TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR BOTTOM LINE

When it comes to financial management, not all Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions are created equal. Sage X3 software for finance and accounting has been built from the ground up with multi-company and inter-company accounting in mind. Rest assured you’ll have complete oversight of your different business streams, accounts and reporting requirements from a sophisticated finance ERP.

Key Benefits

Sage X3 for complex finance does everything that an ambitious Finance Manager would expect, and much more.

International Tax Compliance

Automate tax calculations and manage reporting and declarations as per the relevant legislation. Manage VAT, BAS, GST and other global tax requirements.

General Ledger

Define for each ledger multiple analytical dimensions that can be shared or specific to several entities, to manage regional, departmental, cost centre, financial metric reporting.

Manage Assets

Manage company assets (owned, leased, rented) including depreciation context and plans. Conform with IFRS16

Journals

Create an unlimited number of journals, choose from pre- defined types or create user-defined templates to automate recurring or reversing journal entries. Attach supplementary notes and explanatory files (spreadsheets etc) to the journal for future auditor analysis.

Reporting

Profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheet, ageing, trial balance and more, with options for creating and designing financial reports.

Dashboards

See at a glance important metrics, analytics information and KPI reporting with lists, charts all customisable and delivered real time.

Expense Management

Define and control expenses linked to purchase requests and employee reimbursements, with electronic approval processes.

Banking Management

Manage bank or cash entries, automate payment processing, inter-site transactions and bank statement reconciliations.

WHY OPT FOR SAGE X3?

  • Sage X3 is made for medium to large businesses, built for genuine integration of information across your organisation to reduce silos, duplication and inefficiency.
  • Comes with built-in financial management KPIs, dashboards and role-based reporting tools for CFOs and Finance Managers as standard.
  • Your choice to deploy in the cloud or on-premise with a fast implantation turnaround and web- based interfaces that are mobile-responsive.
  • Sage and X3 Consulting have a long track record of success, with demonstrated capability in financial management solutions — your project will be managed with competence and care.

DOWNLOAD our Finance guide to find out more about how to gain control over your finance function or contact a member of our team using the contact form.

Or you can take a product tour direct from Sage.

Learn how Sage Business Cloud could give your business the edge

From procurement to warehousing, production, sales, customer service, and financial management, Sage X3 introduces better ways to manage your entire business, on a global scale.

BOM planning

Achieve greater consistency

Sage X3 delivers robust single and multi-level Bill of Materials management to ensure the highest levels of product consistency, quality, and collaboration.

Key capabilities include:
  • Multi-bill of Materials (commercial, production, sub-contracting, etc.)
  • Current Bills of Material
  • Mass maintenance
  • Manage changes on a product and Bill of Materials
  • Version number management (major and minor version)

Shop floor control

Gain efficiency on the shop floor

Sage X3 empowers you to prioritise, track, and manage all aspects of your production leading to improved planning, scheduling, and costing.

Key capabilities include:
  • Collection of labour time
  • Direct labour (setup and run)
  • Indirect labour (breaks and indirect time)
  • Actual and elapsed time
  • Multi-tasking (synchronized or unsynchronized)
  • Automatic breaks
  • Time and attendance (Clock in/out)
  • Indirect Time Entry (Clock in/out)
  • Break Time Entry (Clock in/out)
  • Team Entry
  • Shop Floor Tracking Workbench

Quality control

Keep the quality high

Sage x3 provides the tools and workflow capabilities needed to maintain and retain the highest quality standard, including proactive monitoring through complete product traceability.

Key capabilities include:
  • Batch and sub-batch number management
  • Serial number management
  • Use-by date management
  • Stock status management: accepted, rejected, inspected
  • Re-inspection date management
  • Stock sub-status management
  • Quality control record creation
  • Quality control procedures with analysis request
  • Expiry date management
  • Upstream and downstream traceability management

Project management

Run successful projects

Sage X3 helps you manage successful and profitable projects through their entire lifecycle with robust, integrated project management capabilities.

