New Features For Accounting in Sage ERP MAS 500 7.4

No matter how smooth the implementation, upgrading your software can be disruptive to your daily business processes. What makes it worthwhile is gaining more efficient processes that save your organization time and money. Sage ERP MAS 500 (soon to be Sage 500 ERP) Version 7.4 has features that your accounting department will find compelling enough to make you eager to upgrade.

All In A Work Day

Let’s start by looking at things that likely take place in your business every day.

• Do your customers ever pay an amount that differs from the invoice amount?
• Do you ever spend hours tracking down an unapplied payment?
•  Have you ever spent time trying to reconcile a payment to a customer account only to have an amount that you cannot apply?
• Do your customers ever get frustrated because you keep them on hold while you try to track down a payment?
• Have you ever applied an amount to the wrong invoice, just to have a place to apply it?
• Have you ever wished you had fewer steps to go through to issue a refund?
• Do you use Business Insights Explorer to view and drill down on transaction information?
• Ever wish you could export the data on your screen just the way it is into a spreadsheet or a PDF?
• Ever wish the data loaded faster in the views?

If you answered Yes to two or more of these questions, then Sage ERP MAS 500 Version 7.4 is for you!

Customer Payments And Refunds

Dealing with exceptions and errors is part of doing business. Version 7.4 helps with workflow and tracking flexibility for customer payments and refunds.

Customers do not always submit payments that tie neatly to existing invoices. Now you have a way to apply and track those mysterious amounts in a way that makes sense to you and your customers. Version 7.4 adds the ability to apply overpaid amounts to an existing invoice and track the balance using the original invoice number. You can do this through either Accounts Receivable Enter Cash Receipts or Apply Payments and Memos. The new capability can be used for applying Cash, a Customer Payment, a Credit Memo, or another overpaid invoice’s negative balance. The overpaid amount appears with the original invoice number in all the expected places such as:

• Print or Re-Print Invoices
• Customer Status Ledger tab
• Customer Statements
• Aged Receivables
• AR Trial Balance
• Explore Invoice Applications
• Explore Customer Payments Applications

Speedier Refund Processing

While every business tries to avoid issuing customer refunds, there are instances when that is the only correct action. A complex process involving multiple steps in multiple modules only makes the refund even more expensive for your business. With Sage ERP MAS 500 Version 7.4, you can create a customer refund from start to finish, including printing the check, all from one task. Refund checks use the customer information without the need to create a vendor or a voucher – saving steps and increasing your productivity.

The refund process is accessed from Enter Cash Receipts. A new option allows you to select Refund Check or Refund Other on the Payment Tab. On the Application Tab, you can select the transaction to be refunded. On the Process Cash Receipts Screen, simply click the new button, Print Refund Checks. This launches a new task, allowing you to proceed with check printing just as in Accounts Payable.

Better Business Insight

Business Insights is a powerful tool for analyzing your data to make better business decisions. But if you have accumulated a lot of data in Sage ERP MAS 500, the results may not be displayed as quickly as your would like. Key performance and usability enhancements in Sage ERP MAS 500 Version 7.4 get you the answers you need faster.

In order to reduce the time it takes to return selection and filtered results in a Business Insights Explorer view, Version 7.4 benefits from:

• Updated controls
• Improved Select Engine
• Optimized metadata

The result is greatly improved performance in returning the information you need.

Sometimes you just want to see the top performers at a glance, without waiting for the entire data set to load. With the new Maximum Rows setting in Maintain Business Insights Views/Context Menus you can limit the results returned for a quick view of your top performers whether it be customers, items, salespeople, or any view that can be ranked.

Business Insights Explorer is an extremely versatile tool for organizing and analyzing data. Nonetheless, some find it convenient to export the data to other tools like Microsoft® Excel® for further analysis. Prior to Version 7.4, the export included all data from the initial query. This meant that all of the filtering, sorting and analysis performed prior to the export had to be repeated again in Excel.

The new export options in Version 7.4 provide you with a choice. Now you can export all of the data just as you did before, or you can limit the export to only contain the data in the view as it appears in Sage ERP MAS 500. This second option reduces the duplication of effort and gets you to your desired results more quickly.

You also have the option to export in PDF format. This export also includes the options to export all data or just the visible data.

Call us with your questions, or to plan your upgrade to Sage ERP MAS 500 7.4, soon to be Sage 500 ERP.