Sage 200 Evolution

A complete overview of the Sage 200 Evolution core capabilities,

add-on modules and functionality
Overview

With business activity management functionality interwoven into the core of the accounting application,
Sage Evolution brings all aspects of your operations together, providing an integrated, holistic view of
your business. The comprehensive range of features and functionality, and a number of add-on
modules, provides a scalable, flexible and robust management tool for your growing business.
Sage Evolution delivers an entirely new dimension in business management software, taking your
business way beyond the traditional realms of accounting software.
All components and modules in the Sage Evolution range are fully integrated and share a common
interface providing a consistent user experience. In addition, the utilization of the MS-SQL database
ensures data integrity and maintains all your data in one central database.

Take Control of your Business, as well as your Finances

In the past, accounting systems stored a wealth of information related to customers, suppliers,
inventory and so on – however this information was often limited to accounting data i.e. the numbers.
Sage Evolution takes accounting to the next level by allowing you to not only capture numbers, but
what we refer to as business activities. This data is then integrated and presented together with the
numbers providing a holistic view of your business instead of a number-only view. This gives you the
ability to control your financial situation as well as relationships with customers, suppliers and
employees.

Core Features
The System Manager
The System Manager is the control centre for the entire Sage Evolution application. It is the system’s
user interface. Featuring a System Tree, it controls the system environment and setup, on-line help,
multi-level password security and displays all the modules included in Sage Evolution.
With all of these features and much more, Sage Evolution delivers enhanced efficiency, productivity
and security to any business, including:
• A consistent user interface no matter which module you are currently using, i.e. Fixed Assets,
Payroll, Accounting all share the same common interface and all appear as options on a single
System Tree.
• Navigation tools such as menus, a hierarchical system tree, toolbars, and favourites.
• Powerful tools for maintaining, sorting, searching and grouping your lists of data.
• The ability to customize the interface (per user) to suit each user’s requirements.

Database System
Sage Evolution takes advantage of the latest database technologies utilizes Microsoft’s SQL Server or MS
SQL Server Standard Edition. Microsoft SQL Server provides Sage Evolution with the ability to scale and
support unlimited number of concurrent users. Additional data integrity is insured through the use of SQL’s
transaction roll back feature. Sage Evolution includes MS SQL Server Express for small sites. Larger sites
must purchase MS SQL Server on a per user basis.

- Store Data Indefinitely

The General Ledger stores five years of data and requires no month or year-end procedures.
Accounting periods can, however be blocked, preventing transaction processing to those periods that have
been closed. The Subsidiary Ledgers (Inventory, Receivables, and Payables etc.) store information
indefinitely.

- Transaction Rollback
Data protection and integrity is significantly improved. This feature enhances data integrity by ensuring
that users will never have incomplete entries or corrupt files, even if they suffer a power failure while a
transaction is in process.

- Supports Multiple Companies

The system can maintain multiple sets of books, each with its own chart of accounts. Access to companies
and their related functions are password protected. Data can also be copied from one company to another,
simplifying the company setup procedure.

- Transaction Drill Downs

Drill down functionality allows you to find exactly what you’re looking for, quickly. From customer
information, to detailed transactions, right down to source documents – just by clicking your mouse.

General Ledger

The general ledger is the heart of the financial function of your company. All processing you do eventually
reflects in the General Ledger. No tedious month or year-ends, the system is date-driven, allowing you to
post transactions to any period at any time providing peace of mind and flexibility.
The General Ledger stores five years of data. Accounting periods can, however, be “blocked”, preventing
transaction processing to those periods, which have been “closed”.
Sage Evolution allows for the Segmentation of the General Ledger into ten separate segments.
Account segments can be used to create a reporting hierarchy. Reporting is considerably simplified while
retaining the level of detail you require. With unlimited branches and departments, your business can grow
with the security of knowing Sage Evolution is scalable, flexible and robust.

