Newcastle-based Sage Group Plc and subsidiary Sky Software have announced a new range of accounting software products intended to enhance the existing range, for which they claim a 70% market share in the UK. The IBM-compatible Sterling range offers certain facilities as standard that were previously optional, and some new features to make the accountant’s life easier. The six packages have been given the fairly self-explanetory titles of Bookkeeper, the entry-level accounting package for the small business, which can accommodate 1,000 sales and purchase ledger accounts; Accountant, a package aimed at the growing business, which offers more financial control than Bookkeeper; Accountant Plus, which can automatically design invoices using data in stored control files; Financial Controller, an order processing and stock control system; Payroll II, a pay calculation and printing package which can handle 72 employees; and Job Costing, a cost analysis product for larger firms. The first four follow an upgrade path designed to keep up with the requirements of a growing business; with the exception of Bookkeeper, all are available in single user or network versions.

Over 40 improvements

Sage claims to have incorporated over 40 improvements on the old BusinessWise range, including a free-text invoicing facility, a year-end routine which sorts out profit and loss accounts for the year, and a feature called Periscope, a window facility enabling users to view specific information taken from elsewhere without leaving the program they are working on. Meanwhile, Sky Software, acquired by Sage last October, is announcing two new modules for its Skymaster 4 accountancy package, whose fourth generation programming language Skybase has recently been improved. The new Version 4.3 invoicing module enables the user to produce invoices without using either the existing sales order processing or stock control modules, while the new cash book module can take cheques and cash transactions from one source and use them to produce various sales, purchase and nominal ledger transactions; the module accepts foreign currency transactions and bank accounts. A conversion utility is offered to existing Sage users to convert to SkyMaster. As single-user products, the Sterling range comes in at UKP100 for Bookkeeper, UKP250 for Accountant, UKP400 for Accountant Plus, UKP200 for Payroll II and Job Controller, and UKP500 for Financial Controller; for network versions add on another 25% of the recommended single-user prices listed above; existing Sage users will be offered discounts on all these. Interested parties will hardly be able to miss the products: Sage, which says it has already received UKP250,000 worth of advanced orders, plans to spend UKP350,000 advertising the immediately available Sterling range next month, and UKP225,000 on Sky Master, available from October, over the next two.