The DeRosa Mangold Blog

Obama Indicates 1099 Reporting Relief

Yesterday, in respone to Tuesday's election results, President Obama said in his address to the nation  "The 1099 provision in the healthcare bill appears to be too burdensome for small businesses. It just involves too much paperwork, too much filing. It's probably counterproductive,"

Read the full story.

Important Reminder / Notice for Sage ERP MAS 90 and MAS 200 version 3.71 Users

As of September 30, 2010, Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 version 3.71 will no longer be supported.

Sage will not be providing any year-end updates for version 3.71.

What this means to you.

If you are on version 3.71 we recommend you upgrade as soon as possible. There are several stable versions between version 4.05 and the current version 4.4. Version 4.4 is becoming fairly stable at this point and unless there is an underlying circumstance, such as an enhancement or interfacing third party product that is not 4.4 ready, we will probably recommend moving to that version.

With regard to year end and 4th quarter 2010. If you use Payroll or file 1099's, these forms will not be updated for any potential changes for 2010. 4th quarter payroll tax tables will not be available as well.

Finally with regard to support, our ability to support you will be limited to our knowledge as Sage staff will no longer be available to assist us with 3.71 issues after September 30, 2010.

If you are on version 3.71 please contact Aaron Smith at 254.772.2980 ext 202 to discuss how to address your needs.

Tips for an Accurate Physical Inventory Count

The most overlooked aspect of most Inventory Physical Counts is establishing a cut-off. Failure to do so will only create an error which will show itself again at the next physical count. A recurring variation that results in the statement “we are always making big inventory adjustments.”

So what is a good inventory cut off?

A good inventory cutoff is taking the time and performing the procedures to make sure your inventory records reflect all of the movements of inventory on the floor BEFORE you compare the on hand balances to a count. For example, you had 10 widgets this morning; at 10 a.m. you received 100 more widgets but did not have time to enter them into the system. A physical count was taken and you correctly counted 110 but the system only shows 10 because the receipt was not entered. The system makes an inventory adjustment of 100 and everyone gets back into the system and immediately you process the receipt you didn’t get to earlier…now the widget shows 210…an immediate error of 100 units within hours of the physical count.

Establishing a good cut-off prevents this. Good cut-off procedures may look something like this:

1. Establish a cut-off on the warehouse floor. For example, after 3 p.m. today we will stop shipping and receiving until after the count. Should goods arrive during the count they will be placed in a designated area (maybe marked by tape) and WILL NOT be counted. Similarly, any shipments picked and entered in the system but have not been shipped will be in a designated area not to be counted.

2. Insure all receipts of goods and shipments up to the cut off time are entered into the system BEFORE the inventory is frozen and count sheets are printed. Take the time to ask the questions

   1. Have all receipts been entered?

   2. Have all shipments been entered?

   3. Have all entries been posted?

3. Once you are confident the accounting system reflects the activity of the inventory on the floor up to the cut off time…FREEZE THE INVENTORY. If your software does not have a freeze feature, (Sage MAS 90, 200 and 500 does), simply keep everyone out of the system until the count is complete and the results have been posted.

Other tips for a good physical count are:

1. Consider using pre-numbered shelf tags. Benefits are:

   1. Physically shows items counted and not counted.

   2. A test count team can follow the count team and verify counts directly to the shelf tags.

   3. If an item is in multiple locations in a warehouse, individual tags can be added together and double checked to arrive at a total count.

   4. Account for the numbered tags when transferring the information to count sheets to determine if a tag is missing.

2. Perform test counts.

3. Once the count is entered, investigate significant variances before posting by considering the following:

   1. Perform another test count.

   2. Is the inventory possibly in more than one location in the warehouse?

   3. Was a cutoff transaction missed? A receipt or shipment?

   4. Was a significant adjustment made to the item since the last physical count or during the last physical count?

4. Try to look for reasons why the significant difference is valid and not just accept the result.

I hope these tips are helpful in your next Physical Inventory Count. Please let us know if you would like assistance in overcoming these or other physical count challenges in your organization so your next count can be an accurate one.

