Creating a New Company, Importance of Budgeting and Module Closing Sequence

Creating A New Company In Sage ERP MAS 90 Is Easy As 1-2-3

At year end, it is useful to establish an archive company for the year’s data using the Copy Company feature. This gives you a readily accessible copy of the current year’s data even after you perform year-end processing in your live company. To make a copy, select the Company Maintenance task from the Library Master module, Main Menu. Create a company code that is easy to identify, such as A for archive and the last two digits of the year — A11 for the year 2011. Next, from the new company’s Company Maintenance screen, click on the Copy button and type in the Company Code of your current year’s live company. You will be presented with a list of the installed modules in that company and you can select which modules you wish to copy to your archive company. The steps below provide an overview of the process.

1. Set Up A New Company: Create a new (archive) Company Code into which your 2011 data will be copied. Next, enter in the source company code (your current live company) to copy the data from.
2. Select Modules To Copy: For the purpose of creating an archive company, we suggest you select all modules and copy them to your new company code.
3. Confirm: After you have confirmed your selection, answer Yes to the prompt to copy all selected data files to the archive company. It is that easy.

The Importance Of Budgeting

Does your organization produce budgets and track progress? Here we discuss why budgeting is important. And year-end is a great time to make the resolution to create comprehensive budgets for the new year, so you can better track results against expectations.

Why Budget And Forecast?

If you are only forecasting revenue but not budgeting expenses, you only have half the picture. By doing both, you can anticipate potential cash flow crunches and make plans to manage through them, such as applying for a business line of credit. In fact, budgets and forecasts can help you qualify for funding — demonstrating your company’s potential to investors and lenders.

Budgets and forecasts also are an excellent management tool. They can help your staff understand goals and be accountable for staying on budget and reaching revenue milestones. Budgets and forecasts also are essential if you are thinking of developing a new product line. By comparing expected revenues to costs, you will quickly get a feel for the feasibility of your venture, as well as identifying capital requirements.

Budgeting Options

Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 General Ledger Version 4.0 and above contains enhanced budgeting tools to help you create a basic budget. If you prefer to use Microsoft Excel for budgeting, F9 software allows you to read and write budget information between Excel spreadsheets and the General Ledger module. If you need a tool with more flexibility and power, Sage Active Planner is available as a stand-alone budgeting tool. Call us discuss the best budgeting tool for your organization.

Module Closing Sequence

The order that modules are closed is very important. The period-end and year-end processes performed in one module often write data to another module, so to close the modules out of order may cause damage to your data.

Note: Before you begin any year-end closing procedures, ensure that you have a complete and verified back up of your data.

Modules should be closed in the following order — after you back up your data:

• Bill of Materials¹
• Work Order^{1
  1}Note: While there is no formal year-end processing procedure in these modules, all transactions should be entered and posted before proceeding with year-end processing in the other distribution modules.
• Bar Code
• Purchase Order
• Sales Order
• Inventory Management
• MRP
• TimeCard²
• Electronic Reporting^{2
  2}Note: While there is no formal year-end processing procedure in these modules, all transactions should be entered and posted before proceeding with year-end processing in Payroll.
• Payroll
• Accounts Receivable
• Accounts Payable
• Job Cost
• General Ledger

If you are running modules not on this list, for example e-Business Manager, one or more Sage ERP MAS 90 Extended Solutions, or a third-party product, there may be special considerations involved in year-end closing. Give us a call and we will advise you on the best procedure for closing your year in Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200.