The morning shift for working mums…

Everyday seems a bit like Groundhog Day, from the moment my eyes open at 6.00 a.m. I am subjected to a tsunami of things-to-do and decisions-to-make flooding simultaneously through my mind.

What shall I wear to work? Have I got any fresh bread for the packed lunches? Is it PE day? Have they done their homework? What shall we have for tea? Have I prepped for my management meeting? I must get cash to pay for Judo lessons. I must remember to put the bins out – is it blue bin week, brown bin week or green bin week? What happened to just having one bin – life was much simpler then. OMG, my eyebrows need waxed!

The Morning Shift for working Mum’s is quite simply 90 minutes of Swiss clock precision timing – if I have my children fed, dressed, teeth cleaned, school bags, lunch bags, PE bags and 2 x water bottles in the car by 7:45 on the dot and there hasn’t been any major G8-summit-style negotiations on sandwich fillers (usually a hugely complex battle between ham or tuna), my day starts well and I drop them off at Breakfast Club with a loving kiss and cuddle.

Occasionally, I have a ‘Bonus Day’ when I’m wearing something coordinated and I had a Moment-of-Delight when the dishwasher was empty as I went to put the breakfast dishes in. However, the moment my car door shuts after dropping the boys off I have a mental transformation from Mum to Marketing Manager.

The 40 minute drive to work is equivalent to a mental workout at the gym – I arrive with a cerebral list of things to do which has been prioritised, planned and programmed to maximise efficiency and delivery. I boot up the laptop, grab a coffee and I’m hot to trot. Those are the good days, which, given the complexity of the universe within which I operate, are few and far between. More often that not something happens between the early hours of 6.00am and 8.30 am to unbalance the perfect equilibrium which is required to enable me to arrive a work feeling like a woman-in-control.

Then, this morning I had an epiphany. I suddenly thought – hang on there just one minute. I have spent the last 11 years of my professional life marketing the truly tangible benefits that Sage software can bring to your business. It’ll make your business more efficient, save you time, save you money, help you reduce the stuff that zaps your time and let you concentrate on the things that matter…the list goes on. All of which sounds exactly what I need in my life as a working Mum. So do you know what? The very next call I make after I finish this blog will be to the Head of R&D to explore a software solution for working Mums, something miraculous to help me and no doubt millions of others achieve some of that efficiency and time effectiveness in my Mummy-life.

Now wouldn’t that be worth having?

Rebecca Barnett, Sage HR and Payroll

View the original article here

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Posted in: morning,shift,working

How to remove the message 'Username in use

The program cannot connect you at this time'

There may be occasions when your PC shuts down before you close Sage Accounts, for example, when there is a power failure or a problem with the PC.

If this happens and you are using Sage Line 50, Sage Instant Accounts or Sage Instant Accounts Plus v8.2, the next time you logon to your program the following message appears: 'Username is in use - the program cannot connect you at this time'.

If you do not have access to download the file, to log back into Sage Accounts you must delete the queue.dta file from within the Accdata directory.

1. From the Windows desktop, open the Start menu then choose Run.

The Run window appears.
2. In the Open box, type explorer then click OK.

Windows Explorer appears.
3. From the left-hand pane, ensure the C drive is highlighted.

The contents of the C drive appear in the right-hand pane.

Note: These instructions relate to the default folder of C:\Program Files\Sage\Accounts. If your data is held in a different folder, please substitute your folder names in the following instructions.
4. From the right-hand pane, double-click the Program Files folder.

The Program Files folder opens and the contents of the Program Files folder appear on the right-hand pane.
5. From the right-hand pane, double-click the Sage folder.

The Sage folder opens and the contents of the Sage folder appear on the right-hand pane.
6. From the right-hand pane, double-click the Accounts folder.

The contents of the Accounts folder appear on the right-hand pane.
7. From the right-hand pane, double-click the Accdata folder.

The contents of the Accdata folder appear on the right-hand pane.
8. From the right-hand pane, locate the QUEUE.dta file and click on it once.

The QUEUE.dta file is highlighted.
9. Press the DELETE key on the keyboard.

The following message appears:

Confirm File Delete
Are you sure you wish to send Queue.dta to the recycle bin?

Note: This file is automatically recreated the next time you open Sage Accounts.
10. To confirm the deletion, click Yes then to close Windows Explorer and return to the Windows desktop, open the File menu then choose Exit.



You have now successfully deleted Queue.dta, and can log back into Sage Accounts. We recommend that you check your data.

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Products - Returned products

You can use Sage Accounts to record all of the products or services you sell and store information such as description, sale price and units of sale for each item you hold in stock.

The Products window automatically displays all of your products, one line per Product Record. When you are planning your stock system, the product codes you enter need to be as descriptive as possible so that you can locate the product quickly.

Each time you create a new Product Record, you need to enter details such as sales nominal code, department, tax code, and so on. If most of your products have the same defaults, you can set up default information that appears automatically in any new Product Records that you create.

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Posted in: product

Financials - VAT return payment

Many businesses using Sage Accounts are VAT registered, which means that for each VAT period they must produce and reconcile their VAT Return. This article is a guide to reconciling transactions that are dated in a previous VAT period but are not flagged as VAT reconciled.

In this video you will learn how to do VAT Return and reconcile in Financial module.

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Posted in: VAT

Sorting Customer Records in Sage Line 50

You can sort your customers or suppliers by any of the columns that appear in the Customers or Suppliers module.

To sort your Customers or Supplers module in numeric or alphabetical order of a column, click on the column title. For example, if you want your Customers or Suppliers module to be in alphabetical order of the Account Name, click Name. If you want your Customers or Suppliers module to be in numeric order of the Account balance, click Balance.

If you want to reverse the order of your Customers or Suppliers module, click the title of the column twice. For example, if you want your Customers or Suppliers module to be in reverse balance order, click Balance, the list resorts into balance order, then click Balance to reverse the order.

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Posted in: Customer

How to raise customer statements

A statement is generated for each customer. You can choose to show only outstanding transactions or all transactions within a date range. The layouts can be customised to suit your needs and can all be run retrospectively by selecting the Exc Later Payments check box in the report criteria. The reports are available in:

This video will show you how to raise customer statements.

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Posted in: Customer

How to Change program date

In this video you will learn how to change programme date, sometime you wanted to post too many invoices in the same date and every time you have to change date, so best if you change programme date that way you dont have to change date at all. But dont forget to change it back to today date other wise you might post some wrong date invoices.

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Posted in: date