September 2021 Tip Of The Month

September 2021 News & Tips

NEWS		SAGE 50		EXCEL
Remote Data Access Survey New support for Paid Family Leave deductions in v2022		Customer Ship-To Addresses		Indenting within a cell or adding space between columns

News

Remote Data Access Survey Question: Sage 50cloud offers certain cloud connected features that aren't available in traditional Sage 50. The most prominent one is Remote Data Access (formerly named Sage Drive). It allows you to share your Sage 50 data with users outside your office who have Sage 50cloud installed on their PCs (such as your CPA). For many users, this feature could solve a lot of problems, especially if you now have employees working from home. So far I've been hesitant to recommend it because of reports I've gotten from some users. But nobody contacts me just to say that everything is working perfectly, they only call when the have a problem. I want to give Remote Data Access a fair chance and I want to make sure I'm giving the best possible advice to my customers. So I'm asking all of you to answer this quick survey question by clicking on the answer that best describes your experience (or lack experience) with the Remote Data Access feature in Sage 50.

Have you used Sage Remote Data Access (formerly Sage Drive)?
A - Yes and it works great for us!
B - Yes. The occasional small glitches are worth it to have a convenient remote access solution.
C - Yes we tried it but had too many problems to continue using it.
D - No, we have not tried it but are interested in it
E - No, because we already have a different remote access solution
F - No, we don't need remote access

Paid Family Leave: Version 2022 has improved support for Paid Family Leave deductions. If you are in a state with a Paid Family Leave payroll deduction and have already set up those deductions, you should read the knowledgebase entry State Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) enhancements in Release 2022.0. It contains links to specific instructions for each state. Since the exact steps can vary from state to state I won’t try to cover it in this newsletter. But if you need assistance you can contact me directly.

Steve Collins
IQ Accounting Solutions LLC
918-851-9713
scollins@iqaccountingsolutions.com
www.iqaccountingsolutions.com

A complete archive of these tips is available at http://www.iqaccountingsolutions.com/blog

Sage 50/Peachtree Tip - Customer Ship-To Addresses

I get a lot of questions about customer ship-to addresses. They are actually very simple to set up and use. The problem is that ever since Sage "improved" the customer contacts section of Maintain Customers in version 2010, it isn't obvious how to set up the addresses properly. The key is that every ship-to address must be associated with a contact before it can be used on an invoice, sales order, quote, proposal or credit memo.

Go to the Maintain menu and choose Customers/Prospects. Select a customer at the Customer ID field. Then click on the Contacts tab. Since every address needs a contact, start by clicking the New Contact button at the bottom of the window. If you there’s not a person you want as a contact for this address, just enter something like Ship To 1 as the contact’s first name. Enter the company’s name in the Company Name field if you want it to print along with the ship-to address on invoices and other forms. Also make sure that Use Company Name/Contact Name in the ship-to address is set correctly. (Hint: if you entered “Ship To 1” as the contact name, you want to select Company Name here.) If you want this address to be entered automatically on new sales forms, check the box next to This is the default ship-to contact for this customer. The remaining fields are optional.

If the ship-to address has already been set up, but you haven’t been able to use it, select it now from the Address drop down box. Otherwise, click the Edit Addresses button. Enter the address on the first available line. If you track sales tax, be sure to enter the appropriate sales tax ID for this address. Click OK to save your entry. Now, back at the Contacts tab, click the Save Contact button.

On any sales form, (quote, proposal, sales order, invoice, or credit memo) the new address will now be available in the Ship To drop down list. If you set it as the default ship-to for that customer, it will automatically be entered at Ship To.

Excel Tip - Create Space Between Columns by Using Indent

Have you ever wished you had more space between columns on a spreadsheet, or between the cell contents and the cell border? Some people resort to inserting narrow empty columns between columns of data. But that interferes with the use of timesavers like keyboard navigation shortcuts or Fill Right, and doesn’t help if you’re using cell borders.

A better solution is to use the Cell Indent feature. This lets you indent cell contents from either the left or right edge of a cell. This is similar to the idea of cell padding when formatting a table in a word processor. You could also think of it as being able to adjust margins within a cell.

There are two ways to apply the indent. For either method, start by selecting the cell or cells you want to format. To select entire columns, simply click on the first column heading and then drag to select the range of columns you want. Then follow one of these two methods.

OPTION 1 - Formatting Button on the Ribbon
On the Home tab of the ribbon, find the Alignment section. There, along with the Align Left, Center, and Align Right buttons, you’ll see a button with a left arrow (Decrease Indent) and another with a right arrow (Increase Indent). Click the Increase Indent button one or more times to get the desired amount space from the cell edge. If you go too far, use the Decrease Indent button.

OPTION 2 - Format Cells Window
Right click on the cells you selected and choose Format Cells. At the Horizontal setting, select Left (Indent) or Right (Indent). Then use the Indent setting to select the number of spaces you want the cell contents to be indented. Click OK to save your changes.

If you want to know how to get space between the column heading underlines see my previous post about Accounting Underline.

If you know other Sage 50/Peachtree users, do them (and me) a favor and pass this along to them. If you are someone that this has been passed on to, and would like to be added to my email list, you can subscribe for free at www.iqaccountingsolutions.com/signup.html or send me an email at newsletter@iqaccountingsolutions.com. If you need to change your email address or would like to unsubscribe, you can use the links at the end of this email.

Steve Collins
IQ Accounting Solutions LLC
918-851-9713
10611 E 17th Place
Tulsa, OK 74128