Mike DeRosa
DeRosa Mangold Consulting, Inc.
www.derosamangold.com
877-772-2980

No IFRS Requirement Until 2015 or Later

No IFRS Requirement Until 2015 or Later Under New SEC Timeline

Feb. 24, 2010 – The SEC unanimously approved on Wednesday a new timeline that envisions 2015 as the earliest possible date for the required use of IFRS by U.S. public companies. The SEC action calls for more study of IFRS and a 2011 vote on whether to move ahead with a mandate to use IFRS.
 
Read the full article in the Journal of Accountancy at http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Web/20102656.htm

Online Training vs. Live Classroom Training

First a disclaimer: As most of you know, I am a big fan of live, in person, classroom training. I almost always recommend it and I enjoy teaching class as much as I enjoy attending a class. Maybe it’s because I am one of those people who learns better when I am actively engaged, hands on and face to face with an instructor. Maybe it’s because we know customers who tell us what a great job we have done and/or say they love the software are the ones who have attended a live class. Maybe it’s because dissatisfied customers almost always have not attended class. Either way, I’ll admit, my opinion may be biased.

So…over the Thanksgiving weekend I cracked open one of Sage’s Anytime Learning Courses. I have to admit, it is put together well, really well. So well that about 5 minutes into it I began to question my recent investment in a classroom training facility in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex (more to come on this facility and an open house we are planning in a future blog entry). I said to myself, this is so easy and so clear, why would anyone want to take a day and come to a class?

Then it hit me…about 15 minutes into the class I started dozing off...seriously dozing off. I tried standing, even kneeling in front of my PC to stay alert. Got some caffeine. At best I found I could press through 30 to 40 minutes before my skin began to crawl and I quickly realized that I was NOT going to get through a day’s worth of material in a day, much less the less than a day I was hoping for. In addition, not being in the room with an instructor started to begin to take it’s toll.

I found more questions were being created than resolved. Information I already understood well came across well. Information that was new to me however, generated questions for which there was no relief, in the training manual or in the product. You know, the questions that usually start like “What would happen if you set this condition to A but performed a transaction like B. There were simplistic “real world” examples and shortened hands on activities, but they pale in comparison to the type of problem solving and “what if” scenarios we experience in the classroom environment.

My final take is that online type learning courses are great if you need an introduction into a limited topic area but are mind numbing and not well suited to learn a broad area. The spirited discussions in a live training environment as well as the ability to explore various what if scenarios tend to keep me more engaged. Even as an instructor, I don’t believe I have ever completed a live training class without learning something new, thanks to the challenging questions posed by the students as well as my own curiosity.

I am curious as well to what you think. Please take our survey linked below. 

Click Here to take survey

If you are in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, please look for our Open House invitation to our new Sage Training Center in Dallas. My hope is many of you, like me, get a lot out of a live training environment.

Mike DeRosa
www.derosamangold.com

Cannot Print Multiple Journal Entries To One PDF File When Printing Genral Journal In MAS 90/200

Sometimes it is just nice to know your not crazy. The following is a known issue with Sage MAS 90/200.

When Paperless Office Journals and Registers is turned on and you go to print your General Journal for Update, the resulting print out will behave differently if you preview vs. print. When you preview the General Journal it puts all journal entries in the batch on one General Journal Report. This is normal and how the program functions if Paperless Office Journals and Registers is turned off. When Paperless Office Journals and Registered is turned on and you select Print (which is required to create the PDF’s to be stored on the server) you will receive a separate PDF file for each journal entry. A real bummer if your posting a lot of short entries.

Sage is aware of the issue but engineering insists this is the way the old Extended Solution used to run before Paperless Office was incorporated into the product. So this issue is listed as an enhancement request with medium severity not an issue (bug) with the program. I’m not so sure but I am getting old, but I really don’t remember it functioning this way.

So here is where you can help. If getting a separate PDF in Paperless Office for every journal entry you post in General Ledger bugs you, please submit an enhancement request to http://ideascopeanywhere.com/sagemas/frmSubmitIdea.aspx. If you happen to know of someone running paperless office as an extended solution prior to 4.3, I would love to know if it really worked that way. (My friend in support didn’t remember it that way either.)

Mike DeRosa
www.derosamangold.com

October User Group Meetings

The October Sage MAS 90 User Group Meetings are coming up:

• Austin - October 13th

• Dallas - October 14th

• Waco - October 15th

Click the above dates to sign up or go to www.derosamangold.com/usergroupinfo.htm.

