Happy new year!!! (Now excuse me while I duck … every accountant, HR manager and IT director out there is about to throw stuff at me.)
I know, I know … it’s that special time of year when Month End and Year End happen at the same time. While some business people get to relax and make merry during the holidays, others are burning the midnight oil to make sure their company’s business systems are ready to close out 2014 and set up correctly for 2015.
Luckily, Sage has put together the Year End Center on its Sage City website. This is a place where most Sage North America customers can go to find “help, guidance, and documents for the busiest time of the year.” Not only does have help for specific Sage titles, but also has useful links for both U.S. and Canadian government sites.
The Sage Year End Center provides Year End assistance, advice, and links for most Sage products and other relevant issues.
So here’s a list of the Sage titles that have dedicated Year End support sites on Sage City:
- Sage HRMS (includes Sage HRMS, Sage Abra Suite, and payroll for each)
- Sage Construction and Real Estate (includes Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate and Sage 100 Contractor)
- Sage 300 ERP
- Sage 100 ERP
- Sage Fixed Assets
- Sage 50 U.S. Edition
- Sage 50 Canadian Edition
- Sage 50 Comptabilité Édition Canadienne (French-language version)
The site also includes resources for Sage BusinessVision Year End, Sage BusinessWorks Year End, Sage DacEasy Year End, and Sage Payments: PCI Compliance.
The noticeable Year End absences
Now I’m sure some of you noticed two significant absentees from the list of Sage titles with dedicated Year End support: Sage 500 ERP and Sage ERP X3. I thought this was strange, so I called up a member of Team Squeaky Wheel, Jann Guthridge from Triangle Suspension Systems, to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Jann said she had looked at the Year End portal after I had mentioned it during Tuesdays with Practical, and she never saw them either.
Jann said this was strange, because when she first started with Sage 500, there were a few Year End processes she wasn’t aware of in the software, and if it hadn’t been for our technical staff guiding her that year, her Year End wouldn’t have gone as smoothly.
I needed an explanation from Sage, and luckily, Marisa* was manning the Sage City Twitter feed this morning and had the answer: The Year End portal is still relatively new, and they’re still working on adding content to it. Instead of holding back content for everyone until it was all ready, they went ahead and released sections as they were ready. She said they’re going to re-evaluate what content to provide next year. (Hopefully this will be another win for Team Squeaky Wheel!)
* Thank you again Marisa! You are awesome!
Other resources on the Year End portal
Just because Sage 500 and Sage X3 don’t have their own Year End sites doesn’t mean that their users can’t find useful information there. Under both the U.S. and Canadian government links sections, there are reminders for important dates for providing forms, filing forms, and payments due. Also, their are links to federal agencies, forms and publications, taxes, and changes in the law. There’s also a section for Quebec-specific services.
One of the most important parts of the site is under the government links sections: a link to Sage’s comprehensive guide to all things Affordable Care Act. This site on Sage City offers tons of resources for dealing with the ACA, including information, on-demand training, and specific questions for individual Sage solutions.
In all seriousness, I hope all of you out there have a safe, happy, and prosperous new year!