Current Version Information

The latest recommended version of Sage 100 Contractor is version 19.6.54, the release of which was announced on October 1, 2015. Give Mathieson Consulting a call if you have a current support contract and want assistance with the update.

Don’t Forget to Audit Payroll!

All too often, I find that clients forget to run 5-3-7 Payroll Audit before preparing to pay their payroll tax liability or preparing payroll tax returns.  Payroll Audit is a handy utility that compares amounts actually withheld and accrued for FICA and Medicare Taxes with what should have been withheld.  It also identifies payroll records that have not been completely processed or processed with conflicting payroll quarters compared to payroll check dates. If you use the Repair option, the system will reconstruct the control totals on the employee records – this will correct any misposted or partially posted payroll records before it actually audits the payroll records. The Repair option takes longer than just running the Payroll Audit (this makes sense because it performs both the reconstruction of control totals and the auditing of payroll), but the extra time is usually worth it.  Always run the Payroll Audit with Repair and resolve any issues indicated, before computing the amount of payroll taxes to deposit or preparing payroll tax returns.

Since we’re talking about preparing payroll tax data, remember to always run your payroll tax reports by check date, not by period ending date.  The tax authorities want all of their payroll data reported by check date.

If you find that payroll audit errors exist, contact Sage Tech Support or call Mathieson Consulting at 480-471-5305 for assistance.

Current Version Information

The latest “recommended” version of Sage 100 Contractor is version 19.6.41, the release of which was announced on May 28, 2015.  Since then, there have been two “Optional” updates that contain payroll tax table updates for North Dakota, Connecticut, Ohio and Idaho, plus a couple of minor report fixes. You may want to consider the optional updates as well.

What’s Your Type?

Last month I wrote about creating a user-defined Purchase Order Type to help track and control materials returned to suppliers for credit.  Now, I’d like to review ideas for Types in the many areas where users can create their own:

• 3-5 Jobs – Types can be created to categorize the work (e.g. painting vs drywall for an interior finishes subcontractor) or billing method (e.g. time and materials billing vs progress billing) of jobs. Less desirable uses of Job Types might be to use types to identify the salesperson, project manager or department as fields already exist for these purposes.
• 3-6 Receivable Clients – Types can be created to categorize the clients for an organization. Options may be numerous, and input from management is often sought so that we can respond to data requests by client type. Options may include commercial vs. residential, multifamily property manager vs commercial general contractor, homeowner vs investor – anything management may find useful.
• 4-4 Vendors – Types can be created to categorize the vendors for an organization. Vendor Types can be simple (e.g. suppliers, subcontractors, overhead vendors) or more detailed (lumber yard, plumbing supplier, excavation subcontractor, plumbing subcontractor, insurance, banking, employees, etc.). Consider how detailed vendor types can help an estimator, purchasing agent or project manager find “all the plumbers we have used in the past” when seeking quotes.
• 6-4-1 Change Orders – Since change orders have several roles in Sage 100 Contractor, use Types to help separate them into their various roles – prime contract changes, internal budget adjustment changes, subcontract change order only, etc. Then use the Type as a report selection criterion when running a change order list report so that you only get the types of change orders you want in the list.
• 6-6-1 Purchase Orders – In addition to a type for materials returned, types can be used to separate job materials purchases, overhead purchases and stock or inventory purchases.  If purchase orders are also used for subcontracts (rather than the 6-7-1 Subcontract module) a separate type for those may also be in order.  Types can be used as report selection criteria to ensure that job materials purchases print to a specific materials purchase order report form, and subcontract purchase orders print to a separate, subcontract-specific report form.
• 6-7-1 Subcontracts – Types can be used in the subcontract module to relate specific specialized report forms to types of subcontracts. For instance, you may want to use different report forms for subcontracts that only provide subcontract labor, subcontracts that provide labor, installation materials and customer selected fixtures, or subcontracts that are for professional services like architectural and engineering services.  In each case, the report form may have different terms and conditions that are important to the user.
• 6-11 Document Control – Types can be defined for several documents to relate them to specialized reports and report forms:
• 6-11-1 Requests for Proposals
• 6-11-2 Requests for Information
• 6-11-3 Transmittals
• 6-11-4 Submittals
• 6-11-8 Correspondence
• Each document has the option of creating user defined types that may be useful to your specific business.  For instance, you might have separate request for proposal forms for materials purchase quotes and subcontract quotes.  Requests for information might be categorized as those to an architect or engineer, versus those to the owner or owner representative. Correspondence might be categorized as to format – memorandum vs formal letter.  The possibilities are many.
• 8-3 Equipment – Users of the equipment management module can create their own list of equipment types to categorize their equipment for reporting purposes.

Sage 100 Contractor is designed to be adaptable to most clients’ unique needs.  Take advantage of these options to make it work for you.  Contact Mathieson Consulting, LLC (480-471-5305) for more information or assistance.

