Features for All versions of Accounts 2008

• Manage all your VAT tasks in one place. With our new VAT Ledger you'll save yourself time dealing with your VAT tasks as you'll find them all in one place. Use the VAT Ledger to help you prepare, generate, reconcile, adjust and submit online, to keep on top of your VAT.
  
• Store a complete history of your VAT return. We make sure it's easy for you to access the transactional detail behind your VAT returns - saving you, and the auditors, valuable time searching for information.
• Submit your VAT return online. From 2010, all businesses will have to start to file and pay their VAT returns online - but our HMRC-recognised software lets you get ahead of the game with maximum confidence and minimum effort. And because our software has been fully tested and achieved HMRC recognition for filing VAT returns, you know you are submitting the right information, totally securely.
  
• Simple manual adjustments. Adjusting your figures, for whatever reason, is simple and straightforward, and you can record and trace the reason for each adjustment.
  
• Increase the accuracy of your VAT returns. A VAT return can be generated and completed at the touch of a button, in hours rather than days. This feature checks your customers' data for accuracy and helps prepare for an audit. It also identifies suspect/duplicate transactions and runs checks for possible VAT queries and errors.
  
• Easily track your VAT returns. Each transaction is now flagged with a unique VAT return number for easy tracking when it comes to audits or inspections.
  
• Dealing with "carousel" fraud legislation. Companies that trade computer chips or mobile phones with a total net value of more than £5,000 with other VAT registered companies are now subject to different recording and reporting methods. Our software lets you produce on-screen reports and submit online directly to HMRC.
  
• Your EC Sales List. If your business trades with other EC countries, you can see the EC Sales List as an onscreen report which automatically calculates the value of sales from individual customers.
  
• Make the most of online banking. Make payments online to save time, reduce costs and improve relations with your suppliers. We make no additional charge for this, and we now offer a greater choice of major banks whose online services work with our software.
  
• Managing your finances. The Nominal Ledger is an essential part of your accounting system, where all your business information is held, and forms the basis of your Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports, making sure you can perform important business tasks with ease.
  
• Instant information about your accounts. This feature lets you see the Nominal Ledger as an on-screen set of charts that can be investigated in more depth by drilling-down from the same screen with just one click.
  
• Quicker and easier bank reconciliations. You can record multiple bank accounts and their details, enter payments and receipts and save your bank reconciliations part-way through. And to keep track of your banking without all the paper waste, you can use our software to download a bank statement and automatically reconcile payments and receipts against both statements.
  
• Plan your cash flow. See all outstanding payments due in and out, so that you can plan cash flow in advance. You are able to see the effect that making or receiving payments will have on your finances over the next few weeks.
  
• Better business insight. Use the accounting information stored within your software to generate both Balance Sheets and Profit and Loss Sheets at the touch of a button.
  
• Store your company data. You can archive a complete set of company data before running the year-end. You can then analyse and report on the archived data, and access it immediately without having to restore a back-up.
  
• Manage your departments effectively. Your business is likely to use departments for many different reasons but now, no matter what you are using department analysis for, you can monitor performance more closely and efficiently than before. Enjoy extra control by setting up budgets and producing reports for each department or nominal code. To help you plan ahead, you can also set budgets for now and your next Financial Year.
  
• Support for charities. We've developed our software so that it is as effective as possible in meeting the needs of charities, with specific functionality including Fund Management, charity-specific financial reports and Gift Aid Reporting.
  
• Get the most out of your accountant. Easily exchange information with your accountant while you continue working on your accounts. The Accountant Link automatically lets your accountant update your journals, bank and VAT reconciliations, so they always have your most up-to-date records.
  
• Speed up your invoices and orders. Reduce costs, improve the efficiency of your business and increase your service levels by managing your invoices and orders electronically - send and receive them via email directly from your Sage 50 Accounts software so there's no need to re-key information.
  
• Professional invoicing. Generate invoices for your customers by using the product records you created or details of the services you provide.
  
