Considering quitting my job....

[shoes]

... because of the software I'm being forced to use.

I hate Sage Line 50. It's awesome for accounting I'm sure, but the quotations module is the biggest pile of **** I have ever come across. Also has anyone actually managed to ever import data into Sage successfully? I haven't.

I have been told categorically that I WILL be using Sage whether I like it or not. I have put several alternatives to the Directors, and given a good case for why my particular role cannot be supported by Sage.

They're having none of it. I am being set up to fail.

Is this justified or do you think I'm cutting off my nose to spite my face?

 

[shoes]

I'm not using it for accounting.

That's the problem.

 

[shoes]

You should be happy that you have a job.

I am happy that I have a job, and I was happy with my job until my non-technical bosses took it upon themselves to impose this method of working on me.

I have been applying for jobs quite a lot recently, and also submitted a couple of uni applications. Perhaps this is the kick up the arse I needed.

We'll see.

 

[shoes]

Just make sure you have another job before quitting

Indeed - top notch advice. I wouldn't consider it unless I had a job to go to.

This isn't going to be a snap decision, but it's really getting me down and I take the view life's too short to tow the line like this when there is no need to.

 

[shoes]

I'm an estimator working for an small company providing specific technology to he building services industry.

My job is to provide solutions for building lighting control requirements, cost the solution and then prepare the bids. The problems I have faced with Line 50 so far are as follows:

1. Quotes appear in the order list. There is no way around this according to Sage Support. They have shown me how to filter the list so that all you can see if quotes, or orders, but this is of no use and bids have a specific number format assigned to them e.g. CPALN110410 (year/month/bid no. for that month) whereas orders/invoices etc. are already established using a sequential numbering system.

I tried to manually amend the number so that mine were all 110410, 110411 etc. however this has buggered up the autonumber for the admin dept. working with accounts and invoicing.

2. Following on from 1, it only allows each project/quote number to be sent to one company. This is useless in the bidding process as we usually send quotes for the same project to several contractors. I have bodged this by adding an extra number on the end of the CPALN number (these numbers have been used for project tracking since way before I joined the company). So contractor A gets 1104101, Contractor B gets 1101102 and so on. Most inconvenient for me and everyone else who deals with orders once we've been awarded the job.

3. The contact/address database is not geared up for this at all - let's take contractor A - they have offices in Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow and London. At each office they have say 3 bid managers. Therefore I need to create 12 records of people I need to send to. So far so good. Then I need to assign an 8 character unique reference to each one - this is proving to be a massive headache as I am struggling to remember the codes for each one. Compressing Joe Bloggs of Hurley Palmer Flatt of London into 8 memorable characters is difficult, for example.

4. I cannot seem to break the link between quotations and orders in terms of stock either - if I'm quoting a job which has 100 x product A on and we have 10 in stock it tells me this. Every ******* time. We don't carry a lot of stock, we don't need to. We also only win around 20% of what we bid for at present. Every single bid I'm doing requires a shed load of 'OK' clicks to acknowledge that I'm quoting for something which we don't have enough stock for. Sage Support say I cannot suppress this.

My gripe isn't really with the software itself, it's geared up for a specific set of tasks, and we have no complaints (that I'm aware of) as a company with it. It works just as it should and provides all the MIS anyone could ever wish for.

It's just not geared up for my particular role.

 

[shoes]

We use Sage (not line 50 but we did for years) it's not that hard to import data depending if your version is up to date using the latest version of 50 uses MS SQL server these days so a simple script is all that's needed as long as you understand the system.

I've set up another 'company' on Sage to deal with soley quotations. I was trying to move the stock list across. I managed it just now by exporting to an excel spreadsheet, then manipulating the date so that when I mapped the fields for import it actually worked rather than giving me errors or illegal data or no data. One would imagine that if you export from sage to excel it would import right back in. Apparently not.

What is it your trying to do? Have you looked to see if there are any add-on bits to help with what your doing? (there are add-ons that can import orders for example into the SOP module) Can you not export the info you need into another system just for you to do quotations and then re-import them back as orders/quotations when needed? Really easy to export via the ODBC and import as above. Sounds like you don't fully understand why your company may want to stick with one system.

They want to stick with one system because it's cheap, they told me as much. They want an easy way to track quotes and 'because we've already paid for sage we're using that'. We're not a large company at all, so I can understand the necessity for penny pinching but I don't think allowing me to create my own database in access will topple the company. They already pay me to be here anyway .

I've done full account package migrations before and believe me when I say it's not a simple task and I'd fully understand why a company wouldn't migrate there whole system just to sort out your issue with it's quoting system, I'd tell you to do one as well (and then come up with something to help)

P.S It's only ok for accounting, but it's better than most of the others.

Ha yeah, I see your point. I'm not asking them to migrate their whole system, they have an admin dept who are more than happy with Sage - half the battle here is I'm trying not to disrupt their normal usage of it (see my previous post).

I'm working on this 'second' company idea at the moment, if that doesn't pan out then I'm going to continue using my old excel method and perhaps spending half a day a week data inputting the quotes into Sage by simply using the project module and putting in the bottom line values.

 

[shoes]

Do it, you need the fear. I did it and it's the best thing I ever did (until the raging alcoholism that followed 3 years of unemployment cost me my health). Other than that though, fan bloody tastic.

At my current rate of spending, which would be easy to reign in, I have 5+ years in the bank, not sure I could feel the need to hit the bottle - that's plenty of time to get another job.

As said above it won't be a knee jerk reaction, although I've been looking for other employment already, albeit half heartedly. I did get offered one job but it would have meant relocating to Milton Keynes, not really what I had in mind.

I can battle on with this for a bit, or leave if I really have to - no biggie either way.

With regard to alternatives to Sage 50 - just to clarify, the problem isn't Sage 50, it's what we're attempting to do with it. It's like buying a screw driver and trying to put in a nail - you keep jabbing away at it until you slip and stick it through your thumb - and you're still no further that when you started. Whatever faults Sage 50 has, it won't be me that finds them, not unless I end up in an accounting/admin based role - which I think is fairly unlikely in the foreseeable.