Key capabilities include
  • Project Work and Product Breakdown Structure (PBS and WBS)
  • Multi-level description of the tasks, preparing the operational and manufacturing process
  • Project Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS)
  • Multi-level description of budgets, facilitating project cost follow-up
  • Employee assignments to various operations
  • Advanced project duplication function
  • Financial follow-up function to monitor the budget and expenses of projects
  • Time entries to enter the time spent on a project at the operation, task, and budget level

Mobile

Access data on the go

Sage X3 introduces a better, more personal user experience with secure web and mobile technology at its core, providing access to the data they need, in an intuitive interface, personalised to their role and preferences.

Key capabilities include:
  • Easy to use and responsive on Android and iOS smartphone and tablet devices
  • Mobile and web deployment enables access to common enterprise data from anywhere and on any device
  • HTML5 interface ensures intuitive browser experience and allows for extensive personalisation by users

DOWNLOAD our Manufacturing guide to find out more or contact a member of our team using the contact form.

Or you can take a product tour direct from Sage.

THE BIG 3 SERIES – FOCUS ON DISTRIBUTION

GAIN A FASTER, MORE EFFICIENT DISTRIBUTION OPERATION

As part of our BIG 3 series, we are focusing on the 3 main issues faced in the distribution industry at this time. Automation key help reduce time and increase efficiency.

The Wholesale and Distribution Industry must be fast and responsive to customer needs, especially the demand is high, requiring reliable and real-time supply chain management. The right distribution software will not only help your business manage these challenges; it will create a seamless efficiency across all your business functions.

Automate your business processes and boost efficiency with a comprehensive enterprise solution designed to meet the specific needs of wholesale distributors and manufacturing distribution arms. Sage X3 for Distribution provides in-depth capabilities for every area of your business, including customer order fulfillment, CRM, warehousing, data collection, inventory control, purchasing and financial management.

 

Fully Integrated Distribution Functionalities

Sage X3 distribution application integrates fully with sales, inventory, purchasing, CRM, and accounting functions for full control and tracking of business-wide activities.

Inventory Management

Understand all aspects of your inventory, product profitability, order to cash, and warehouse operations so you can stock, pick, and fulfill orders more efficiently.

Quality & Compliance

Improve real-time visibility across the global supply chain to ensure transparency for all stakeholders–from suppliers to customers.

Mobile Apps

Empower a mobile sales force with visibility into customers, stocks, past purchases, quotes, and promotions through any connected device.

Workflow Management

Streamline operations and enhance information flow with both employees and business partners.

Business Intelligence

Promote faster, more effective management reporting and decision-making with real-time, embedded business intelligence analytics and user-defined dashboards.

Integrated, industry-specific operations in real time

Sage X3 ERP is a fully integrated, pre-configured software solution that ensures consistent, cross-functional use across your distribution business. Its singular system and database account for all users involved in operating your business, so you can easily manage distribution, CRM, warehouse and accounting functions.

The advanced planning and control capabilities of Sage X3 use real-time and historical information to help track inventory levels and costs, optimize product mix and reduce waste. Embedded support for multiple languages, currencies, companies, sites and legislations simplifies international business management.

If you’d like to know more about how your business could boost efficiency and increase customer fulfilment, then talk to us or download some more information from our business guide.

For manufacturers, embracing mobile technology is a critical step towards full digital transformation. Using apps on phones, tablets and other mobile devices enables your firm to become much more efficient and to use real-time data to make better decisions faster.

Smart factories are using revolutionary technologies to increase productivity and drive revenue. These include cloud and hybrid computing, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, augmented reality, and the industrial Internet of Things (IoT).

Mobile devices are at the heart of these technologies as they can enable your managers and workers to access them with ease, and at scale, to create an agile, responsive and collaborative organisation.

A key aspect of this revolution is improvements in connectivity in the form of next generation 5G internet and low power wide area networks (LPWAN).

In conjunction with technologies such as the IoT and AI, this connectivity will become an essential competitive tool for your manufacturing firm as it joins together and integrates all your resources, whatever your location, to provide powerful data and insights and enable rapid decision making.

