Year-End Planning for Sage 500

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Doug HartRKL eSolutions, LLC

Dec 6, 2017

Focused. On you.

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• Closing 2017• Establish/Test your Disaster Recovery Plan

• Performing Year-End Physical Inventory

• Reviewing Vendor 1099 Payments

• Purging/Pruning Data

• Preparing for 2018• Creating new GL Fiscal Calendars

• Creating New Inventory Calendars

• Keeping current with Sage Fixed Assets

• Updating User Security Groups

Today’s Agenda

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“It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.” ~ Howard Ruff

The Basics of a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

• Have Replacement Hardware Readily Available

• No Such Thing As Too Much Communication

• Update Critical Contacts List

• Update Recovery Tasks Checklist (including responsible party)

SQL Specific Tasks

• SQL Server Recovery Model (Simple, Full, Bulk-Logged)

• Managing Backup Media (Tape, Files) On-Site or Off-Site?

• Test (!) your backup and recovery procedures

Closing 2017Establish/Test your Disaster Recovery Plan

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Selecting Items to Count • Lots of Filtering Options (Item Type, Status, Zone, Bin, Bin Location, Item

Class, Purchase Product Line, Sales Product Line, Last Count Date, Count Cycle, Rankings)

Count Documents• Count Cards (One per item/Bin) vs. Count Sheets

• Add Blank Cards/Lines for Items/Bins not in the batch

Entering Counts• Show Frozen Qty? (Risk/Reward)

• Show Counted, Uncounted, or Both

Closing 2017Performing Year-End Physical Inventory

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Entering Counts (continued)• Using the Grid• Export to Excel (Import with Data Porter)

Missing Count Cards• If you want to use this, do NOT use the “Set Uncounted to Zero” option in

ENTER COUNTS

Reconciliation Report• Transactions posted for items frozen during the count process

Discrepancy Report• On-hand Quantity variance % > Maintain Inventory’s MAIN tab “Tolerance %”

field

Closing 2017Year-End Physical Inventory (continued)

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No change to IRS 1099-MISC form layout this year

New option to use AATRIX for e-Filing – various levels of service:

Review this blog post:https://www.rklesolutions.com/blog/1099s-sage-500-tax-yr-2017/ which includes

• Aatrix service level options

• Sage 500 supported versions for Aatrix

• Links to IRS filing requirements

Closing 2017Reviewing Vendor 1099 Payments

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The filing deadline, with the IRS, either paper or electronic is January 31, 2018

Electronic filing via FIRE (Filing Information Returns Electronically) is required if there are 250 or more returns of any one form (Misc, Int, or Div)

IRS Instructions:• https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099msc_17.pdf• https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099int_17.pdf• https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099div_17.pdf

Edit 1099 Data Activities• Edit Voucher 1099 Data• 1099 Beginning Balances

Closing 2017Reviewing Vendor 1099 Payments (continued)

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Standard Explore Views are a good start, but you’ll likely want them “tweaked”, because:

• Explore Vendors is missing Last Payment Date and useful 1099 “Type”

• Explore Vendor Payments does not have any 1099 data

Send email to Support@RKLeSolutions.com to request custom Explore tasks. These are being offered at $200/each or all three for $500.

• Three Year Vendor Payment History

• Vendors with Missing 1099 Payments

• Vendor List with 1099 Type and Last Payment Date

Closing 2017Reviewing Vendor 1099 Payments (continued)

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• Print/Generate 1099s from Insights > Report > 1099 Reports menu

• 1099 Forms (Pre 2016)

• 1099 Forms (2016+)

• If this has all become too cumbersome for you, there is an alternative! Start paying 1099 vendors by credit card. Payments made on a credit card are not reported by the Payer as the credit card companies will be reporting this information on Form 1099-K “Payment Card and Third Party Network Transactions”.

Closing 2017Reviewing Vendor 1099 Payments (continued)

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• Check for pending batches in each module’s Post XX Batches task (where XX is the 2-character Module ID: AP, AR, GL, IM, etc.)

