Integrations +AI + Your Sage50C = The Future!

5 minute read time.

The word on the street in the business world is that artificial intelligence (AI) as a new industry is booming. Bots are being programmed as I type to do everything and anything! While we wait for these innovations to simmer into something fully usable, here's what you can do to find the right accounting, ERP or CRM solution to fit your business needs:

Narrow down your solution options!

There is a focus on cloud connectivity because it works mostly anywhere and on any system.

The price point for features available varies greatly depending on what you need your systems to do. So, for this try reaching out to a consultant using our Partner Locator at https://app.sagematch.com/. Dazed and confused? consultants can offer the best onsite assessment of what you need and match it to what is available and possible. Trust the pros. Developers can often work wonders to create the right software modification or integration.

Third party developers create a variety of solutions that integrate with Sage's product lines see http://sagepss.com/Browse.aspx to narrow down some options by product line, industry, or business need.

What's coming to Sage 50 Canadian Edition?

A lot of features have been implemented with the release of Sage 50 2016.3 (Canadian Edition)detailed in this post and a lot more improvements to these features are set to be released with the 2017 version, for details check out this video. 

Top 3 changes in Sage50CA 2017 are:

  1. Print/Email in Batches
  2. Select payment method easily
  3. Link EFT to up to 3 banks

 For the time being, there will always be a need for a desktop solution like Sage 50, however, Sage is taking great strides to modify the desktop solution for integration with mobile and cloud solutions.

 What's on the horizon: Integrations & Partnerships

There are new integrations and partnerships in the works to help small businesses (more on this below). These involve more user friendly, versatile and cost effective options. Lots of enhancements to Sage One and something new on the horizon Sage Live (debuted in the UK and US last year, yet unavailable in Canada) an integration of CRM, Salesforce and GL functions. A Sage and Microsoft Office 365 partnership was announced during Summit 2016, stay tuned for news regarding Sage 50! We are moving!

 Numbers and knowledge available anytime… business in the moment!

 

Something stated repeatedly at Summit 2016 was that:

 "...Trust, Compliance and Security is what Sage is committed to..." - CEO Steven Kelly, Sage Summit 2016

The Sage Integration Cloud, (apps, customers, data) was also announced. Something to integrate everything in one place, making for easy integrations. No development required.

It will be an app, a platform that allows Sage and non-Sage cloud and non-premise solutions to work together. It'll also work for on premise and all partner applications. No word yet on what this means for Sage 50C.

Sage 50C = Sage One + Sage Drive + Sage Payment Solutions + Sage 50 Desktop (rental*)

So what is Sage 50C? It's an add-on service new as of early 2016 that combines and allows the integration of Sage One (allows basic accounting, so invoices and payments fully on the cloud), Sage Drive (allows you to place and share your database on the cloud and to share access with an accountant or colleagues), SPS (credit card number storage secured online) and your classic Sage 50 Desktop installation (rental*). All of these products and services are included as part of the Sage 50C package, add-ons include EFT and payroll (auto tax calculations + e-filing abilities).

Note*: Sage 50 included with the subscription Sage 50C would become read-only when off-plan. There is an option to purchase a full user license.

The image below gives you a glance regarding some of the benefits. There are limitations for instance, if you had a robust inventory. Sage One would not really allow you to make invoices linked to your quantities of stock. Think of Sage One as a stripped down version of Sage 50. Advanced items such as inventory, project management, payroll, customer statement creation, financial statement creation functionality is (for now) only available in Sage 50 the desktop application.

We do have cloud solutions such as Sage 300 Online that would allow (at a higher pricepoint) these advanced accounting capabilities online.

Sage One and AI

 "Sage is looking to change 500 years of accounting,” exclaimed chief executive Stephen Kelly during his keynote on the second day of Sage Summit in Chicago.

Sage Summit 2016 announced Pegg (BETA) a collaboration project with Slack that integrates with Sage One. I’ve been testing it for my non-profit project just for fun. It’s neat! Go to hellopegg.io to sign up for it once you have your Sage One account (Tip* don’t get your trial until you get Sage50C so it all integrates).

Need to create an expense report? Just ask the bot to do it!

  • Strike a convo with the bot, the bot does all the calculations, records the purchase as stated in the message, or reads a receipt and inputs it into the backend.

  • Ask it how much money have I made? How much have I earned this month? Who owes me money?

  • Say hi to Pegg
  • Tell Pegg about any expense and Pegg will post it, when Pegg says "got it" it takes the info and does the accounting in the backend.
  • Works the same way Slack and any other messaging bot does.

Other Cloud solutions

Too much to cover in one post, but in case you're curious, here's the full line of products currently configured and available with cloud functionality or integrations.

More Snippets from Sage Summit 2016

At Sage we want to help you grow, we want to give you a voice, stand up for you, as you grow and succeed.

 "if every company would adopt one problem" the business community could tackle a host of social issues.

 Thanks for reading! [:D]

Sources: Blog entitled "Sage Summit Day 2: Bots, Branson, and Bold Statements

From <http://www.accountingweb.com/technology/accounting-software/sage-summit-day-2-bots-branson-and-bold-statements>