But the move to mobile technology also brings challenges, such as:

  • How to choose the right hardware and apps from the huge range available
  • How to integrate hardware and apps seamlessly with other technology in your business
  • How to go fully mobile with disrupting production.

Read this article for answers on these three points and advice to help you assess how mobile technology can improve processes at your manufacturing firm.

Why manufacturers should use mobile technology

A survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that manufacturing leaders think cloud and mobile will contribute the most value to their organisations out of all technologies.

The results revealed that 41% of leaders said they see cloud and mobile technology as contributing the most, compared to 31% for the rest of the sample. Leaders also think IoT (39%) and big data (39%) will be important value creators.

Mobile technology gives you and your team access to real-time data and insights to make decisions on the factory floor, when meeting customers, while travelling, or when working from home.

In manufacturing, productivity is measured in seconds, so your workers need to analyse information in real time and solve critical challenges immediately.

Furthermore, your plant managers need visibility into every aspect of the manufacturing process, from supply chain logistics to order fulfilment.

Mobile technology brings this transparency, leading to more streamlined operations and increased productivity as workers can identify problems and resolve them much more quickly.

Such technology can enable them to make faster decisions about repairs, replacements, troubleshooting, supplies, sales, improvements, innovations and much more.

Richard Hagan, managing director at Crystal Doors, says: “My mobile phone is the most important tool for work, meetings and leisure.

“When I wake up in the morning, everything is at my fingertips, including dashboards for the overnight shift’s activities; monies arrived and sent with my banking app; and sales from our customer relationship management (CRM) application.

“I am relaxed because I know I can be up to speed and efficient from the moment I walk into work.”

Benefits of mobile technology

The potential benefits of mobile technology for your manufacturing firm are extremely varied and wide ranging.

To give just a few examples, continuously tracking quality of manufactured items via mobile technology reduces manual effort and waste. Mobile apps enable your finance team to send quotes to customers immediately and fulfil orders more quickly.

And mobile devices and augmented reality are revolutionising training, boosting the skills of workers. For example, augmented reality can analyse and map out machine parts, to create a real time, visual instruction manual.

Hagan says having real-time information on his mobile phone enables him to make better decisions and underpins his firm’s dependability in an uncertain world.

“My mobile apps have evolved to be critical for real-time data access,” he says. “While on the phone, talking to a supplier or customer, I need information in seconds to decide my outcome. With one hand, I have easy access to get the information I need.”

The demand for rapid data, calculated and presented anywhere at any time means that the relevance of quarterly targets, monthly figures and even daily spreadsheets are fading into history, adds Hagan.

“Desktops and laptops are not multi-functional enough,” he says. “Near field communication [NFC], quick response [QR] codes, and picture and text recognition are required in one mobile piece of equipment.

“QR codes save time looking up websites. NFC allows data to be presented and captured from a single tap on a tag. Screen mirroring my phone to a larger monitor allows me to present for any client, pulling information from the cloud.

“Clients expect me to have all the answers in a moment. Mobile technology allows my company to stay informed and make smarter decisions more quickly and with more certainty.”

Steps towards adopting mobile technology

The first step to choosing mobile technologies is to make sure they fit your current and future needs as closely as possible.

In the past few years, many apps have been designed specifically for the needs of manufacturers, equipped, for example, with dimensioning and thermal imaging cameras and integrated barcode scanners.

Purpose-built, rugged mobile devices are also now available meaning manufacturers can use the technology anywhere.

This tailoring can help your company increase efficiency, maximise output and sharpen your competitive edge in areas such as predictive maintenance, inventory management, quality control, and operational efficiency.

Another key factor when adopting mobile technology is to make sure your provider is a well-known, trusted partner and that it can support a wide variety of applications.

Security is also key.

Every mobile device is a security perimeter, regardless of its location globally. Forward-thinking manufacturers are therefore treating every sensor, monitoring device, and mobile device as a threat surface, and applying a zero-trust approach to security.

This approach will give your workers the confidence to use the devices to their full potential and enable access to trusted customers and distributors. Having 24/7 support for these devices is also essential for seamless operations.

