LOVE ACCOUNTING?…

We thought not.

All the small processes that keep your manufacturing business moving are often not the most interesting. They’re also pretty time consuming.

You’ve got materials coming in but you don’t quite know what the demand is for your product. Ensuring you’ve got a good ROI is looking like guesswork. It’s all a bit chaotic and needs to be handled.

Fortunately, we have the solution (I mean finding solutions is what we do, after all!)

In this series of posts, we’ll be looking at how Sage 200cloud, our recommended accounting software helps your industry with the nitty gritty.

SAGE ADVICE

If you’ve never come across Sage before or need a refresher here’s a rundown of one of the best business accounting software out there.

Sage is a UK based FTSE 100 company which serves more than 800,000 businesses in the UK and Ireland alone, including more than a third of the other FTSE 100 companies.

Their industry leading software offers specific solutions and add-ons that run alongside businesses to streamline and enhance their processes and help them achieve objectives.

Sage 200cloud is their primary solution to all of the biggest problems faced by SME’s.

Of course, the software solves many universal issues that apply to all sectors of industry but it also provides solutions to problems in specific industries.

Let’s look at some of the great ways using Sage 200cloud enhances the Manufacturing services industry.

COST CONTROL

There’s a lot of costs that go into the manufacturing process.

From materials and energy consumption to labour and other external costs. That’s a lot to keep track of and it’s vital for any manufacturing business to get a handle on this stuff.

In order to cost the products you sell, you’re going to have to track those costs on the shop floor. Effective costing is key to long term business success.

The problem is these figures are hard to track when there’s a lot of them.

Fortunately, the Sage software builds detailed reports of all your costs and allows you to cross examine this with your accounts. All of this can be heavily automated to ensure that cost is always under control!

Also, due to the integration of Office 365 and Excel with the software, any data you already have will integrate seamlessly into the process.

JOB TRACKING

As we’re sure you’re aware, any manufacturing job is a journey of many stages. Different parts of the process are managed by different members of the team and each one concerns a different set of materials and skills.

From a management perspective it’s important to know what’s happening at every stage. You need to have a bird’s eye view of the supply chain; when shipments are coming in, what the inventory looks like and more.

With Sage 200cloud this data is clearly laid out and presented at all times meaning decisions can be made and production downtime can be decreased.

It’s also highly valuable for the team at each stage to know exactly what’s going on but not be bogged down with information that isn’t relevant to them.

Sage 200cloud distributes the right data to the right people and is accessible throughout the company. All employees have varying levels of access to the system meaning complications are hugely reduced and the process as a whole is streamlined.

PLANNING AHEAD

Part of having a handle on the whole process is being able to plan ahead. And this is vital. Manufacturing is all about knowing the demand for that product.

Before handy software it may have been necessary to work out forecasts manually from the data at hand. Not only is this hugely time consuming and potentially unreliable but it may soon be out of date.

Sage 200cloud produces detailed reports based on the current situation and means that you can forecast the extent of material usage. This will help you to hone down what needs to be ordered to a very fine degree.

MANUFACTURING EXCELLENCE

Does this sound like what you need? These features just scratch the surface of what Sage 200cloud can do for you. If you want to find out more, we’d love to hear from you.