Sage 100 Contractor - Alerts Manager

Imagine a computer program that automatically sends you a note every time your checking account balance fell below a specified amount, or once a month sends you a note about all the subcontractor insurance certificates that were due to expire next month.  Did you know that capability is already included in Sage 100 Contractor?

Earlier, I wrote about constructing queries to make it easy to find certain records or information in your Sage 100 Contractor data.  I pointed out that if one could construct a query, it is a simple and logical progression to construct Alerts.

Alerts Manager (menu 7-9), after searching your company data for conditions you specify, can send an Alert to your Dashboard, or an email to specified employees, alerting to the existence of that condition.  You define how frequently, and at what time of day, the data is searched. 

The system includes a handful of Alert Queries that can be used as templates and provide insight into what one can accomplish with Alerts: 

• Bid Opening Dates Next Week,
• Checking Account Balance Below 10K,
• Client Equipment Service Due Next Month,
• Client Equipment Warranties Expiring Next Month,
• Employee Licenses Expiring Next Month [in addition to trade or drivers’ licenses, consider defining expiring employment authorizations and resident alien cards as “licenses” to work],
• Employee Training Due Next Month [consider defining employee performance or compensation reviews to be “training” opportunities as well],
• Employees Hired This Month,
• Equipment Payments Due this Week,
• Equipment Service Due Next Week (in Equipment Management), and
• Vendor Certificates Expiring Next Month.

What other conditions might you want to be alerted about?

Sage 100 Contractor Queries

One of the most powerful, but often underutilized, functions in Sage 100 Contractor is Queries.  Sometimes called the Find Records function, it can be a great help in mining data and solving problems.  Queries are accessed by the Binoculars Button found in the upper right quadrant of most data screens.  A few prebuilt queries are included in the program, although I find most of them to be limited. 

Build your own queries quickly and easily using the Query Wizard.  Click on the New Button to start the Query Wizard, give the query a name, define what data you want to see in your results and how you want it sorted and grouped, finally define how you want your data selected and filtered.  When the query is run, you will see the individual data records you asked for, with the ability to drill down into the underlying records!

Queries are limited, in that you cannot perform calculations on the data inside the query, but you can export the result to Excel and then add calculations, re-sort the data, summarize the data, etc.

Get comfortable with creating queries!  The Query Wizard is an important component of the Alert Manager function and if you can create your own queries, you can easily set up your own Alerts (but that’s a Tip for another day….).

Mac and iPad solutions for Sage 100 Contractor

Now there are several options that permit Macintosh and iPad disciples to enjoy the benefits of using Sage 100 Contractor.  Virtual machines, which are software programs that mimic a Windows PC while actually running on a Mac, were the only viable option for many years. Mac users could run VMWare or Parallels (just to name two choices) on their Mac machine and run Sage 100 Contractor in that Windows shell.  Now however, cloud computing has really opened up Sage 100 Contractor benefits to the Macintosh world.  If a company uses a cloud application server to host its Sage 100 Contractor installation in a Windows environment, Mac users can now run a remote desktop client (available free from Microsoft or client packages from other software developers) to access the program.  Even more exciting, and a benefit to all users of Sage 100 Contractor (Apple or Microsoft), is the availability of remote desktop clients for iPads and Android tablets, so that field personnel can log right into the Cloud server and see everything they might need!

Sage Third Party Developer Products

Tired of struggling to collect paper timesheets and daily reports from the field? Frustrated with incomplete and missing data?  Wish there was a better way?  Consider mobile field reporting applications from members of the Sage Third Party Developer program.  Several applications are now available for smartphones and other mobile devices to collect payroll time and daily field reports.  These applications smoothly move the data automatically from the field to Sage 100 Contractor, with appropriate review and approval steps built in.  Find members of the Third Party Developer Program at http://na.sage.com/sage-construction-and-real-estate/resources/development-partner-locator/.

Year End Tips (Part 2)

Year-end closing can become stressful if, during the closing process, the system discovers a general ledger or payroll audit error and the closing stops until the error is resolved.  With audit errors, users are directed to seek help from Sage Technical Support, or their favorite Certified Consultant, all of whom are usually quite busy at this time of year and may require the user to wait for a response and assistance.  The best solution is to identify and correct general ledger and payroll audit errors before the year end rush.  Make it a practice to run general ledger audits (menu 1-6) and payroll audits (menu 5-3-7) regularly as the end of the year approaches. Some users run audits daily, but weekly may suffice.  Errors can be identified and corrected in advance so that the actual closing can proceed without a hitch.

Year End Tips

Sage 100 Contractor users are often confused about when to actually close their books for a calendar year-end.  No transactions can be entered for the new year until the books are closed for the old year, so delaying the closing is not an option!  The rule of thumb is to make sure all of your Customer Cash Receipts, Vendor Payments and Payroll Records are all entered and posted through the end of the year, and then close your books for period 12. Remember that you can enter Payable Invoices, Receivable Invoices and Journal Transactions that belong to the prior calendar year after the closing by selecting Posting Period 0 while entering these transactions in the new year company and then responding “Yes” to the message that will pop up when the transactions are saved.  In most cases you do not enter transactions directly into the prior year archive company.

Ei Dynamics Business Alerting Tools for SMB

Sage Master Builder has excellent, but rather static, tools for helping run a company. If you want to know something, you have to open the program and go look for it, print a report or run a query. How useful would it be if an email alert was sent to a responsible person whenever a particular circumstance existed, or something needed to be followed up? What if those alerts were sent automatically, without having to remember to seek out the conditions or run a report or query?

Now there is a terrific tool available to send intelligent alerts automatically to employees, managers, owners, vendors and customers, without requiring someone to remember to start up the process. Dynamic Alerts and Dynamic Reports from Ei Dynamics, Inc. are business alerting programs that never sleep and never forget to let someone know when a situation needs some attention! It works with Sage Master Builder and comes with a collection of pre-built alerts designed for use with SMB.

These links may be of interest:

• Ei Dynamics Product Flyer for Construction Products
• Ei Dynamics List of Pre-Built Alerts for Sage Master Builder

The pre-built alerts are really just a few examples of the kinds of things one can do with Dynamic Reports and Dynamic Alerts, as customized alerts and reports can be designed and scheduled to fit virtually any need. Would any of the following tasks be helpful to your company?

• Send an email alert to each project manager of all his or her RFIs (or Submittals or RFPs) that don’t have a response logged in SMB by the Required By date.
• Send an email reminder to Vendors that have not replied to an RFI (or Submittal or RFP) by the Required By date.
• Send a list on the first of each month to Purchasing Manager of Vendors that do not have a proper 1099 Status, or Federal ID # if needed, so that he or she can follow up.
• Send an email request for a W-9 (with a W-9 form attached) to any vendor that meets certain conditions.
• Send the company owner a short email list of projects, the assigned manager and the amount by which each project is over budget on the first of each month.

For more information about Ei Dynamics products and how they can help your company get even more benefit from Sage Master Builder, give us a call at 800-281-2675.