Look at which processes mobile technology can improve

To maximise the benefits of mobile technology, your manufacturing leaders need to look carefully at their workflows and invest strategically in innovative mobile applications.

The way you apply the technology depends entirely on the needs of your company. From inventory management and shipment to delivery, logistics and workforce tracking, almost anything can be controlled using mobile apps.

Your workers can also use them to coordinate supply chains, track and balance production timelines, quickly send quotes to customers, and check delivery and order fulfilment.

Choose the right apps

There are a huge range of manufacturing apps to choose from, so again it depends completely on your needs and preferences.

Hagan says: “My first top app was linked to trackers in all the vans that give me and my customers accurate information on their movements.

“Money movement is also crucial for small and medium-sized organisations, and my app that shows who has paid us, as well as sales and payment pipelines, helps keep me sane during a busy schedule.”

Use apps across the company to avoid silos

Hagan says digital manufacturing keeps production in his company as efficient as possible but it must be done in an integrated fashion.

From his phone, he can manage suppliers, customers and the factory production needs for each division.

“Anything outside set parameters flags my managers’ attention, and further preferences allow me to keep informed about any changes,” he says. “But to do this efficiently, it needs a single platform that displays an overview of real-time activities seamlessly.

“Manufacturing leaders who have departments, silos of information, and separate platforms for data collection and manipulation are holding their company back.

“The cost of turning off all our phones would be insane to contemplate. But the cost of not having a single access point from the cloud today is also as limiting, especially if your competition has adopted technology.”

Use modern business management software that connects with mobile technology

Mobile technology must also be able to integrate with your company’s other software. For example, to maximise efficiencies, manufacturers must use modern business management software that works with a wide range of mobile devices and apps.

It should also be easy to customise your business software to your mobile needs.

As Hagan says: “Margins for manufacturing are smaller than ever before. The ability to plan in new sales from a client, and do it cost-effectively, depends on my accountancy platform.

“My accounting app along with other critical apps lets me glide through information updates, messages and actions immediately.”

Conclusion on saving time and money

The mobile technologies already available can save your manufacturing firm huge amounts of time and money. But they are just the beginning of what you can achieve as the technology and connectivity evolves.

For example, AI will soon be a fully integrated part of the manufacturing process. AI-powered robots will take care of many aspects of the process as well as appointments and administrative tasks while also keeping your workers and managers better informed than ever before and ensuring maximum efficiencies.

As Hagan adds: “The technology for Industry 4.0 has begun. As AI, machine learning and bots become mainstream, mobile phones and apps as work tools will be as important as the employees themselves.

“Each holds value and neither can work effectively without the other. With my phone, I hold the knowledge, power and control.”

Further resource can be found here on Sage’s website with access to further resource and downloadable information:

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Checklist: Fives steps to make smarter business decisions

Checklist: Fives ways to be more efficient and productive

Implementing Sage X3 for your business to ensure business continuity and remote access for all your employees.

Plan now to ensure your business stays connected

These days it seems like everything and everyone is “on the cloud.” However, it is important to know what that means before implementing Sage X3

There are undeniable benefits to hosting your Sage X3 in the cloud, including instant access to real-time customer data for remote workers, reports, and analysis, via PC, laptop, smartphone or tablet. Remote workers can access this information anywhere and anytime with internet connection capabilities. Also, users can access the same features, functionalities as a Sage X3 deployed on-premise, but without the cost associated with building an in-house server or the hassle of maintaining the backup of huge data, or dealing with its security issues.

But as moving to the cloud has its own challenges, businesses need to understand what it entails. Our Sage X3 cloud experts will cover five cloud-clarifying concepts you need to know before moving your Sage X3 to the cloud to help run your business, secure your data, enable your company’s growth goals and ensure business continuity in these uncertain times.

  • Know Your Services – Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
  • Know Your Service Level – What support can be offered for Sage X3 customers?
  • Know Your Deployment Options – Private, Public, Virtual, or Hybrid Cloud options
  • Understand Your Cost – How to retain your investment (ROI)

For more on information on implementing Sage X3 to the cloud for your business, Contact Us.