Receivables and Payables

Have instant access to customer and supplier balances, overdue totals and sales/purchases history. Enjoy
quick and easy confirmation of delivery requirements, selling prices, discounts and available customer
credit. Drill-down features and reports are available when you need a more detailed analysis of
customer/supplier transactions. Maintain unlimited addresses for each customer/supplier record.

Inventory Control

Sage Evolution’s powerful Inventory gives you unlimited control over your stock. The system provides both
summary management reports as well as detailed operational reports.
You can extend Sage Evolutions’ power by combining the Inventory module with other related add-on
modules:
• With Multi-Warehousing, you can create multiple warehouses or stores, and move items between
these stores.
• These transactions will have an accounting entry thereby affecting the General Ledger directly.
 • Serial Number Tracking tracks individual inventory items and keeps track of them by their history.
The system follows their purchase, internal movement in the company, sale and possible return
for repair or refund.
• Lot Tracking allows companies to track “lots” of items of stock, especially pertinent to the
pharmaceutical industry or any industry where expiry dates need to be tracked.
• Multi-Level Bill of Materials allows you to manufacture or assemble items from components. The
system takes the component materials out of stock and creates finished items ready for you to
sell.
• Manufacturing is an extension of the Bill of Materials module. This functionality will allow for the
more complex manufacturing processes.
• All these add-on modules work together. For example, you can manufacture serial number and lot
items into warehouses.

Import Cost Allocations

When you import goods, there are frequently additional costs that do not originate from the supplier. For
example, you may be liable for shipping costs and/or import duties. This feature allows you to process
these additional costs at the same time as the goods received voucher. The system will then calculate the
cost of the items correctly. This feature avoids the inconvenience of having to process these additional
costs later and then adjusting your costs manually.

Project Tracking

This module allows you to “tag” transactions (either income or expense) to particular projects. Reports
can then be filtered showing those items specifically related to the project you are wanting to control,
extending so far as to reflect a profit or loss report by project.

Sales and Purchase Order Entry

Maintain and control outstanding orders, processed orders and back orders. This module is fully integrated
into Sage Evolution’s Inventory, Receivables, Payables and General Ledger modules.
• Print and process purchase and sales orders, and then fill these orders in part or in whole, keeping
track of outstanding orders.
• Reserve stock quantities for customers when they place an order.
• Print picking slips and delivery notes.
• Capture purchase orders in the supplier’s currency and the system converts the values into your
currency at the exchange rate you specify.
• Create purchase orders automatically using the re-order fields on the inventory records.
• Create quotes and convert into sales orders once confirmed.
• Powerful reports help you manage outstanding and overdue orders.
• Committed Spend
• Pricing Matrix
• Volume Discounts
• Email PO to Supplies
Sage Evolution Add-on modules

The use of the MS-SQL database makes Sage Evolution scalable, supporting an unlimited number of
concurrent users. In addition, the growth of your business may demand the ability to add new functionality
to your accounting system. By using Sage Evolution as the core engine, you can add various modules to
cater for industry-specific requirements. Developed within the Evolution Framework, these add-on modules
offer complete seamless integration with the core system, as well as a common interface and user
experience. Furthermore, all components within the Sage Evolution Framework™ utilize a MS-SQL
database ensuring that all your business data resides in one central database.

Account Consolidations
Integrating with Receivables, this module allows for the separate invoicing of branches, but with the
added functionality of printing one customer statement at a consolidated head office level. This is
particularly useful when you wish to keep track of a group customer with a head office, or where you
need to capture sales made to the individual branches, but then present a consolidated statement to
your customer's head office.

Annuity Billing
Sage Evolution Annuity Billing integrates with both Receivables and Inventory and provides for
repetitive or recurring invoices on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. You can specify contract
periods, design recurring invoice templates or simply set up base amounts to be charged to your
customers periodically. It is a flexible module that allows you to customise it according to your
business’s specific requirements.

