System Wide

Multiple users - Support for higher user counts (typically up to 16 users).

Security - Advanced security options allowing tailored menus per user (see also SOP for User Permissions).

Alerts – Intelligent, colour-coded alerts help prevent input errors without interrupting workflow

Amendability – Sage MMS can be amended to remove and add screens, fields and custom controls

Integration – Third party applications can be fully integrated with Sage MMS

Advanced Multicurrency – Sage MMS contains significantly more multicurrency features than Line 50.

Nominal

Management analysis - A flexible nominal code structure including cost centres and departments (Line 50 features departments only) allows a greater depth of analysis for all management reports.

Budget control - Track and control budgets. Annual budgets can be assigned and budget profiles created to calculate monthly budgets by percentage.

Support for 13 period accounting.

Graphical representation of nominal data - Bar charts and line graphs can be used to show balance and budget for current and up to 5 previous years (Line 50 shows Actual and Budget for current and one prior year only).

Batch journal entry - Place transactions on hold for authorisation before finally committing them to the nominal ledger.

Pre-payments and accruals – automated routines allow these to be posted at any time (in Line 50, these have to be run at month end).

Flexible profit & loss and balance sheet reporting - Compare actual against budgets or prior year/prior period, utilising cost centre and departmental breakdown.

Group accounts – Create custom group accounts to summarise the balance of many nominal accounts (in Line 50 there are pre-set groups, and these are only available on screen, not as reports).

Consolidation - Merge nominal ledger data from two or more separate companies for financial reporting, in different currencies if required (in Line 50 this is possible with single currencies only).

Sales Ledger

Trade in up to 100 foreign currencies - The sales ledger will maintain turnover details of an account in both the operating currency of the customer and the base currency equivalent.

Head office statement facility.

Integrated credit management facility - Including debtors letters, statement production, provisions for doubtful and bad debts and the ability to place customer accounts on hold (Line 50 has no provision for bad debts).

Batch data entry - Amend, add to or delete entries of batches of transactions, before finally committing them to the sales ledger.

Purchase Ledger

Trade in up to 100 foreign currencies - The purchase ledger will maintain the turnover details of an account in both the operating currency of the customer and the base currency equivalent.

Factor house facility - Send payment details to a factor house to recover the payment.

Automated payments routine - Quickly identify all invoices overdue for payment and those that, if paid, will attract an early settlement discount. Payments can then be made electronically or cheques and/ or remittance advice printed.

Cash Book

Process foreign currency transactions - Receipts and payments for your suppliers and customers can be entered through either the Cash Book or the sales and purchase modules in up to 100 currencies (Line 50 allows such receipts and payments to be made only via Bank).

Automate Standing Orders and Direct Debits - Arrangements can be made to automate transactions on a monthly, quarterly or user defined basis.

Graphical representation - Of bank account data.

Stock

Short and extended stock descriptions - 1 x 60-character and 1 x unlimited.

Choice of description used for orders/invoices - Can choose to use long or short description as appropriate.

Ability to make stock item inactive - You can set a flag to make a stock item inactive, so that it can't be ordered but remains on the system with full history.

Stock item search categories - Each stock item has specific fields that can be populated with keywords, used when searching for particular products.

Unlimited suppliers per item - Stores additional information such as price last paid, lead time, invoiced YTD and when supplied (Line 50 allows 1 supplier against the product record).

Unlimited alternative stock items .

Unlimited buying prices per item - Keeps accurate record of all buying prices for all individual stock items (Line 50 stores the last price paid only).

Full, independent stock location management - If your business operates one or more locations (for example, warehouses divided into bays), Sage MMS can help you manage these effectively. Each location can be operated independently in terms of replenishment, sales, reporting and stock takes.

Drill down on allocation/on order totals - To sales and purchase orders. Easily view which customers have been allocated a particular product.

‘Real World' stock take process - (E.g. cyclical stock takes). Most larger businesses don't shut a warehouse to do a stock-take - they'll only count the most valuable items, or schedule stock-takes for particular products. Sage MMS supports both methods.

Monthly trading/profitability enquiry - View the activity for each product by month in terms of sales and purchase volumes and prices.

Ability to prevent sales - From named warehouse / stock location (e.g. bonded warehouse).

3 analysis codes per stock transaction - Customisable fields that can be populated for each stock transaction.

Specify areas for internally issued goods - Stock issued internally to individual areas of a business (as opposed to the departments defined in the nominal ledger) can be recorded.

Price Book

Manage prices and discounts - Easily manage prices and discounts across your customer base (Line 50 supports customer price lists, but each customer can only be associated with one price list).

Supports 2 types of pricing schemes - Discount-based and price-band based. Create 'communities' of customers to attach to either.

Unlimited prices per item – Create unlimited price bands for each stock item, and rename these bands as you wish.

Customer price and discount groups - Create customer price groups or 'communities' to attach to individual price schemes.