The topic in October is "Ways to Save with Your Business Information System".

If you have any questions about this, or anything else, don't hesitate to contact us!

877-772-2980

info@derosamangold.com

www.derosamangold.com

See you there!

FRx to be supported through end of 2012

Although previously told that FRx would only be sold until the end of this year and supported until the end of 2011, Sage has now confirmed that they will be selling FRx until the end of 2011 and support will continue until the end of 2012.

If you have any questions about this or any thing else, feel free to contact us.

254-772-2980
info@derosamangold.com

www.derosamangold.com

Back from Sage Insights 2009!

We just arrived back from Nashville and Sage's Insights 2009 Conference for Sage Authorized Partners. We would have been back sooner but weather cancellations caused us to be delayed a day!!!!

While there were great new features (recently added or on the horizon) for all of the Sage products we represent, we did notice a unifying theme throughout all of the conference. All roads seem to be leading to:

1. More and Better Business Intelligence
2. Custom Workflow Building Capabilities
3. Better Technology

Presentation after presentation focused on improving the user's experience through use of Business Intelligence tools and interfaces and Customizing the Workflow of the Product either directly or through the use of another tool, such Sage KnowledgeSync, an event driven product that can monitor a database or multiple databases and execute a job stream based on an event.

To give you an idea, you can look at your Sage Product Dashboard every morning with your cup of coffee to see what is going on with your Past Due Customers or you can have Sage KnowledgeSync monitor your accounts receivable and, when it detects that a customer went past due today (based on your criteria of what past due is), Sage KnowledgeSync can execute a job you define that might do things like:

1. Place the customer on credit hold.
2. Email and/or fax the customer a letter or other notice with an attached statement and/or unpaid invoices.
3. Send notices to people in your organization notifying them of what is happening with this customer or a summary notice listing all customers who were placed on credit hold today.
4. Update your CRM package (SalesLogix, SageCRM, Act! or ANY other database) with a note or flag to let salespeople know what is happening.

All without you having to do a thing. Best of all, this tool can be used to monitor and perform custom job streams on any readable database (Sage MAS 500, Sage MAS 200, Sage MAS 90, Peachtree Quantum...even non-Sage products like Quickbooks Enterprise as well as custom in house databases in products like Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL).

The opportunities seem to be endless.

In summary, we also saw great product improvements such as:

Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200

• Version 4.4
  • Completes Business Framework
  • New Expanded Inventory Item ID's and Customer ID's
  • Ability to Customize Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 Workflow with new Customizer capabilities
  • Web Services allowing forms from your website to write directly to MAS files
• New Microsoft SQL version to be rolled out shortly after release of 4.4. Customers can elect to stay on current ISAM database or go to Microsoft SQL.

Sage Peachtree Quantum

• New document management and routing capabilities

Additional Product Offerings

• Sage KnowledgeSync (described above)
• bMobile for Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 (allows you to access and work in your MAS installation using your web browser from anywhere in the world without Terminal Services)

So there is PLENTY to talk about in the coming months. As a result you should see an increase in or email newsletters, user group meetings and product demonstrations, both live and recorded, in person at user group meetings and webcasts. Hopefully, one way or another we will get the information to you. We highly recommend attending the upcoming user group meetings (the next will be in June) and as always, feel free to contact me anytime for a custom consultation.

More to come!

 

The Perfect Mother's Day Gift!

This is a wonderful little treasure I discovered last summer. I hope you enjoy!

-First...grab digital photos of mom's favorite kids. Be sure to include yourself!
-Second...Grab your favorite song from a CD or iTunes. (You can skip this step there is free, very cool music where you age going.)
-Third...go to www.animoto.com and follow the instructions!

At Animoto you can upload your pictures, select a tune and let Animoto do it's magic, creating a truly amazing video. You can add text and emphasize certain photos, use your own music or select from their library.

You can create a free short...about 15 seconds...or for a few dollars (like $3) you can purchase a full length video. The video can be downloaded, played on a PC, iPhone or iPod.

If the mom in question does not have any of these, for a few more bucks, Animoto will burn to a DVD and mail it to you. But for that you had better hurry. Mother's Day is Sunday!

I hope you enjoy this awesome tool as much as I have. Happy Mother's Day!

Mike DeRosa