Advanced Procurement
Supply chain management can be regarded as one of the most heavily regulated and aggressively
audited fields in the public sector. This requires a business software solution that caters for both
operational functionality and statutory compliance. The Advanced Procurement module is a feature rich
add-on module, seamlessly integrating with the Evolution core. It allows you to create and approve
requisitions, request and evaluate quotations and place purchase orders with preferred suppliers. This
module allows you to establish credibility in the marketplace with your respective suppliers and
stakeholders. Care has been taken to keep abreast of the ever-changing regulatory environment,
ensuring compliance with PFMA, MFMA and PPPFA prescripts.

Manage your requests for quotations from suppliers and allow the system to help you choose the most
appropriate supplier quote based on criteria set up by you. Analyse your supply chain and manage your
supplier’s performance on a rotational basis, by sector or specified supplier criteria. Fully integrated
with Sage Evolution CRM Premium all movements are logged against incidents. Workflows and
escalations can be configured to create efficiencies and automate purchasing processes.

Bank Statement Manager

This module allows for the cash book to be electronically populated when a bank statement is imported
where large volumes of transactions are processed. Once verified, the information can be updated to a
cash book batch and then to the general ledger. The bank statements are acquired by using a download
facility that’s provided by each of the four major banks in South Africa (ABSA, First National Bank,
Standard Bank, Nedbank). Supported formats include OFC, CSV and ASCII.

The advantages of using this module include the instant processing and coding of accounts once the
initial process of assigning recurring coding has taken place; and the process of reconciliation and
account coding is virtually guaranteed. Another benefit exists for transactions where the codes have
been assigned as per the relevant accounts. Codes need not be assigned a second time – only new
transactions have to be coded in the months to follow.

Bill of Materials
Designed for the manufacturing and assembly environment, this module allows you to create assembly
sheets (or Bills as they are commonly known) detailing each component making up the completed item.
Completed items can be manufactured before they are sold or you can simply invoice the completed
item and Sage Evolution will manufacture the item on-the-fly, where-upon the sub-components will be
drawn from stock.

You can manufacture items in a single operation or, for more complex manufacturing and for processes
that occur over a significant time period, you can work on an open manufacturing process over time.

Delivery Management
Businesses that manage large items or quantities of inventory items from invoicing to on premise
deliveries can now easily manage their processes from dispatch to the customer. The Delivery module
seamlessly integrates into Sage Evolution’s Retail Point of Sale, Invoicing and Sales Order modules
allowing for items to be flagged for collection or delivery at time of sale. All items flagged as delivery
are updated electronically into the Delivery module where the warehouse manager can then control
the dispatching of inventory.

Branch Accounting
Organisations which have legal entities in multiple locations may encounter difficulties in optimising
operational efficiencies and control within their various branches. Branch Accounting simplifies and
streamlines business processes and transactions between all of these entities.

Branch Accounting enables bi-directional synchronisation and consolidation of data. Information can
now be shared, consolidated and saved on both the centralised system at the head office as well as at
branch level. For example, all financial, inventory and pricing data is always up-to-date and consistent
across branches. Product prices can be changed at head office level and automatically pushed to all
branches.

Branch Accounting includes the ability to transact at local level even if the ADSL lines or virtual private
network become unavailable. In addition, any potential loss of data due to fire or theft will be kept to
a minimum, as regular consolidation and replication will house data at head office over and above any
off-site backup processes. Data for a particular branch can be restored and sent to the relevant branch
within hours of the loss.

Debtors Manager
Management seldom have time to focus on debtors. Meeting with staff and going through the age
analysis will show the amounts outstanding, but not the reasons why the amounts are outstanding, nor
will it show you the expected amounts to be collected. Collectors will try to track payment progress and
the reasons for late or non-payment, and may write down cryptic clues on the age analysis which only
they can interpret. If they are recording the information on a spreadsheet, they may save that
spreadsheet in a place that is only known to themselves.

