Sage Accpac Accounting Software Vancouver Blog – Unisoft

Unisoft will be attending the Sage Accpac third party conference or formally Third Party Advantage Conference (TPAC) from August 26th to 28th.  TPAC is a conference showcasing thrid party products that work with Sage Accpac ERP. The conference was founded in 2003 after the AOC, the old Third Party conference was discontinued.  All the major Sage Accpac third party developers will be there and will be a good time for Unisoft to get up to date on all their latest technologies and developments. There will be training sessions and exhibitions that will allow Unisoft to help find the best products to help improve our customers business systems. We will be posting back here after the Conference to give a quick summary of what of the Accpac conference.

This is a quick tip for Outlook users. If you have deleted items and then removed them from your deleted items folder in outlook there is a way to retrieve these items. All you have to do is locate the menu bar item named “Tools”, expand this and click “Recover Deleted Items…” and that is all. This only works for users using Excahgne 2003 and later versions with Outlook 2003 and later versions.  The number of days items are recovered from are set on your Exchange server.

This is a good question. For any business, small, medium or large, looking to utilize technology to their full advantage they will need to know what ERP is and how they can use it.  Essentially, ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning, another great IT acronym. However, this is not what we are after, we are after the concept that is making ERP software the next revolution in business technology.

ERP software is meant to be a solution for your business that can encompass and integrate all of your business processes and needs. It can include manufacturing, supply mangement, sales, financials, customer management  or just a few business activities. ERP systems are built around what your business needs.

Why is ERP software so important? Because it brings all your systems together and ensures every business process is integrated, bringng your business technology system closer and closer to mimicking your business. This makes all your company activities more efficient and enables you’re business to get more out of your investment. 

Unisoft offers a secure remote access solution for your business. This allows you to access email via outlook, file shares at the office, and data you need to get access to while sitting at home, on the road or in a cafe. The technology powering this solution is called SSL-VPN and allows you to easily and securely log in to your office network by simply going to a web site.  If you are interested in adding secure remote access for your business please contact Unisoft today.

Ever since Unisoft began providing one of North America’s most effective customer relationship management solutions we have been met with some confusion regarding what CRM systems really can and cannot do. We hope this 3 part series of posts will help clear up some of this confusion as well shed some light into the intentions behind Sage CRM’s architectural design.

In many ways Sage Accpac CRM certainly is the all-encompassing “yes” solution.   It has been highly regarded for the ease of use and flexibility involved in the customization process as well as won out against its competitors for various user friendly features including an appealing and uncluttered interface, web deployment that provides real time access at anytime and from anywhere, integration with its host accounting solution (Sage Accpac ERP) and a wide range of readily available third party products that often also integrate with Sage Accpac ERP.  Nevertheless, customers often approach the prospect of purchasing a CRM system with unclear views about what they really want to achieve with the solution, or even worse, with little or no expectations at all.  In the first case this type of confusion can lead to a circle of indecisiveness which often stops at a dead end with no decision at all and in the second case customers that do go ahead with the purchase will often feel dissatisfied with the product because they never distinguished what they wanted it for in the first place.  In both situations the solution is simple: isolate your needs from your desires and come to a conclusion which is both satisfactory and realistic.  Of course, while we never want a client to settle for just anything that happens to come along, we also want you to remember that you will rarely find a solution that is perfect and so a little compromise is better than nothing at all.  

Join us next time when we discuss elements and functions that most customers should be looking for in CRM systems and how Sage CRM compares in this regard.

Have you been looking to get information about sales, inventory or customer activity out of your Sage Accpac ERP system? Unisoft has many consultants that are excellent at writing custom Crystal Reports to get exactly what you need out of your Sage Accpac data. Unisoft’s trained and proficient team of consultants will provide simple edits to fully customized sales and customer activity Crystal Reports tog et exectly what you want. Please contact us at 604-926-3398 or submit a service request and we will have one our consultants get back to you.

With the release of the RMA (Returns Materials Authorization) module Sage Software has added complete integration module to handle customer returns in a timely fashion. The RMA module adds many new advanced tools, flexibility and ease of use for rapid turnaround time. This all around enhances cusotmer service and loyalty while providing your business with optimal control of your inventory and cash flow. THe RMA module delivers the ability to track and bill for repairs with automated inventory control all integrated into the other Sage Accpac modules including oreder entry and purchase order. If your company is looking for the missing integration of handling product returns and managing claims then RMA could be the solution to fill the business process gap.

If you are interested in talking with someone from Unisoft please contact us about Sage Accpac RMA and we will get back to you promptly.

Sage Software and its CRM division has added a GM to handle Sage CRM and SaleLogix. This definetly a sign that Sage is continuing to build its CRM business on a worldwide basis. David van Toor is the acting general manager for the SaleLogix and Sage CRM operations in North America. He reports to Joe Bergera, who is GM of Global CRM. Prior to handling the CRM operations of North America van Toor was GM for Sage PFW and Sage BusinessWorks.

Growth is almost always a good thing for businesses but there is one down side. When you grow you usually start to outgrow your current infrastructure and business systems. Outgrowing your current accounting system is definetly one them and if not planned for then your company may suffer.

As your company grows the number of transactions, users and the demand for more comlplex business processes arise. With small-scale financial infrastrutcure like Quickbooks and Simply Accounting that nutured the growth of your company while it was small you may not be able to accompany unpllaned or quick growth. While you company grows the number of transaction may exponentially grow, the buisness processes may become more complex and as you experience these changes to your business the number of users will inevitably increase as well.

As your systems becomes overwhelmed by this high level of buisness operations you will start to experience reduced performance in your accounting system. Reports take longer to process, simple tasks within the program slow down and general productivity decreases. These are the tell tale signs that you are outgrowing your current accounting system.

These progams designed for the small business are not implemented to handle a high level of transactions with complex buiness processes. They were designed to handle a certain size of business and thus are not capable of meeting a medium sized buinesses needs.

Another thing to consider is security. This involves security of your data and ensuring a good audit trail.  As more users start to use the systems limiting the role of each users becomes complex. Many people are editing changing data and you need to amke sure thereis a good trail of everything that is done which ish not always possible in smaller accounting systems.

So you you know you need to upgrade but you don’t know how. This important step here is realizing that process can take many months. You will need to design a budget to train all of your employees and prepare them for the new system, implement the accounting system and then slowly move all your current business process over to the new system. All this takes time and so it needs to be planned for in advance.

There are many products out there and due the larger investment it is very important you choose the correct one for your business. You need to think thoroughly about what your business will need in the long run and try to pick a system that will handle that. ERP (or Enterprise Resource Planning) is the concept of providing an end-to-end business solution, one that incorporates every aspect of your buisiness into one accounting system. This is type of system you want to move toward as your business due to the ability to handle many business processes and integrate it all in an efficient manner.

It all to often that business upgrade their systems after they have experienced the growth and their company is temporarily crippled. Taking the right steps to implement the right financial infrastructure will save you in the long run as your system will be able to cope with your continous business growth.

Unisoft Systems Inc. is an Accounting and Business Management consulting firm for small and medium sized businesses. Unisoft is a leading Sage Accpac consultant providing businesses with specialized support for almost 20 years.