• Take card payments over the phone. We know that more and more businesses want to offer card payment facilities to their customers and Sage 50 Accounts 2008 gives you the tools to do it quickly and securely. With an additional charge, Sage Payment Solutions, powered by Protx , updates your accounts automatically when you take card payments.
  
• Effective credit control. Improve your cash flow and know who owes you what, and when, with effective credit control. You can record detailed credit information about your customers and suppliers, with all credit control functions in one central area. Keep and control a full credit history for both customers and suppliers.
  
• Make the most of discounts and deposits. You can clearly see and change discounts as you enter invoices and orders. A range of discount options is available, from basic percentage discounts to invoice-value discounts and stock-quantity discounts. Whether you want to apply one-off discounts or discounts across the board, Sage 50 Accounts 2008 helps you provide your customers with a clear indication of the total discount allowed.
  
• Refunds in one single transaction. Customer and supplier refunds are easier to handle: one simple transaction will automatically update all your records.
  
• Make the most of your customer and supplier information. Keep detailed records of your customers and suppliers - including a history of transactions, without lots of paper waste. View a comprehensive list of all your customers and suppliers whenever you need it, with the facility to process batch invoices, view outstanding invoices, and print labels, letters, statements and reports.
  
• Handle quotations with ease. Create quotations and proformas and choose whether you want to turn a quotation into an order or invoice, or whether you want to keep the quotation for your records. Analysis and reporting tools help you to monitor the top performers and how many orders you win and lose, as well as allowing you to track the conversion of quotations to orders.
  
• Store your documents. You can store, view, modify and print attachments such as letters, price lists, delivery and assembly instructions, letting you keep control of all your documentation within Sage 50 Accounts 2008.
  
• View the figures that matter. We let you choose the way reports are presented based on what's most important to your business. With our Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and budget reports you can view your figures monthly, quarterly or by year, whichever way suits you the best. And when you need to see the detail and understand the actions that lie behind the top level figures, you can do that too - right down to individual transactions.
  
• Get the information you need with flexible management reports. Our Report Designer makes it easy for you to get the information you need in one report. You can tailor the overall design of your reports, adding all the fields and calculations you want, so you can have a better picture of your business.
  
• Excel® integrated reporting: Microsoft® Excel links directly to your software so that directors and managers can access and analyse accounts information without needing to use Sage Accounts 2008 themselves or have it installed on the same PC. You can modify and refresh data ranges, change the chart of accounts used and take any report (even a report you've designed yourself) and use it in Excel as a Sage Data Range.
  
• Manage your products. You can easily create product records, review product activities and analyse monthly sales values and quantities sold. You can also apply discounts and generate valuation and profit reports.
  
• Your EC Sales List. If your business trades with other EC countries, you can see the EC Sales List as an onscreen report which automatically calculates the value of sales from individual customers.
  
• Monitor key areas of your business. Manage the performance of key areas or activities more effectively. Track your business activity, by area, with the flexibility to drilldown to more detail. Information is instantly available, so you no longer have to run reports to get the breakdown you need.

Additional features of Accounts Plus 2008 and Accounts Professional Only

• Print out your cheques. Print cheques directly from your Sage 50 Accounts 2008 software, saving you time and effort.
  
• Easier foreign trading. Process foreign currency transactions in all major currencies and produce documentation in foreign currency. You can make and receive payments in foreign currencies as well as maintain foreign currency price lists and handle exchange rate fluctuations. Additionally, this feature ensures that you comply with legislative requirements for declaring foreign trade on your VAT returns and in Intrastat declarations, in both standard and cash-based VAT accounting.
  
• Improve your project costing. This feature lets you create records for specific projects and specific customers, assigning project references to them. You can organise your projects in logical groups, record committed costs against projects, analyse rolled-up costs and budgets, and compare costs incurred against budgeted amounts. There is also a flexible reporting system that allows you to produce information that will help you to monitor costs.
  
