What's New in Sage Simply Accounting 2012

There are no new features in this release.

There are no new features in this release.

There are no new features in this release.

Dashboard (Sage Simply Accounting Pro and higher)

The Dashboard is a business management tool that allows you to monitor the health of your business by offering a variety of business data in one place. Instead of text-based reports, the Dashboard offers you a visual snapshot of your company's performance and activities that impact your company goals, so that you can make informed decisions in a timely manner.

Widgets

Widgets are individual graphs, charts, and lists in the Dashboard. Not only do they display information relevant to the success of small businesses, but some widgets have drill-down capabilities so that you can view reports related to these widgets.

Sage Simply Accounting Dashboard has the following widgets:

• Account Balances. Displays active accounts and their balances for cash, receivables, and payables. Use this widget to know how much cash your business has, what is owed to your business, and what your business owes.
• Aged Sales Invoices. Displays the invoice amounts owed to your company based on the aging periods that you've set up in Sage Simply Accounting.
• Aged Purchase Invoices. Displays the amounts that are owed to your vendors based on the aging periods that you've set up in Sage Simply Accounting.
• Items on Order. Displays the number of items currently recorded on sales orders or back-ordered in sales invoices, and the number of items currently recorded on purchase orders or back-ordered in purchase invoices. Use this widget to quickly see how many items you have on sales orders, and decide if you have enough inventory to fill your orders or whether you should order more.
• Revenue: Year to Date. Shows your company's net income and how it is derived from your revenues and expenses. Use this widget to determine how well your business is doing year-to-date.
• Revenue versus Payroll Expenses. Provides a side-by-side comparison of your company's revenue and your payroll expenses. Use this widget to determine if your company's month-to-month payroll costs are reasonable relative to revenues earned. Payroll expenses are also broken down in the widget into the following parts:
  • Wages. This is the total of any income, hourly rate, and piece rate income types.
  • Overtime. This consists of Overtime 1 and Overtime 2 incomes, and any differential rate income types.
  • Other. This consists of Vacation Earned amounts, all tax expenses, and all user-defined expenses.

Dashboard Security

Only those users who have already been given rights to reports, records, or transactions for certain modules can see the related widgets.

For example, only users with rights to view the transactions in the Customers and Sales module can view the Aged Sales Invoices widget.

Sage Simply Accounting First Step

Hide Accounts With Zero Balances On Financial Reports

For reporting flexibility, select this new report option if you want to omit accounts with zero balances on balance sheets and income statements.

Print Cheque Log for Previous Year

You can print and review Cheque Log reports for the previous year and verify cheque activity for the current and previous fiscal year.

Sage Simply Accounting Pro

Sage Simply Accounting Pro has all the benefits of Sage Simply Accounting First Step plus the following features:

Show Active Records in the Home Window

The Home window displays both active and inactive records in the records list until you clear the box Include inactive … at the bottom of each list.

The exclusion of inactive records from this list improves your work flow and analysis and enables you to view only the relevant active accounts, vendors, customers, employees, items and services, and projects in the Home Window listing.

Modify Remittance Transactions with the Proper Audit Trail

No matter where they are recorded, all transactions that affect remittances are now consistently tracked and reported in the Remittances journal and on the remittance report. The transactions in the Remittances journal can also be adjusted and any errors properly corrected.

Track and Pay Remittances Using Any Payment Method

Sage Simply Accounting has expanded the number of payment methods you can record against a remittance payment. You can now record remittance payments made with cash, cheque, credit card, or direct deposit.

Improved Payroll Journal Window

The changes to the payroll journal window increase the flexibility in the way you pay your employees and your overall efficiency. The improvements include:

• Employee hourly rates and piece rates are now displayed on the paycheque
• A note is displayed onscreen whenever the maximum deductions for CPP/QPP, EI, and QPIP are reached
• Print and post in one click

Improved Payroll Cheque Run WindowThe Pro with Payroll and Premium with Payroll 2012 editions are available at software retail outlets. When purchasing Pro or Premium directly from Sage, the Payroll option may be added by purchasing a Sage Business Care Gold plan. Additional fees apply. Enterprise includes the Sage Business Care Gold plan.1

The redesigned window allows you to improve your work flow, pay employees quickly in the payroll cheque run while withholding, tracking, and remitting source deductions and employer contributions. New list options also allow you to select unpaid employees automatically by pay period end date and pay period frequency.

The improvements made include:

• Paycheque details are accessible from the Payroll Cheque Run
• Hours and salaries can be entered directly in the Payroll Cheque Run
• Switch between paying one employee to paying multiple employees on-the-fly
• Select employees by pay period end date

Report Multiple Quebec Employee Benefits on RL-1 Slips1

To be compliant with Revenu Quebec and the Canada Revenue Agency, you can now track Quebec employee benefits more accurately by setting up additional payroll incomes to use a new Quebec benefit income type. These new payroll incomes will be reported on the employees' Relevé 1 (RL-1) slips but not on their T4 slips.

To set up these new payroll incomes to track Quebec benefits, in the Type column, click and select Benefit (Que) from the list.

Calculate Withholdings on Payroll Advances1

To be compliant with the Canada Revenue Agency, this version of Sage Simply Accounting allows you to pay an employee an advance and have the appropriate withholding amounts automatically calculated and withheld from the advanced amount.

If you are providing a payroll advance that is taxable, enter this amount in the Advances box in the payroll journal. If you are providing a loan that is not taxable, enter the amount in the Loans box.

Existing payroll advances will be converted to non-taxable loans when you upgrade to this version of Sage Simply Accounting.

Sage Simply Accounting Premium, Enterprise, and Accountants' Edition

Sage Simply Accounting Premium, Enterprise, and Accountants' Edition have all the benefits of Sage Simply Accounting Pro plus the following features:

Filter and Assign New WCB Rate to Selected Employees

By modifying the WCB rate for a group of employees at the same time, you can save time and quickly update the WCB rate changes with less chance of errors.

In the Maintenance menu, select Update Employee WCB Rate. You can then choose to change the WCB rates by province or territory, by Sage Simply Accounting job categories, or by existing rates in your company data.

Update Multiple Employee Personal Tax Amounts

You can efficiently update the federal and provincial personal tax credits for all your employees at one time or just for a group of employees you've selected. To access this feature, in the Maintenance menu, select Update Employee Claims.

If you subscribe to a Sage Business Care plan with payroll tax table updates, the latest basic personal claim amount changes are included in the Sage Simply Accounting payroll updates so that you will always have the latest claim amounts with which to update your employee records.

Produce Project Income Statement ReportRequires Sage Simply Accounting Intelligence. Additional fees apply.2

This new report shows how your business is doing, enabling you to make better business decisions. The report provides summary and detail views of project revenues and expenses. You can quickly analyze project data from multiple angles, produce graphs, and see a side-by-side comparison of projects for meaningful analysis.

Generate Additional Payroll Reports2

These reports give you insight into your payroll costs: how costs are distributed over job categories, departments, and projects. The data reported can be represented in graphs, and contain summary and detail views.

The new reports include:

• Detailed Employee Hours and Wages by Job Category
• Summarized Employee Hours and Wages by Job Category
• Employee Wages by Departments
• Employee Hours and Wages by Project