Things that every Sage 50 user must know to avoid downtime

It's Friday today. This is a re-post. Hopefully this document will save you from doing any extra unneeded work this weekend. Have a great weekend!

  1. Make a backup of your company file locally on the C:\\ Drive by going to File > Backup. Do not do File and Save a Copy. Email this file to your self in an attachment or transfer to a server if you have one. Flash Drives can be used but this can be either lost or stolen and can be unknowingly faulty and can corrupt the file
  2. Never open the company file directly from the flash drive or external USB hard drive. This can spell corruption eventually.
  3. Never work with the file synced to a cloud service such as Dropbox, One Drive, Google Drive, etc. simultaneously.
  4. If you bought Sage 50 and you have an existing Sage 50 or Simply file, never continue with installing the trial version. What happens is that if you don't know the file format the file is in (First Step, Pro, Premium or Quantum) and you open it with the trial version Quantum (the highest feature version), you are stuck with Quantum and you will not be able to downgrade it to a lower version. Make sure to properly register with serial number on the CD / box or call Sage 50 service. Only solution to recover from this is to restore a backup or contact a third party data import service. This is why you or the accountant / bookkeeper that gave you the file must always follow step 1.
  5. Run an Advanced Database Check on your file by going into Maintenance > Advanced Database Check periodically or if the file you are opening has not been opened in a while.
  6. When migrating data from an old computer, never erase the contents on the old computer storage and main hard drive till everything opens and is 100 percent functional on the new computer. This also includes the EFT working as well if you have it.
  7. Try not to postdate any transaction and start next calendar year on January 1st if the file is using the payroll module with a Sage Business Care plan. You will lose automatic payroll tax calculation for the last years. 
  8. In Sage 50 you are only allowed to posts transactions in the current fiscal year and last fiscal year (2 consecutive years). You can check the settings by going into Setup > Settings > Company > Information. If you need to modify or post transactions before this date, you may need to start a new company with the fiscal year start and end you need changing and roll forward to the current year ( this means reentering all transactions). If this needs absolute fixing, then a Sage 50 partner source at sagepss.com may have a third party solution for data extraction and re -importing.
  9. Never change the current year fiscal end date unless the changes have been recorded by the CRA. If you know that the fiscal end date will eventually change, do not post any transactions dated past the needed fiscal end date. To prevent the change of fiscal end or year changes, work by logging in with a username other than sysadmin. If the fiscal end date has already been changed incorrectly but needs to be changed to the proper date, Sage 50 data services may be able to repair this.
  10. If you must start a new fiscal year and need to do payroll but you had a message "An error has occurred while moving current year to last year. As a result, the new fiscal year could not start. Please restore from backup or run Advance Database Check." and the file needs to be repaired, you can create a new temporary company by following https://support.na.sage.com/selfservice/viewdocument.do?noCount=true&externalId=15928 entering your payroll YTD history https://support.na.sage.com/selfservice/viewdocument.do?noCount=true&externalId=11631 and leaving history mode https://support.na.sage.com/selfservice/viewdocument.do?noCount=true&externalId=12127. If enrolled in Sage 50 Business Care Plan, a Sage 50 support agent can help with this.
  11. If using payroll and need automatic tax calculations, do not start a new calendar year by posting any transactions past Dec 31 of the current year
  12. Do not unlink any accounts in linked accounts section in Setup > Settings and post to the general journal unless instructed by a certified accountant. This may cause a data integrity issue. If unsure about these activities, create a backup before attempting or get an accountant to do the entries if they own the Accountant Edition.
  13. When yearly downloads are available, (eg. 2015.0 or 2016.0 full version), always install on the server first before attempting to do on the workstations
  14. Install a antivirus that has full prevention against malware, PUP, adware and spyware. Read up on this article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2603035/these-5-antivirus-suites-keep-potentially-unwanted-programs-pups-from-biting.html. Many business computers are used as personal computers and can be susceptible to unwanted spyware and costly ransomware that can encrypt files and never allow you to access your Sage 50 files or any other PC file outside of Sage 50.
  15. Do not use your accounting computer as a gaming computer. Keep the work environment separate in a workflow. A clean working platform will ensure no downtime.
  16. Sage 50 will not run on Server 2008 and Windows XP. The security updates for these OS's are no longer available from Microsoft. Upgrade to minimum Server 2008 R2 Windows 7 as soon as possible to prevent any security gaps in your business devices.

For SAN members and Sage 50 Partners -

  • Backup all your old installer files. They are located in C:\\Sage by default. Old installer files can help when installing the old version and retrieving data or running checks on a file that may have conversion problems.
  • The Accountants Copy (File > Accountants Copy) is created by the client. This allows you to have the file while the client is working on their file at the same time. When you are done with the file the client will import your journal entry changes in their still working day to day version without reentering your activities. This option is to prevent downtime in the clients operations. The Accountants Copy only allows transactions in the General Journal and no other journal or reconciliation modules. If you need to access every module in their file, they will need to send a regular backup. With this method, they should not work on the file while you are making changes in your version, otherwise they will need to re enter all transactions again in the most updated version you will create or use a third party import solution from sagepss.com

If you like this article, give me a LIKE or if you have any other suggestions, please comment. Cheers!

  • 0

    Unknown said:
    Make a backup of your company file locally on the C:\\ Drive by going to File > Backup. Do not do File and Save a Copy. Email this file to your self in an attachment or transfer to a server if you have one. Flash Drives can be used but this can be either lost or stolen and can be unknowingly faulty and can corrupt the file

    The best is to back up the data to where you want it to be saved to.  If you have an automated backup, whether to the 'Cloud' or to trusty old tapes, save the backup where it will be backed up with all the other important files. 

    If you do backups to removable USB devices, rotate them so that if one goes bad, you won't lose your only backup, and remember to shut down your computer or 'dismount' the USB drive.  

    If you have internet access but don't have an automated backup system, they start at $$ free.

    ** Test your backups regularly **  After a disk crash or a laptop theft is a terrible time to find out that they weren't working.

    **********************************************************************************************************

    Unknown said:
    If you know that the fiscal end date will eventually change, do not post any transactions dated past the needed fiscal end date.

    To prevent this happening accidentally, uncheck [ ] Allow transactions in the future (beyond the session date), or change the current year fiscal end date as soon as possible (if you find that you have to move it ahead later, it's no problem). 

    If you rely on no-one ever accidentally posting something in the wrong year's 'December' you are flouting the Laws of Murphy.

  • 0 in reply to RandyW
    Thanks Randy. Great ammendment!
  • 0
    About the Google Drive thing... It's a great way to stay backed up, I use it for my important data.
    Have you experienced corruption of the company file by using Sage from within a Google Drive folder?
    I'm just moving from Simply Acctg 7.0 to Sage 50 Pro 2016. It hasn't been an issue with Simply.
  • 0 in reply to Jason Bellis

    Pre 2008 versions used a file-type database (7.0 would have used the Microsoft 'Jet' engine, also used in Microsoft Access). Data is written to / read from the 'Company File' through operating system calls.  

    File synchronization tools (Google Drive, DropBox, etc.) make assumptions about files' structure that aren't valid with the type of DBMS files used by SA 2008 and later. 

    So, the new data is different and it won't work properly.