Accounting software

[Sean Williams]

I asked this of both Sage and Actinic.
Sage say Sage 50 Accounts is just an update of Line 50, renamed.

Actinic said the link does work with Sage 50 Accounts.

<obligatory disclaimer>
But I would check with Actinic yourself as I haven't tested it
</obligatory disclaimer>

[Stereo Steve]

We use V9 and Sage Accounts 50 Pro 2008 (I think this used to be Line 50 Financial Controller). It's the top Line 50 version anyway and comes in around £800 if you shop around. We have it set up with Sage link so far only for firing orders into Sage (ActtoSage.exe). There is also SagetoAct.exe which sends product data the other way.

I'm very impressed with it to be honest. Once set up it seems to work flawlessly, although it takes some fiddling. One superb thing is that you can set up your payment methods in the Link to create either a sales order or an invoice as you see fit. So, paypal payments may be set to create an invoice with payment already attached and a Payment on Account order may be set to create a sales order in Sage with no payment. It also handles registered and non registered customers very well.

Add on Mole End One Stop Automation and you have a package that will auto download your orders, process them, send emails, format addresses and plonk them into Sage ready for printing and posting. Brilliant.

Our plan is to use the other side of the software to update stock numbers only in Actinic once we have that sorted in Sage.

Based on my (albeit limited) experience I would very much recommend this to anyone. The only one issue I have found is that Link does not import the shipping class into Sage. So, on your Sage invoice you can't see which shipping the customer has chosen. I believe this is on the wish list and hopefully will be ammended. In the meantime, we set pricing which makes it obvious to the packer which shipping the customer wants. Not perfect but workable so far.

[Sean Williams]

Excellent information Steve - thanks

I've been planning to make the change from TAS Books to Sage and this has given me confidence it will do what I want.

[Stereo Steve]

I would add that we very much struggled to get the link working over a network. It didn't like the combination of server 2003 and vista at all and was very flaky. We tried all the troubleshooting and help file solutions etc. We moved our actinic instalation to the server where Sage sits and all is perfect.

I'm sure someone smarter could get it going but we wasted a couple days on it before giving up (as you do).

[Sean Williams]

Good tip.
We binned our network server and have gone down the NAS route.
Simpler, faster, less maintenance etc.
But then, we only use Actinic on one machine atm.

[uh_vm]

It's the top Line 50 version anyway and comes in around £800 if you shop around.

I done a quote yesterday see below... and wonder whether I should stay with Quickbooks and manually sort out the stock with frequent Excel import/export

Top of the range Quickbooks costs £449.95 inc VAT.


* Sage 50 Accounts Plus for 1 user £675.75 + Vat & Carriage ( RRP £795 + vat but price of £675.75 includes 15% trade in discount from Quickbooks)
* Sage 50 Accounts Plus for 1 users with Sagecover £1095 + Vat & Carriage( RRP £1215- includes 10% off)
* Sage 50 Accounts Professional for 1 user £913.75 + Vat & Carriage ( RRP £1075 + vat but price of £913.75 includes 15% trade in discount from Quickbooks)
* Sage 50 Accounts Professional for 1 user with 12 months Sagecover £1270 + Vat & carriage ( RRP £1585 + vat- price of £1270 includes 20% off)

[Stereo Steve]

2008 pro is available at £860 +vat on google base. We got it even cheaper than that as we bought it with Tradebox (for ebay / amazon) from Platform 1. You need to speak to a re-seller as Sage themselves cannot get get close to reseller prices for some strange reason.

[David N]

one issue we have with Quickbooks is that there is a limmit of 14500 customers max. You can eaily hit that ammount if you are selling mainstream type products.

We have been using link into QB 2004 for 5 years - worked perfectly every time.

BTW - Link will not work with QB 2008 as QB removed the iif import

[leehack]

I thought that the general accounting practice was to put all customers through as one entity i.e. internet shopper, rather than single entities. Single entities on a busy site will soon make accounting software unusable i'd have thought?

[acompton]

BTW - Link will not work with QB 2008 as QB removed the iif import

QB 2008 Simple Start does not have any import facilities
QB 2008 Pro does have the iif import (I use it). However, in 2008, Intuit completely changed the way they handle VAT and this has meant that the iif file produced by Actinic isn't compatible.

[PJ ENG]

I thought that the general accounting practice was to put all customers through as one entity i.e. internet shopper, rather than single entities. Single entities on a busy site will soon make accounting software unusable i'd have thought?

The problem as i see it is this.
If you have 5 customers MR A, B, C, D, Etc if you import they are all called internet shopper

So when you try and search for customer D Record in QB you cannot find it as it is under "internet shopper" Qb does not even bring in the order number.

The way Act link to QB works is ok if you don’t get repeat customer or you get asked for a copy invoice or order info ETC

[jont]

I thought that the general accounting practice was to put all customers through as one entity i.e. internet shopper, rather than single entities. Single entities on a busy site will soon make accounting software unusable i'd have thought?

The lines are getting more and more blurred with systems becoming an all-in-one tool for accounts, CRM, prospecting etc. With PC's now being so powerful and costing peanuts it makes sense to integrate as much as possible into the one package to save on imports, exports and syscing several programs.

Our SQL database holds well over 20,000 customers (cleaned on a rolling 4 year basis) with archived data for 15 years - with Actinic data being dragged in a dozen times per day. This provides a central repository for online, shop counter and trade sales. With a quick Crystal report it makes it very easy to target people geographically, by product, last purchase or whatever combo of promotion we want to run and aids customer queries no end.

[leehack]

I totally agree with you Jonty if using a CRM system, i'm not so sure using an accounts package in this way is the right thing. Merging it all together is great I agree and certainly where you want to be, but the software where it's all merged needs to be fit for that purpose, otherwise it could be crippled (i'd have thought)?

[David N]

I have recently been trying out 'INXXXXXXXe Suite' which seems fantastic. anyone have an opinion?

[jont]

software where it's all merged needs to be fit for that purpose, otherwise it could be crippled (i'd have thought)?

Yep - this is why we spent a chuffing fortune on a system that is integrated. You do not get this via the usual accounts route but specialist providers. Ours also handles the bonded stock (duty and VAT free)