October 21, 2011

Sage: Debt Demolisher or Micro Management?

Based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and formed in 1981 as a software company helping businesses keep financial records Sage is now worth nearly £1.5bn and has over 6.1 million customers worldwide. If that wasn’t enough they supply products to help with Accounting, Payroll, Financial Forecasting, Payment Processing, Job Costing, Taxation, Resource Planning and much more and are listed on the London Stock Exchange as a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. This is all well and good but aren’t there Accountants and Bookkeepers out there who this article should be aimed at?

Here are some facts that may worry the average business owner:

-Only one third of PLC’s in the private sector actually pay invoices within 30 days

-Two thirds of SME’s are currently affected by late payment

-Debt increased by 40% in the first quarter of 2011

-£22 billion per year is lost in the UK due to bad debt.

-SME’s wait on average 21 days longer than payment terms (imagine wages 21 days late!)

Immediately we can see that whether you are a one-man band business owner or the financial decision maker of a national corporation an understanding of Debtors, Creditors, Cash flow and Forecasting is ESSENTIAL to business.

How can Sage help we here you ask?

It simple really, it gives you greater control over your cost and pay. You can see clearly where money in a company is going, where it is coming from, if there are any bottlenecks and if you need to tighten the old belt a little. You can immediately see when creditors (people that owe you money) fall behind and chase them up accordingly.

Sage will also generate invoices automatically with specific terms pre-programmed; things like payment terms, limits and periods, fines and penalties and credit clauses. Then if you encounter a problem with a client or business falling behind, or a supplier or seller that has not delivered the terms are readily available and logged for a debt collection agency to step in. These methods have proven themselves in the field, attracting the attention of key players from sites like https://www.creditfix.co.uk/debt-solutions/trust-deed/ and getting published on many more. Do your research and it will prove itself, the confidence generated by this company is outstanding.

Remember that in the long run, prevention is always better than cure and sometimes (e.g. insolvency or bankruptcy) there is no resolution. Therefore choose a method of record keeping that has been intuitively designed for more than 30 years to tackle the problems of small to large companies. Finally, make sure the correct training is sought; as setup problems and bad practice at the beginning can be very hard to correct later down the line!

By Linda Walton

Alpha Debt Recovery