Accounting, stock control, quotes system

Accounting, stock control, quotes system

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Discussion

Andrew[MG]

Original Poster:

3,322 posts

197 months

Wednesday 29th October 2014
quotequote all
The sister company of the one I work for is looking to update their 20 year old system and are looking for a bit more information on what to choose. Currently their stock control, invoice, accounting and quote software are all separate (they still send out letters as invoices!) and they are looking to update.

The two systems that they are looking at are Sage and http://datafile.co.uk/

It would be handy if their new system could take price files direct from suppliers (they are an ironmongery business) and possibly integrate with a future ecommerce system, ebay Amazon etc. Does anyone have any experience of doing this?

Advice, alternatives and ideas are all welcome.

Andrew[MG]

Original Poster:

3,322 posts

197 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
The Sage system is: Sage 200 with modules for:

- All accounting & cash book, sales & purchase ledgers
- Sales & Purchase order processing
- Stock control
- Point of sale
- Possibly e-commerce

vcm

72 posts

141 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
andrew, I have recently moved to sage 200. it will certainly do most of what you want, probably all. it functions adequately for my business (trade sales) but that is probably it. I looked at two or three others before jumping, but they were all much of a muchness, and I was using sage 50 before. the problem I find with any of these systems is that they want to control the way you run your company, rather than be adaptable, and user friendly enough to allow you to simplify procedures within them. if your company has lots of spare back office staff, and money to spend on 'training' and bolt on's, then I'm sure it's wonderful. if, on the other hand, you just want a functional piece of software, that everyone can operate competently within a few days, then be ready for some pain. also check out how much extra hardware/software is required to operate the package. all extra cost. now please don't think I'm being negative. my business and it's procedures are really very simple, and the main reason for 'upgrading' was that sage 50 couldn't cope with approx. 10 networked terminals. sage 200 can easily. I guess if I employed an 'i.t.' dept. and didn't worry about value for money, it would make my life easier. but I don't. and I won't.
I think that you need to set aside some fairly serious time to understand what you actually need/want. and to understand what you actually get for your money. if you have any specific questions I will try and answer. best of luck.

buggalugs

9,243 posts

236 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
Roughly how many stock items, transactions per day, people working on it at once?

Andrew[MG]

Original Poster:

3,322 posts

197 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
buggalugs said:
Roughly how many stock items, transactions per day, people working on it at once?
About 6,000 lines, 200 transactions a day and 9 people working on the system.

buggalugs

9,243 posts

236 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
Andrew[MG] said:
buggalugs said:
Roughly how many stock items, transactions per day, people working on it at once?
About 6,000 lines, 200 transactions a day and 9 people working on the system.
Yeah you're past what basic packages at the Line 50 kind of level will be happy with. 200 will work but as said above be prepared to either spend on customization or bend your business around it. It's pretty slow on older PC's too. I have some experience of Odoo which can be cloud based and doesn't need particularly fancy PC's. But as with a lot of these things how you gel with the people supplying it and how good they are makes a big difference. It's not like they just post you a CD-ROM and a manual, getting up and running will be a little enterprise in it's self and needs to be got right.

Oh and whatever you choose the staff will moan that it's s*** thumbup

vcm

72 posts

141 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
buggalugs said:
Yeah you're past what basic packages at the Line 50 kind of level will be happy with. 200 will work but as said above be prepared to either spend on customization or bend your business around it. It's pretty slow on older PC's too. I have some experience of Odoo which can be cloud based and doesn't need particularly fancy PC's. But as with a lot of these things how you gel with the people supplying it and how good they are makes a big difference. It's not like they just post you a CD-ROM and a manual, getting up and running will be a little enterprise in it's self and needs to be got right.

Oh and whatever you choose the staff will moan that it's s*** thumbup
what he said.

+ it isn't the cost that is frustrating, it's the time spent trying to learn basic stuff, that you've been doing for 10+ years, and then finding long winded workarounds to get to the same basic info.

anyway, still learning, ad hoc. and probably will be until I retire.