There is no central place for management to extract the reasons behind the late payments, and
management therefore have to rely on their collectors to share the information when requested.
Tracking debtors trends to establish what the common reasons are for late payment becomes difficult,
and cash flow planning is then based on general payment trends rather than actual customer promises
to pay.

Knowing the reasons for late or non-payment is important, as is tracking the agreed outcome and
ensuring that arranged terms are adhered to. If a debtor is permitted to delay payment repeatedly, it
becomes increasingly difficult to collect the amounts due. Collectors may not have an adequate manual
system of their own, and can lose track of when a debtor promised to pay, or what actions they needed
to take in order to collect the money, making it difficult for management to generate timeous and
accurate cash flow forecasts that can be relied upon.

The Debtors Manager module solves these challenges effectively.

Credit Risk Management

Integrating with Receivables, Sage Evolution Credit Risk Management helps you manage your customer
credit risk through a step-by-step process. Your customer will complete a credit risk application form in
order for you to assess his/her potential credit-worthiness before granting them any credit. It will
generate the credit application form and run the data through a scoring system giving you a credit-
worthiness result on your potential customer. A passing score will see a new account being opened. A
failing score will request guarantees or security against granting credit.

It will also generate standard legal documentation based on the type of business you are operating.
The following documentation, amongst others, is included:

- Terms and conditions of sale.

- Credit application forms.
- Both ‘soft’ and ‘final’ demand letters.
- Power of attorney forms.

Sage Pastel Intelligence Reporting - Standard & Advanced

We have combined South Africa’s leading accounting software with Microsoft® Excel® and have
produced a reporting tool that revolutionises the way you make decisions in your business!

Sage Pastel Intelligence Reporting is an add-on module that dynamically links to your Sage accounting
data, taking your business beyond standard reporting functionality. You can generate spreadsheets by
simply extracting Sage Accounting data and converting it into an easy-to-read, graphic format. Sage
Pastel Intelligence Reporting retains report formats and makes them available for future use. You also
have instant access to ‘live’ information and that last minute journal no longer impacts your Excel
reporting. Monthly financials account for a large percentage of manual Excel labour.

Sage Pastel Intelligence Reporting offers a customisable pack which provides drill-down functionality.
You can customise the standard set of reports and templates, and create new ones. It gives you
flexibility with the combinations of financial data you choose to report on.
Fixed Assets
South African Company Law requires that you keep a register of your business' fixed assets as part of
its accounting records. However, managing your company’s fixed assets can be tedious and time-
consuming. Fixed assets are physical items such as desks, computers, cars, machinery, etc which you
acquire to run your business. As you use assets, they depreciate or become obsolete. You can legally
expense depreciation in your accounts for tax purposes.

The Sage Evolution Fixed Assets module automates all these processes for you. Once you provide the
initial information, the system takes over and manages your assets for you. One of the realities of fixed
assets processing is that companies frequently change depreciation rules as legislation allows and as
company policy changes. Some changes are retroactive to when you purchased the asset. Sage
Evolution Fixed Assets calculates its values dynamically from the start of each asset’s life, which makes
retroactive changes simple.

Information Alerts
To cater for the move by many businesses to increase staff productivity and become more efficient,
the Information Alerts module is designed to streamline key processes within the business. Information
Alerts allows you to receive notifications based on a set of predefined criteria and take on a more
proactive stance in dealing with exceptions in the business. Information Alerts can be configured to
send out notifications to relevant users via e-mail or CRM (Contact Management) incidents.

These notifications can be setup to notify you on time based intervals, daily, weekly or monthly. It
comes with a set of predefined methods, which the business can utilise to define which criteria they
would like to be aware of for example a client reaching their credit limit.

An action can be for example a notification being generated and sent to the financial manager, who
can then take action. The module currently supports Accounts Receivable and Payables, Inventory and
Job Costing modules.

Sage Inventory Advisor

With the right inventory in the right place at the right time, growing your business has never been
easier with Sage Inventory Advisor – an affordable cloud solution that helps companies to:

- Minimise stock-outs
- Release cash tied up in excess inventory
- Significantly reduce the time spent on planning, forecasting and ordering.

