IDL Systems Ltd, Upgrade from Sage Instant accounts, sage 50 accounts: idlsystems

Area:	Features:	Benefits:
Credit Control – Customer	Credit History, Days to pay, Sales Outstanding, Days Sales Overdue, Suggested Supplier Payments, Contact Management, Terms Setting, Disputed items, Mailing restrictions	Many businesses fail due to cashflow problems that can be more easily prevented with good credit control practice. The credit control capability in Sage 50 Accounts enables businesses to be more in control of their cashflow and how they manage their customers and suppliers. The longer an invoice is outstanding, the less profit the business gets. Thus Sage 50 Accounts offers greater control in ensuring that they set the terms for their customers, check their credit history to reduce the risk of taking on customers who cost them their business.
Customer & Supplier Records	Default Nominal Code, Duplicate accounts, Batch change, Contra Entries New bank details on customer records	More efficient processing in setting up accounts, processing with the accounts and linking in to 3rd Party software for direct debit collection.
Discounts	Discounted Price Lists, One off discount per item, Customer Price List, Stock price list, By Invoice Value, By Quantity, Invoice/Order Net Value	Discounts are commonly used in business to reward loyal customers and provide an incentive to purchase more. Sage 50 Accounts offers greater flexibility in managing discounts for both customers and suppliers. Different accounts can have different levels of discount depending on what, when and how much they purchase. They may use different suppliers to purchase the same goods and want to get the best price. If administering this on a more manual basis, there is a risk of goods costing more as they are not getting the best prices from the suppliers. For their customers, it is more difficult to promote the offers they have and risk over charging their customers creating unnecessary dissatisfaction, generating corrections and resulting in invoices taking longer to pay.
Stock	BOM (Accounts Plus), Stock Take, Shortfall Stock Type – Service, Locations Images (WEB), Instratat, Last order date Last order quantity, Reorder level, Re-order quantity	If a business manages stock, the Sage 50 Accounts range allows them to keep a much tighter control. If they are dealing with high volume of stock or many product lines, then Sage 50 Accounts is a more logical solution. Monitoring stock levels ensures they order on a timely basis and also the appropriate amount so they are not left short at busy times and also have too much stock in hand–reducing their profit. The stock take functionality means they do not have to keep manual systems and can account for their stock more easily.
Invoicing	Proformas, Mix & Match (Accounts Professional only) Labels, Recurring, Delivery Address Contacts, Additional line item, Order Reference (Accounts Professional Only), Courier – despatch tracking, Invoice Profit by item	The invoicing capability of Sage 50 Accounts is much more powerful than the Instant range. Delivery addresses ensure they deliver goods to the correct contact at the correct customer location. They can easily deal with tracking delivery enquiries via the despatch tracking. They can also track profit per item or per invoice allowing them an instant view of how much profit they make with each invoice. This together with order processing, recurring transactions allows businesses to operate much more efficiently.
Report Designer	Advanced capability	Much more flexible, removes the need to generate multiple reports or perform calculations externally. Allows a suite of reports totally customised to the needs of each individual business that uses Sage 50 Accounts.
Departments & Management Reporting	Departmental P&L, Balance Sheets, Budgets, Drillable reports	Many businesses use the department analysis extensively – sales reps, locations, jobs, vans, departments. The department capability in Sage Accounts is much more flexible, not only in its use, but more importantly in the analysis. The New Report Designer is the perfect compliment for any business using departments for analysis as it will enable them to generate the reports they require, when they require them.