| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ DIVERS ★ SAGE POPULAR ACCOUNTS ★ |
SAGE POPULAR ACCOUNTS (Amstrad Action) | SAGE POPULAR ACCOUNTS (8000Plus) |
Running a small business is akin to working as a circus juggler. I know, because Pm married to one (a builder that is, not an employee of Billy Smarts). The demands of our business are like so many spinning plates, and it requires a surefooted operator with incredible sleight of hand, not to mention nerves of steel, to keep them all in the air at the same time. Bogged Down What with work in progress at three or four different addresses simultaneously and clients who are invariable separated from each other and the local Builders' Merchants by a section of the Kingston ring road currently under construction, to travel one mile and back can take up most of a morning. Add to that the vagaries of the climate in the north west corner of Surrey, where heaviest precipitation occurs at times of trench digging and re-roofing, irrespective of the season, and you wifi appreciate that a builder s lot is not a restful one. The job's not finished until the paperwork's done; in fact it can't even start until the paperwork is done, With all the calls on our time, we have been on the lookout for for some reliable helper to take over when our calculator and our ageing typewriter leave us, praying for days with 48 hours in them. Well, the prayer has been answered in the form of the Amstrad PCW (don't ask me to call it Joyce, I never did like that name ... anyway with all its magical powers I see the PCW more as a genie...no, definitely not a girl's name, Aladdin perhaps,, J digress). We had favourable reports from our accountant, we read a few computer magazines, and one visit to Curry's later the office had been computerised. First footing I should point out that I have had no previous experience of word processing nor of using computer programs: my working life to date has been in strictly manual clerical and administrative systems, and I'm no typist, to boot. For me carbon copies hold many terrors, and Tippex, used by the pint, has been an indispensible accessory to all my QWERTY crimes. However, despite misgivings inculcated by various magazine reports of the PCW's manual. I surprised myself by the ease with which I was able to get Locoscript to produce beautiful letters to my husband's clients, I was puzzled about envelopes, but since the text in the Locoscript template suggested 'address correctly positioned for window envelopes', I decided to give the latter a try. They work very well - a great little time-saver. Delighted with progress, I consigned the hated typewriter to the back of the understairs cupboard, with my Tippex and carbons. Although I had seen samples of the printed output from the PCW before purchasing our machine, I admit to slight disappointment in the NLQ printing. However when I look at the costs involved in upgrading to a daisywheel printer, not to mention the space needed to house same, I feel I can manage with the integral printer, and I enjoy varying the look of our letters with Bold, Word Underline, etc. Incidentally, I've discovered that we can produce very smart small adverts for local newsagents windows, and the different Style types, especially 10 pitch for headings, can be used to great effect. At this stage my main worry was to find a comfortable position for me and the PCW in our rather limited home office space. I haven't quite cracked this yet, but a proper typing chair has improved things, and I may invest in an anti-glare screen. Automated estimates Naturally, a large part of the paperwork of a building firm involves estimating, invoicing, final accounts and contract documents. I had to wrestle with the complexities of Layouts for a while, before I could create a Template Std. for each of my Groups, but by trial and error I managed to get tabs and decimal tabs, and certain fixed text set up, and what a joy it is now to be able to produce a perfectly formatted invoice or estimate with columns of information and prices lined up. To one who never mastered tabulation on a typewriter, (I just didn't use tabs at all), the decimal tab in particular is a miracle. We are now considering ways to use the PCW in the actual production of an estimate; Cornix's Job Estimate is one possibility. This will be a challenging area for us, since estimating is a crucial part of a builder's work - the tried and tested manual system is reliable but very time consuming; errors can be costly. At the moment however, pride of place in our library of programs belongs to Sage Popular Accounts. Popular Accounts Fortunately our accountant uses an Amstrad, together with Sage Popular Accounts (Very handy - Ed)% so we have been gently eased through the trauma of giving up a VAT book and Cash book and various bits of paper with summaries of wage payments. Bought ledger, or 'Purchase Accounts' as Sage insists we call them, takes up most of the inputting time, since we buy over £30,000 worth of materials per year. Each invoice account is automatically updated so that at the end of a quarter we can produce a VAT analysis for Customs and Excise, and not a calculator in sight. No more adding and re-adding interminable columns for figures until they balance. With the Sage program we simply enter the gross amount of an invoice, tell the system what VAT code to use, and the amount of VAT and the net amount are calculated automatically. So far, I haven't experienced any serious problems with the program, although there are a lot of disc changes to make which slows progress down - an 8512 with two disc drives would avoid this. Another small quibble is that it isn't possible to enter a company name more than 25 characters long when one first enters the system, This has caused us the loss of a crucial part of our name when reports are printed. At this stage, we certainly feel that we are getting tighter control over our accounting, with the expenditure of marginally less time. I suppose the ultimate test will be whether our records are sufficiently complete to reduce our accountant's time and bills when he does our yearly audit. All in all we are delighted with our Amstrad, and we are looking forward to exploring the PCW's other abilities - possibly a 'fun' newsletter for members of staff. Well be introducing out two year old to the computer age; perhaps he can learn to spell on Mummy's 'pooter', as he calls it. 'DON'T TOUCH!' may soon change to 'Please hurry up with your homework, so that I can do the Accounts', or even 'Please hurry up with the accounts!'
8000PLUS |
|  |
