Sarand Services

Background

Sarand partners with Paul Donno & Co, a leading implementation and training agency for the Sage range of products in East Anglia. Through this relationship we are able to assist clients in understanding the potential of their Sage products, particularly Line 50, and to provide enhancements to those products where their business has additional requirements that are not directly supported by the core product.

This approach allows us to implement tailored functionality to help our clients gain competitive advantage without having to build entire systems from scratch.

Case Studies

Sarand has successfully deployed solutions that fulfill a range of customer requirements, including the following:

Ref	Issue	Resolution
1.	Sales orders cannot be raised for products where the components are out of stock, but it is time consuming to determine which component needs to be ordered.	A stand-alone application sat alongside Sage allows a read only view onto stock that lists components and their stock level for a selected product.
2.	Can we allow additional PCs to have enquiry access to the data without investing in a networked copy of the application?	A separate application with limited read-only functionality can be deployed across the network and provide a real-time view onto the application's data.
3.	The sales price for certain products need to be derived using a variety of methods: FIFO, LIFO, average stock cost etc.	The product information can be enhanced through an external application that tracks stock receipts and calculates the sales price that can then be used on the order.
4.	We expend a lot of effort trying to keep other systems up to date with customer and product data stored in Sage.	An intermediate application can automatically track relevant information in Sage and either extract it in a suitable format on demand, or more effectively, integrate with other applications to ensure that they are kept 100% up to date.

Approach

The Sage products can be extended using a variety of methods and Sarand will help you determine the best combination to suit your needs. Each of these is complimentary with each other and the simpler techniques can be evolved to encompass the more advanced enhancements:

	Sage Configuration Tailoring of internal settings and options to optimize the application and design business specific reports. Version 9 of Sage Line 50 now provides a much wider variety of options that can be customized.
Read-only Application Introduction of a read-only application alongside to provide enhanced views onto the data. Used as a companion to the core package, this technique can simplify many tasks that involve complex data searches.
	Extended Data Content A separate application that reads data from the Sage database and is able to enhance the data content through its own local database. Views can combine information from both systems and the content is kept in line due to its proximity to the core product.
Shared data access Add in some user security and profiles to personalize their use of the system and you have a product that can be deployed across your network and give wide-spread access to the core database.
	Automated Data Transfer An intermediate application acts as a conduit for data, enabling other applications to be kept automatically up to date with the contents of the Sage database and to return data updates to the core product, eg. sales orders raised on a website. The application determines the correct format and transmission method for the data depending on the target system.