Sage Inventory Advisor can be implemented in just a few hours and is accessible anytime, anywhere.
It requires no local hardware installation and provides worry-free updates and maintenance.

Job Costing
This add-on module lets you invoice jobs to customers. A job card is more powerful than an invoice,
because you can link more types of items besides inventory items in a job. For example, you can
purchase an item directly for use in a job, and you can allocate employee hours from the Payroll module
into a job. You can also invoice a job on a partial basis.
You can allocate costs and measure the profitability of short to medium term jobs. Create an unlimited
number of job cards, with the ability to archive these for future estimates. You can allocate jobs to
projects on a job card basis or a job line basis.

Lot Tracking
Lot Tracking allows you to track several units of a stock item using the same lot or batch number.
Expiry dates and user-defined status allow you to further control stock items. Users can determine what
can be purchased or sold by Lot Status. You cannot sell stock items that have expired. You can track
items simultaneously by Lot Number and by Serial Number.

Manufacturing
This module is an extension of Sage Evolution Bill of Materials. It separates the manufacturing process
into time periods where items being manufactured are transferred into Work In Progress and then into
Finished Goods. In addition this module allows you to:

- See a full audit trail of each manufacturing process.

- Draw stock at the beginning of the manufacturing process, and reverse any unused stock once
the process is complete.
- Change a Bill of Materials without affecting an ongoing manufacturing process that uses the
same Bill of Materials.
- Replace one or more components in an existing process if you need to, and then continue
manufacturing with the new components.
- Create by-products in addition to your main manufactured item .
- Forward plan with the material requirements feature.

Multi-Currency
With Sage Evolution Multi-Currency you can process customer and supplier transactions in their
currency. It allows you to track foreign currency, customer and supplier values in both the foreign and
home currency. You can view balances and transactions in either currency at any time. You can maintain
separate buy and sell rates for each currency. Sage Evolution Multi-Currency maintains a history of
exchange rates so that you can process transactions at earlier dates using the most accurate exchange
rate. When you process customer receipts or supplier payments, Sage Evolution uses the current
exchange rate to calculate any foreign exchange profit or loss, which is automatically posted. In addition
Sage Evolution Multi-Currency allows you to:

- Process and print customer and supplier sales and purchase documents in foreign currency or
home currency.
- Print customer and supplier statements, age analysis and transaction reports using foreign
currency or home currency
- Process foreign currency cashbook transactions.

Multi-Warehousing
This add-on module allows you to keep inventory items in discrete areas, or warehouses. You can use
warehouses for many types of situations:
 - Physical warehouses in different geographic areas.
- Keep raw materials and/or internal parts separate from items you sell.
- Keep track of consignment stock/samples in a separate warehouse.
- Separate obsolete items into a separate warehouse.
- Track demo stock allocated to sales representatives.
- Track costs per warehouse.

Municipal Billing
The Sage Evolution Municipal Billing Solution is an affordable solution that delivers essential operational
information and can create National Treasury reports. It interfaces and updates all billing data directly
into Sage Evolution financials, and updates both the consumer and General Ledger accounts. Expense
control with the Procurement module and Asset management allow for Municipalities to run efficiently.
The system enables municipalities to improve the accuracy and timeliness of billing and, therefore,
substantially improve revenue collection and consumer relationships.

Pricing Matrix
This module adds great flexibility to Sage Evolution’s standard pricing feature. With this module you
can not only create volume-based or time-based price breaks you can specify discounts by customer or
group of customers. In addition you can design unlimited discount variations, such as multiple discounts
per customer per stock item, and discounts per stock group while having the ability to override discounts
on processing invoices.