• Confirm each Module’s Maintenance > XX Setup > Set Up XX OptionsData Retention tab (Transactions, History, and Log Retention)

• After all year-end data has been entered, but BEFORE final period-end processing, take a special year-end backup of your database

• In General, avoid any “Purge XX Data” option (found in Process Period End tasks and as separate tasks on the Activities menus)

• Order of Closing: IM, AP(PO), AR(SO), CM, MC, then GL

Closing 2017Pruning

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• Some things are safe to purge within 500 (Older Than ## Months)• Purchase Order – POs, Receivers/Returns, Requisitions• Sales Order – SOs, Quotes, Shipments/Returns/RMAs• Manufacturing – Completed Work Orders• System Manager – Activity Log (Period End, Module Purge, Security Changes,

Suspense Postings, etc.)

• Contact us for suggestion on:• Deleting Inactive Users in both Maintain Users and SQL• Deleting Demo Data companies (‘SOA’, ‘COA’, etc.) or at least change their

color code in Maintain Companies – added in v.2016• Pruning specific SQL tables (tciDBActivityLog, tsoPickList)

Closing 2017Pruning (continued)

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• Change GL accounts’ “Status” field added in v.2017 for any Inactive/Deleted accounts; checkbox in Maintain Natural Accounts to “Apply to all associated GL Accounts”

• Budget Planning • Maintain Budgets > Copy Budget or update one account/period• Revise Budgets > All GL Accounts or a range of accounts then Register/Post

• Review Inventory Replenishment defaults (Methods, Formulae, Purchase Requirements, etc.)

• Review PO Vendor Performance Report (by Vendor, Warehouse, Item, etc.) to negotiate contract renewals

• Review Manufacturing Costs including overhead rates, variances and BOM Cost Roll-up Journal

Closing 2017Other Best Practices for Consideration

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• If you have not already done so, take a backup before proceeding

• General Ledger > Maintenance > GL Setup > Set Up Fiscal Calendar• Click the “Fiscal Year” drop-down to verify what years already exist

• Click the “Add Year” button to create the next Fiscal Year if needed

• You will receive a message indicating Beginning Balances will be created (NOTE: If you have type “BB” Beginning Balance postings this can cause issues)

• Confirm the “Start Date” and “End Date” fields

• Toggle the “Lock AP”, “Lock AR”, “Lock CM”, “Lock IM”, “Lock MF”, or “Lock/Unlock All” fields as needed.

Preparing for 2018Creating new GL Fiscal Calendars

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• If you have not already done so, take a backup before proceeding

• The recalculation step can take a while if you have a large volume of inventory transactions; consider running when no users are active.

• Inventory Management > Maintenance > IM Setup > Set Up IM Options• Miscellaneous tab > “Inventory Calendar” button

• Confirm the “End Date” for each period

• Confirm the Work Days (used by Replenishment Demand & Safety Stock Formulas)

Preparing for 2018Creating New Inventory Calendars

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• If FAS is integrated with 500, be sure to check your 500 version’s Compatibility Guide to confirm the most current supported version of FAS for your version of 500• For each 500 company, confirm in AP > Maintenance > AP Setup > Set Up AP

Options Integration tab. If “Fixed Asset Accounting” field is checked and the Database and Company fields are populated, 500 is integrated with FAS for the company.

• If FAS is NOT integrated with any 500 company, then upgrade to the most current version available.

Preparing for 2018Keeping Current with Sage Fixed Assets (FAS)

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• Verify you have all relevant tasks added to your user menus using the Menu Upgrade Utility• “C:\Program Files (x86)\Sage Software\Sage MAS 500 Client\Managed

Applications\Accounting.Framework.MenuUpgradeUtility.Exe”

• Review current 500 users’ roles and responsibilities• Note that 500 permissions are inclusive. For example, if a user is assigned to

two Security Groups, and the same task is Excluded in group 1, but is Display Only, Normal or Supervisory in group 2, the user will be granted the higher permission level from group 2.

• Add permissions for new responsibilities

• Revoke permissions for tasks they should no longer perform

Preparing for 2018Updating User Security Groups

Thank you and Happy Holidays!

Contact us for pricing, compatibility and consulting needs of your business management solutions.

Gia LaneCustomer Account Manager – East CoastGlane@rklesolutions.com717-735-1492

Mike ShareCustomer Account Manager – West Coast mshare@rklesolutions.com717-735-9131