Sage Line 50 is an industry-standard software solution for finance and accounting management. Sage Line 50 contain all necessary accounting modules and is designed to reduce data entry thereby reduce human errors and save time and efficient business management. Apart from being a comprehensive accounting system Sage Line 50 also takes care of many other business processes.

Sage Line 50 has 4 main modules namely, Customer Process, Supplier Process, Stock Process and Analysis Process.

The sub-modules under each of this are-

Customer Processes:-

Sales Orders: Contains records of customer orders and their status, such as, items ordered but not yet supplied items on back order. It helps to identify outstanding orders and to prepare data for generation of delivery notes and invoices.

Invoicing: The invoicing sub-module allows you to create the customer invoices and is linked to the Customer Ledger for direct updates. It is also linked with the Stock Ledger.

Customer Ledger: The customer ledger records all transaction between the company and its customers.

Credit Control: The Credit control generates Credit Control letters and Statements for timely collection. It is based on ageing analysis of outstanding dues.

Receipt of Payment and Bank Reconciliation

Supplier Process:-

Purchase Order: The purchase order processing system allows entry of purchase orders. On receipt of the invoice the purchase order is updated into the purchase ledger.

Goods Receipt: After the goods arrive, the purchase order is updated and when necessary updates the Stock ledger by making relevant entries.

Receipt of Invoice: Invoices are checked against purchase orders and delivery notes by updating the purchase order into the Supplier Ledger.

Payment: This module provides various payment options such as Bank A/c transfer, payment through Online Banking, check or demand draft.

Bank Reconciliation

Stock Process:-

Goods Receipt, Goods Dispatch, Inventory Checking and Adjustments

Analysis Process:-

Reports, statements and analysis of: Fixed Assets & Depreciation, Accruals and Prepayments, Salary and Wages, VAT Reconciliation, Stock Valuation, WIP (Work in progress), Budget analysis, audit trail, etc.

The higher version Sage 200 Financials modules contain management analysis in greater depth, transactional analysis, advanced currency handling, Microsoft Excel integration, etc.

Both Sage Line 50 and 200 are available as hosted services. As with other hosted services it is cost-effective, requires no capital outlay, highly configurable to the client’s needs and takes care of all accounting functions of an organization. Being a web-based hosted service, the client can access it from any location.

The prerequisites for any business nowadays are the IT department and the PBX. In the modern electronic age no business can operate without them. Ironically all corporate decision-making and management actions have to be conducted where these facilities are available, namely the corporate office. In other words one does not have the freedom to conduct one’s business from just any place one likes. This static business environment has changed with SaaS and VoIP based services.

Basing the IT infrastructure in software as a service (SaaS) could help businesses operate with lower costs and help them grow. The SaaS model has already becoming popular with many software companies and application providers offering human resources, accounting, procurement, billing, customer relationship management (CRM), sales and marketing, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and business intelligence (BI) services. With SaaS based services, the job of installing and maintaining an application, monitoring reliability, ensuring high availability, etc., are all handled by the provider. SaaS users do not have to pay for hardware, installation and maintenance charges, software licensing charges and the cost of IT infrastructure. SaaS offers pay-as-you-use pricing that allows organizations to use cutting-edge technology. Businesses now have a choice of hosted services at their disposal, only to be accessed through a web browser and a secure internet connection. Because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from anywhere.

Hosted VoIP service is Voice Over Internet Service that is provided by a third party for businesses with any number of phone extensions. All calls are transported over the Internet, and telephone functions such as voice mail, call routing and call forwarding are performed on the provider’s computers. Administration is usually handled via a Web interface. The clients make and receive calls, check voice messages online, filter incoming calls, add new employees to the system in minutes, etc. Some of the major advantages of hosted VoIP services are similar to those of SaaS based services, such as, lower initial capital outlay as no VoIP hardware or software purchasing cost has to be incurred, client’s ability to increase and decrease capacity in accordance with business requirements, clients enjoy access to the latest technology and services are contracted and based on monthly charges or fixed flat-rate billing. Like Saas, the user can access the service from any location.

These services have truly changed the way businesses can be conducted as one is no more tied down to the corporate office for business information and communication.

The major expense for small scale business is installing and maintaining various application Servers. Generally in small scale industries we tend to have different servers for different applications. In a survey conducted it was found that different server maintenance and installation accounts for 46% of the total expense of the company. So in order to cut this expense the best solution is SBS.

Windows Small Business Server 2008 includes Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, SharePoint and Microsoft SQL Server, bundled with anti-virus, spam protection and a comprehensive data backup service.

The main reasons because of which the hosted SBS is beneficiary to small scale business are:

• Affordable, All-in-One Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint Services, SQL Server and more.
• Now you can get a fully managed enterprise-class e-mail and messaging solution
• Small business price
• Totally customized to your business.
• Easy migration path from a premise Windows servers to a hosted SBS 2008 system.
• Your licensed software or SPLA (rented) licenses

Another advantage of SBS 2008 is that it is always up and running. All SBS servers are backed by an ironclad SLA that guarantees continuous availability. So there is minimum chance of lose of data due to any reasons.