• Individual customer pricing and custom price lists. As well as the overall sales price, a product code can contain a sales price for each individual customer. You can also set up a number of Price Lists for your product records.
  
• Manage multiple delivery addresses. This feature lets you store and manage multiple customer, supplier and company delivery addresses.
  
• Bill of Materials. An easy-to-use Bill of Materials editor allows you to set up records of the basic 'kit of parts' for your manufactured or assembled items, allowing up to 50 hierarchical levels. Various features like Stock Transfer, Makeup Reports and Stock Explosion help you control all the steps involved in making up manufactured or assembled items.
  
• Allocate your stock. As well as allocating stock to sales orders, you can allocate to projects, or set aside stock for specific purposes. You can also review and modify these reservations.
  Easier foreign trading. Process foreign currency transactions in all major currencies and produce documentation in foreign currency. You can make and receive payments in foreign currencies as well as maintain foreign currency price lists and handle exchange rate fluctuations. Additionally, this feature ensures that you comply with legislative requirements for declaring foreign trade on your VAT returns and in Intrastat declarations, in both standard and cash-based VAT accounting.
  
• Improve your project costing. This feature lets you create records for specific projects and specific customers, assigning project references to them. You can organise your projects in logical groups, record committed costs against projects, analyse rolled-up costs and budgets, and compare costs incurred against budgeted amounts. There is also a flexible reporting system that allows you to produce information that will help you to monitor costs.

Additional features of Accounts Professional Only

• Sales order processing and fulfilment. Create orders, allocate stock, despatch stock and produce delivery notes. In addition, when you don't have enough stock to satisfy orders, the Sales Order Fulfilment feature will inform you of shortfalls and automatically generate a purchase order, so you never have to let down your customers.
• Purchase order processing. You can create an order, put on-order and then record delivery of the stock with this function, which will also automatically generate an invoice and increase your stock levels.
• Handle cash sales. Sage 50 Accounts Professional 2008 helps you to execute trade counter sales quickly and easily. You can customise the Cash Sales button, letting you select the documents you need printing with ease.

Minimum requirements:

• An IBM compatible PC with 1Ghz (or equivalent) processor
  
• 512MB RAM
  
• 400MB of free disk space after Microsoft Windows has been installed
  
• Windows 2000; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP (recommended); Windows Vista
• Network users only: 100Mbps network with Microsoft Windows networking
  
• Works with Microsoft Office 2000 and all later editions
  
• Please ensure that the latest Microsoft updates are installed
  
• Performance will be improved with higher specification computers and networks

Recommended requirements

• An IBM compatible computer with a 2 GHz (or equivalent) processor
  
• At least 1GB RAM
  
• At least 600MB of free disk space after Windows has been installed
  
• Windows 2000; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP (recommended); Windows Vista
  
• Network users only: 1Gbps network cards and switches with Microsoft Windows networking
  
• Works with Microsoft Office 2000 and all later editions
  
• Please ensure that the latest Microsoft updates are installed
  
• Performance will be improved with higher specification computers and networks

Educational Pricing:

* Maximum of 10 Users

** SageCover for Line 50 includes: Unlimited support from 300 technicians for the cost of a local rate call (lines open Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm). Unlimited e-mail support, with 95% of e-mails answered by the next working day. Online business advice and helpful fact sheets, available 24 hours a day. Solutions, a quarterly magazine packed with business news, current legislation and great tips to help you get the most out of your Sage software. Significant upgrade discounts, as well as incentives for staying on the latest version

*** SageCover Extra includes all the benefits of SageCover, but also provides you with free software upgrades and a CD with a selection of specially designed reports.

****These provide accounting software for training purposes and are available with an unlimited site license. The software provided is a full working copy, but all printouts indicate that the software is for training purposes only. Classroom packs are available with an unlimited site license. This means you can install them on as many machines as you like as long as they are resident at one site. The software is single user only.

• Sage 50 Accounts 2008
• Sage Payroll 2008
• ACT! 2008
• ACT! 2008 Premium