Hello, I was wondering if anyone could help. A client builds narrow boats and for for the past year have been using projects within sage-each boat is a seperate project, but the reports aren't necessarily the greatest, so we are going to start using departments as well. Each department will be a seperate boat, as I think that the departmental reports are better. Does anybody know of a better ways to record all of the income/costs for each unit (boat)?
Personally, I would stick to Projects and, if necessary, explore what you can do with the report generator a little more. I haven't used the projects module in my Sage in quite a few years now, so I can't remember what's there and what you can do - and obviously I don't know the ins and outs of your client's needs - but given that it's designed for managing and reporting on individual jobs/projects, while departments are (strictly speaking) for a different situation, I can't help but feel that using it in this way might bring with it some degree of pain at some point in the future.
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
Hi Nicola
My thoughst were that the departments would be restrictive as opposed to projects as with the former you can only have 100 in total on the system. Once used, you cannot re-use ( as I understand it, happy to be corrected of course). So that would normally restrict folks, but on the basis of 8 projects a year you have 12.5 years before it becomes an issue - but of course it doesnt allow for any uplift in the business and may therefore restrict what you can use the software for in the future.
Biggest issue with departments is people remembering to input that blithering little number in everything they are keying. Apart from that they are easy to run, once set up.
Reason I asked about year version of sage is, if they are under sage cover. If so probably best they just contact sage for some help with the project reports, including setting up bespoke reports (you can have 3 complex ones under your cover costs) from the projects system in an effort to not fix what aint broke! Or try to the sage guides if they havent already. ask.sage.co.uk/scripts/ask.cfg/php.exe/enduser/std_adp.php
You can always easily dump direct into excel from that version and then create your own outside sage if really needed.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
... you can only have 100 in total on the system. Once used, you cannot re-use ( as I understand it, happy to be corrected of course). So that would normally restrict folks, but on the basis of 8 projects a year you have 12.5 years before it becomes an issue - but of course it doesnt allow for any uplift in the business and may therefore restrict what you can use the software for in the future.
Hi Nicola/Joanne,
There are 1,000 department numbers (0 - 999). Plenty for your purposes I think. For anyone else that may be thinking the same thing, but with loads more jobs to track, I don't think there's any reason why department numbers can't be recycled after use. To avoid possible confusion, however, I'd try to leave a gap of at least a couple of years before recycling so that you're unlikely to be running reports that go back so far that the label on the Department would be wrong.
I hope this helps in your deliberations.
Regards,
Edited to remove spurious content - thanks Joanne.
-- Edited by Onion4Sage on Wednesday 24th of October 2018 08:02:06 PM
I had 1000 in my head for the Sage 50 offering, but couldnt substantiate it. Good to know about the departments aspect. I only use that on an ongoing basis (and forget the key that little 1, 2 or 3 etc, drives me nuts sometimes!)
Thanks for the info.
Looks like you were going to say something else and then were waylaid
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