A Little Bit of Imagination!

Recently, a client asked what they could do to solve a longstanding problem for their business.  They are an equipment sales and service organization, and have a high volume of materials purchases and returns.  Management was concerned that they either were not returning defective and or warrantied materials, or the suppliers were not giving them credit for their returns.

At first glance, there is no module or menu item labeled “Materials Returns” in Sage 100 Contractor, so the easy answer was “sorry, there’s nothing to help you in the program”. But let’s look a little closer at the problem. In reviewing the request with the client, we found that they needed to be able to keep records of what items were returned to their vendor, how much of a refund or credit they expected to receive as a result of the return, and whether or not they had actually received the credit from the vendor. With just a touch of imagination, you might see that this problem is an exact opposite of how purchase orders work. Purchase orders communicate to a vendor what you want to purchase, how much you expect to pay for it, and whether or not you have entered an AP invoice as a result of the purchase.  A purchase order record with negative quantities (a positive quantity is an item purchased and to be paid for, a negative quantity is an item returned for a credit) does just what an materials return record should.

To make this work effectively, we made a few changes in the system To keep the materials returns records separate from the materials purchases, we defined a purchase order type for returns, repurposed a user-defined field for the vendor’s RMA or returned material authorization number, and repurposed the purchase order grid line user-defined field for the reason the item was returned.  We created a specific report and report form, which we called a Materials Return Transmittal to effectively document the return to the vendor, specify what was expected of the vendor, and the amount that was expected to be received as a credit from the vendor.  When the credit memo is received from the vendor, the entry in accounts payable invoices should reference the order number so that the open record could be marked as closed. A Materials Returns List report was also created that shows the current status of materials returns.

This is just a brief synopsis of what can be done with a little imagination.  If you want more information about how to implement a materials returns tracking system, give us a call or send us an email!

Archiving Company Fiscal Year Data

When Sage 100 Contractor Version 19 was released, there was great joy because the multi-year general ledger functionality drastically reduced the perceived pressure of having to archive the ending fiscal year before entering any data for the new fiscal year.  Version 19 changed all of that by permitting several fiscal years to co-exist in the same database.  The old fiscal year can be archived at your leisure, after all entries and adjustments have been made for that year.  Because it can be done at one’s leisure, I find that archiving is sometimes forgotten and we start to see three or more fiscal years residing in the same database. While the system works fine with several fiscal years still resident in the database, you can expect to see processing times start to slow down and people will get annoyed with job lists that include jobs done two years earlier.  The solution is to archive your oldest fiscal year soon after all of its data entry is complete and in agreement with your published financial statements and tax returns for that prior fiscal year.

Usually around this time of year, we see that financial statements and tax returns for the prior fiscal year have been completed.  Make sure that your outside accountant has provided any adjusting entries that they want posted to your books.  Post them to the correct prior fiscal year.  After the adjusting entries are recorded, run a Trial Balance (report 2-1-0-21) for Period 12 of the prior fiscal year and compare it to your published financial statements for that year (or send it to your outside accountants and ask them to confirm that this trial balance agrees with their work papers).  When your adjusted trial balance is deemed in agreement, that prior fiscal year can be archived.

Archiving must be done by the Supervisor user, with Exclusive Access.  Larger and busier companies find that archiving is best done very late in the day or on weekends when Exclusive Access doesn’t prevent other users from doing their own work in the system.  Decide whether you wish to, during the archiving process, remove:  (1) jobs with a status of Closed or Refused, (2) paid or void payable invoices not related to a job, (3) service receivables records with a status of Paid, Completed, or Void dated prior to a specific date of your choosing and (4) closed purchase orders dated prior to a specific date of your choosing that are not related to a job.  Purging can add significant time to the archiving process so you may elect to perform the purging of this data from the current company at a later, more convenient time.

Other preparation should include running a general ledger audit in menu 1-6, searching for and resolving Ledger Transactions (menu 1-3) with a transaction number of 0000, usually the result of not completing the printing of GL Checks (menu 1-1), and deciding what you want to name the archive company data folder.  It could be something like [Company Name] 123114 GL.  Just make sure that it’s descriptive and unique.  Have available a paper copy of your Trial Balance (report 2-1-0-21) for Period 12 of the year you will be archiving for reference purposes. Finally, create two backup copies of the current company data folders before starting the actual archiving process.

Now the easy part – as Supervisor with Exclusive Access, go to menu 1-6, select Archive Fiscal Year 20xx.  That selection button will display the oldest fiscal year available in your current company.  Follow all the instructions therein, reading and understanding each of the prompts.

If you have any questions or concerns or if you want help with the archiving process, give Mathieson Consulting, LLC a call!

Current Version Information!

The latest version of Sage 100 Contractor is version 19.6.41, the release of which was announced on May 28, 2015.