In this age of globalization we need to travel from one place to another regularly. It is impossible to carry all the vital information with us. So anytime anywhere access of our data is the key for success. This is the main advantage of hosted SBS 2008. With SBS 2008 one can connect to critical e-mail, calendar and contact information from any Windows XP Pro or Vista PC, MAC 10.4+, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 5.0+, Blackberry 4.0+,iPhone, or any device with Microsoft Active Sync to Exchange through the Internet. The only limitation being the speed of the internet connection.

SBS 2008 also reduces the operation cost of the business. With a dedicated hosted SBS server, there’s no need to store your critical e-mail and business data on a system shared with other companies. You can configure and customize the solutions to meet your unique business requirements.

There are optional services also which the business unit can opt for. The optional services are:

• Advanced Backup Solution for Microsoft Exchange and SQL
• Server Additional Backup Storage
• Terminal Server and Office Professional 2007
• Firewall Appliance
• Remote SBS Administration
• Remote PC Management

In today’s internet-savvy business world, email is regularly being used as a means of communication. Needless to say, such emails contain vital and extremely important information, which may need to be referred to in future.

While email has become a critical component of the business environment, it brings with it a plethora of new problems, ranging from storage limits, spam and virus filtering to access to old emails for regulatory compliance or eDiscovery requests. Associated with email are other interpersonal communication applications such as calendars, contacts, and tasks. Emails should be properly managed with sophisticated messaging tools. Such tools provide almost instant and efficient access, so that these can be recalled at a moment’s notice.

Exchange Server is the world’s most popular email and messaging solution. “Exchange” is a computer server that centrally stores a business’s email, files, task lists, and calendar and contact information. People in the organization can access all these through Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Web Access on any internet-enabled office PC, laptop, or mobile device. Exchange as a messaging tool increases business efficiency and productivity. In-house deployment of an Exchange Server in any company translates to high capital layout in the form of implementation and maintenance costs. Thus most organizations are unable to benefit from its use except enterprise-level businesses with mission critical data. Hosted Exchange has brought this enterprise-class application to the reach of even the smallest of businesses. Hosted Exchange is a solution in which the Exchange Server hardware and software are hosted as a service and made available to any business over the Internet. The solution is fully managed and maintained by a third-party hosted Exchange provider. Like any other hosted services, the cost-effectiveness of a hosted Exchange is due to factors such as no capital expenses of hardware and software costs, no investment in IT staff for monitoring and maintenance, guaranteed uptime for access to data 24 X 7 and redeployment of existing IT staff to more productive areas. With hosted Exchange, all the messaging functionalities are available without any of the usual in-house administrative hassles.

Major features of a hosted Exchange are centrally stored data, mobile access for handhelds and mobile devices like BlackBerry, iPhone, etc., shared Calendars, shared Task Lists, shared Contacts, Outlook Web Access for “Anywhere/Anytime” access to full Outlook mailbox from any web browser – at home or on move, security features, software upgrades and support for virtual environments.

More and more businesses are opting in a big way for hosted Exchange to take advantage of administrative simplicity and peace of mind.

Virtual server technologies are nowadays employed by enterprise-class organizations to reduce cost, save space and simplify IT infrastructure. Virtualization technology enables multiple applications and operating systems to run on the same server. Reducing the number of physical servers at the datacenter leads to a number of benefits such as decreased power consumption, lower cooling and maintenance costs, and availability of more computing power in less floor area. Thus virtualization allows an organization to enjoy cost and energy efficient IT environments. With virtualization, the hardware cost is reduced significantly because of the ability to host the workload of several physical machines on one virtual server. This is made possible because the virtual server software hides the physical hardware from the virtual servers, by creating a generic hardware platform that is independent of the physical hardware used to host the virtual servers.

Systems employing virtualization need a sophisticated level of protection. Thus virtual machine technologies require special disaster recovery and availability solutions to protect against data loss. Such solutions must employ server virtualization at their end and should be able to easily take over the job of the client’s production servers, thereby almost eliminating any appreciable downtime.

Virtualized datacenters and virtualized DR solutions have been employed by enterprise-level businesses till now and could not be afforded within the limited budget of SMEs. Cloud-based services have overcome this constraint. According to Wikipedia, “Cloud computing is Internet (”cloud”) based development and use of computer technology (”computing”)”. Cloud computing allows a company to pay for only as much capacity as it needs and the user requires no more infrastructure than a computer and an internet connection. Using cloud services clients can use applications without installation and access their personal data. This technology has made possible much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth. Marked improvement in server virtualization, distributed computing and high-speed internet have contributed to the birth of cloud computing technology. Software-as-a-Service cloud model, the vendor supplies the hardware infrastructure, the software product and has a front-end interface to interact with the client. SaaS can range from human resource to inventory control to ERP. Benefits of using cloud services are, to name a few, no capital expenditure, pricing on pay-as-you-use basis, minimum infrastructure of client in the form of a PC or mobile and an internet connection, can be accessed from any location, reliable and secure.

Cutting-edge technologies like virtualization are now truly within the reach of SMEs thanks to the advent of the cloud.