Prices in foreign currency - A given price band can be set up with a particular currency. You can then attach customer price groups to that price band.

Prices for different stock units of measure - Set a specific price for each unit of measure (e.g. bottle, case and crate).

Unlimited quantity breaks for discounts (Line 50 supports 10) .

Price book validation - Including profit check. Instantly view the margin on an individual product sale (if authorised).

Sales Order Processing

Fast order entry - Designed to ensure that orders are entered quickly and accurately.

Deal with customer queries - Promptly and with confidence.

Reduce data entry - Many fields can be set with default values to reduce the number of keystrokes and accelerate order entry (Line 50 populates default delivery address only).

Choice of full or rapid order entry - Rapid order entry assumes that standard pricing and delivery addresses are used. Orders can be entered with just a few keystrokes. Full order entry facilitates complete flexibility - change discounts, add non-stock items, free text items etc. Switch from one to the other as necessary.

Trade Counter processing - Supports sales model where goods are taken away by the customer on the spot; this could be on account or a cash transaction could take place. Quickly creates an order, allocates and despatches stock, generates and prints an invoice.

Mix order entry types within a business - One part of the business could use Trade Counter, another Full Order Entry, and another Rapid Order Entry.

Record payments with orders - Easily take a deposit for an order (record whether full payment or deposit is received when an order is created). Line 50 doesn't allocate the payment to each sales order.

Show discount calculation during order entry - See how a price has been arrived at - useful if complex pricing schemes are used. In Line 50, you can see what discounts are available to each customer, but not which discounts have actually been applied to an order.

Monitor the status of lines on all orders - Display all sales orders for a particular customer so you can answer any customer queries quickly and efficiently. Using drill downs, you can view the sales order and any related transactions - including invoices, allocations and dispatches. In Line 50 you view the invoices at order level only.

Extended support for repeat order - Filter repeat orders so that only due orders are shown.

Controlled stock allocation – Or choice of “first come - first served”. Sage MMS affords great control, for example by prioritising certain customers or scheduling against deliveries.

User privileges – Set up users with their own variable rights to change prices, override credit hold, view profit etc, as appropriate.

6 analysis codes per order line and order header - Each order line can be accompanied by up to 6 custom analysis codes, with a further 6 for the order header. These can be used for reporting.

Unlimited additional charges per order - E.g. delivery, carriage etc - are supported. Line 50 supports 1 x delivery charge only.

Cancelled order lines file - Keep a full history of cancelled items for analysis.

Part dispatch - Sage MMS allows part dispatch without editing order.

View alternative stock items during order entry - Sage MMS can quickly suggest alternatives if a product is out of stock.

Purchase Order Processing

Supply chain management - Easily manage all your purchase orders, quickly finding individual orders and drilling down to view the details.

Order generation with price negotiation - Create purchase orders manually if you wish; alternatively, the system can compile lists of what you should order based on shortfall (by warehouse, if necessary) and what's required for back-to-back orders. Then choose who to buy from and what to pay (the system defaults to the last buy price). Sage MMS will then create a set of reports to base your negotiations on; once you're satisfied that you've got the best deal it will create and collate a series of purchase orders for you.

Full link for “Back to Back” orders - (E.g. purchase order line knows which sales order line it is for). With a full link between SO's and PO 's, you can see the effect of the non-availability of a product on a particular PO , or the effect on a PO of the cancellation of a SO line. Line 50 has a simple ‘shortfall order' function, ordering what's needed to offset any shortfalls on sales orders. But there's no link to the sales orders, and you can't change the supplier used.

Disputed invoices - Record the invoice but flag it up as disputed. It won't go through to the purchase ledger until the dispute has been resolved - either by accepting it 'as is' or matching it to further deliveries or a credit note. You can also generate reports on disputed items. In Line 50 you enter the invoice and it hits the purchase ledger immediately.

Standard cost variance processing - If you use standard costs, there may be a variance between the actual purchase price and the standard cost. This would traditionally need reports, journals and calculations to clear. Sage MMS keeps a running variance for each stock item, with a process to clear these down to an appropriate nominal code.

Order line history - View receipt and invoice entries, for full traceability of orders.

GRN (Goods Received Note) processing - Supports 2-way invoice matching (i.e. match order to invoice) and 3-way matching (match order, invoice and goods received note). Line 50 has neither.

Delivery address per order line - Specify different addresses for line items on the same PO .

Incomplete orders - Write off incomplete orders.

Matching invoices to orders - Calculate a running total when matching invoice line items to orders - making it easier to spot errors as you go.

6 analysis codes per order line and order header - Each purchase order line can be accompanied by up to 6 custom analysis codes; a further 6 are available on the order header. These can be used for reporting.

Unlimited additional charges - E.g. delivery or carriage per order (Line 50 has 1 x carriage charge only).

Cancelled order lines file - Keep a full history of cancelled items for analysis.