

Actually entering your invoices and payments and managing your bank accounts is really easy, but in Sage how to make it work for you is the clever part. A couple of short sessions with an expert when you start using Sage will pay dividends in the long run – and enable you to make the very best use of this fantastic piece of software, whether you use Sage Instant Accounts or Sage 50.

A huge thank you to Alison for this most helpful post and we hope you found Sage how to make it work for you as helpful as we did!

If you would like to read more hints tips on Sage the check out Alison’s blog

Other posts you may find useful:

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Follow Up, Follow Through