Point of Sale
Sage Evolution Point of Sale integrates with both Receivables and the Inventory add-on module, while
addressing the practical issues you may encounter within the retail Point-of-Sale environment. It
contains the following features which can assist you with:

- Security parameters
- Tender types (cash, voucher, credit card and cheque)
- Flexible pricing
- Discounting

It supports peripheral devices such as pole display units, cash drawers, slip printers and a bar code
scanner. It is user friendly, while offering you flexibility by allowing for per-till configuration and giving
you powerful reporting features.

Procurement
This module offers a three-tiered process that allows you to precisely manage the numerous purchase
orders in your business and keep control of purchases either for internal purposes or specific projects.
The first tier is the requisition process where the purchase of an item or consumable can be requested
and routed to a head of department for authorisation. The second tier allows purchase orders to be
generated based on configurable rules. Different levels of authorisations can be administered and setup.
The procurement process also validates all purchases against budgets setup in the general ledger. The
third tier allows the purchase order to be converted into a goods received voucher to receipt the
inventory items. Throughout the span of a requisition to purchase order completion, all movements or
comments are logged against incidents in CRM Premium. Workflows and Escalations rules can be
configured to create efficiencies and automate processes ensuring that purchase orders are actioned
on time.

Sage Evolution CRM

Traditionally termed ‘CRM’ or “Contact Management”, Sage Evolution CRM is core to the Sage Evolution
system’s functionality. Sage Sage Evolution CRM has taken the concept of traditional Contact
Management much further by weaving it into the very fibre of the Sage Evolution accounting system,
thus elevating accounting software to its next logical state allowing you to not only capture numbers,
but also what we refer to as business activities. Activity data is integrated and presented together with
the numbers providing a holistic view of your business instead of a numbers only view. This integration
provides you with the ability to control not only your financial situation but your relationships with your
customers, suppliers and employees. Any issue that takes place in a business, and is important enough
to be tracked, is recorded as an Incident in Sage Evolution CRM.

Sage Evolution CRM will track all Incidents to their conclusion or until they are closed off. The Evolution
system stores Incidents even after they have been closed, allowing you to track a history of events as
they occurred, as far back as you wish.

There are two versions of Sage Evolution CRM:

- Sage Evolution CRM Standard contains basic incident tracking. This module must be
purchased in conjunction with the core Sage Evolution accounting system.
- Sage Evolution CRM Premium contains more advanced features such as Sales Force
Automation, Business Gateway, Calendar, Knowledge Base, Workflow processing, Incident
Graphs, Escalations and Contract Invoicing and now also Microsoft Outlook Integration. This
module can be purchased as a stand-alone product.

Retail Point of Sale

Sage Evolution Retail Point of Sale (POS) brings together a fully integrated front office POS and back
office software that meets the needs of SMME retailers for an end-to-end retail management solution.
It has been designed for businesses with high retail volumes and multiple branch locations that require
the flexibility of offline capabilities and branch retail independence.

Easy to use, fast and robust, it is fully and seamlessly integrated with Sage Evolution Accounting and
has a centralised maintenance area which is controlled from head office.

Sage Evolution Retail is an easy to use, robust, keyboard driven application. The solution offers the
ability to generate sales orders, invoices and credit notes all from a single simple interface depending
on user rights or security profiles.

Serial Number Tracking

Sage Evolution Serial Number Tracking allows you to individually track items. For example, if you sold
an item that carries a warranty, you will need to know when you sold the item, to whom you sold the
item so that you know if the item is bought in for repairs, if it is still under warranty or not.
Integrating with Sage Evolution’s Inventory module, Sage Evolution Serial Number Tracking keeps
detailed information on specific inventory items. From purchase to sale, to returns, each item is tracked
uniquely providing you with absolute control over individual inventory items.

Services Manager
If your business deals in the rental and servicing of assets, you may find it difficult to keep track of the
customer letting, repair and maintenance processes involved. Let us assist in streamlining these
processes so that you can work more productively. Our Service Manager module gives you full control
over the scheduling and management of any service asset with the automation of service requests,
tasks and timetables.