BOM component descriptions in Sage 50 Pro?

[TobyHS]

Has anyone found a way to get a Sales Order Layout containing BOMs (assembled products) to display component Descriptions as well as the component Stock Codes and Quantities? The Expressions Editor and what little Sage Help is offered gives no clues at all.

It seems insane to have an order confirmation or quote go out that omits to tell the customer in plain English exactly what is included in the bundle! :mad:

[johndon68]

I think you may be fighting a losing battle with this one.

The problem is that the STOCK table holds the stock codes for the component parts but not the descriptions for the parts as, from a database perspective, there is no need to store the description as, if you have one you can usually get the other.

Whilst, generally, you could overcome with by adding a join to the STOCK table, the issue is that the STOCK table is already in use on the layout so cannot be added for a second time - I'm not 100% certain on this but I can't find a way to do it.

John

[TobyHS]

Thanks John, I was beginning to feel very stupid as this seems such an obvious thing to need to do - stock codes on their own are seldom much use in picking lists or for checking Sales Deliveries against. Without the double check of a description they certainly increase the risk of errors at both ends.

However, although it is incredibly messy and long-winded, I've just found that by creating a join between every STOCK.COMPONENT_CODE field and its own dedicated STOCK table (each uniquely aliased COMPONENT_01, _02 etc) I can insert and display a DESCRIPTION field for each component and so also therefore come up with a total weight for the assembly etc.

The alternative of course would have been to code the whole thing from scratch, but that would be even more time consuming...

Toby

[johndon68]

its own dedicated STOCK table (each uniquely aliased COMPONENT_01, _02 etc)

That's the bit I was stuck on, I didn't realise that you could have 2 instances of the STOCK table.

John

[TobyHS]

It's a rare solution that does not generate another problem! :cool:

Now when I insert the new COMPONENT_01.DESCRIPTION field into the layout's COMPONENT_1 section it displays the BOM sub-headings and all the empty component sections in every product even if it's not a BOM!

Any idea how to supress this redundant display in the SOPBOM.layout?

Clearly Sage's default expression for the 2nd ITEM_NUMBER footer:
'STOCK.COMPONENT_CODE_1 <> "" AND SOP_ITEM.STOCK_CODE NOT IN ("M","S1","S2","S3")' [whatever those are?]
does it for the original BOM sub-headings 'STOCK.COMPONENT_CODE_1' and
'SOP_ITEM.QTY_ORDER * STOCK.COMPONENT_QTY_1' fields?

It seems that placing even an empty new field in any one of the BOM sections forces it to override that effect, but that does not happen with a literal value. Anyone any ideas how supress this?

[Larissa]

How to enter data in BOM is SAGE-50 Professional? I have entered products already and have list of BOM in Excel. Can't find any help/manual

[TobyHS]

Hi Larissa
Since my search for help with Sage's form designer, I've set to and developed a new application called Profit Margin Pro which does all the BoM thing in a much more intuitive way and lets you price, discount and maintain those BoMs afterwards.

Sage does do BoMs, but actually makes quite a hen's breakfast of the whole process as far as practical useability is concerned.

PMPro is in fact the only prod on the market that does BoMs and all their pricing, picking list, delivery note stuff in a way that normal humans can underdstand, and that also fully integrates with Sage 50 Pro so that it can pass the data in both directions.

I did this because in fact the way Sage handles BoMs is very crude and almost impossible to update afterwards in relation to pricing the assembled products and maintaining those prices, especially if you have lots of BoMs and want to embed BoMs in BoMs etc (THE big issue).

PMPro has been in use with a small group of development clients for over six months now and is doing a great job. I've also added Product and Customer Account management to the program as well as Stock Keeping and an Epos system (Suppliers and purchasing is to follow).

We will go into the Beta stage in January so if you'd like more info and/or to be part of the Beta group (no charge yet) just email me at 'toby at ProfitMarginPro dot com'. If not I'll be more than happy to walk you through setting up BoMs in Sage now and you can always look at PMPro later on if you want to.

However I have not yet written the Excel-PMPro data import linkage, and to check and process the data before passing it on to Sage, but if that's what you're looking to do I'll be happy to bring that forward.

Regards
Toby

[johndon68]

How to enter data in BOM is SAGE-50 Professional? I have entered products already and have list of BOM in Excel. Can't find any help/manual

BOMs cannot be imported into Sage 50 using the standard import routines albeit there are some 3rd party import program available that do allow for such an import.

John

[TobyHS]

Hi John

Great to chat again after all this time!

Please see my reply to Larissa. Profit Margin Pro actually takes all the BoM and pricing stuff out of Sage into a much easier to use desktop application that can sit along Sage i.e. so if all one wants to do is to manage assembled products and their costing/pricing more easily while still using Sage as the main application, that's fine, but actually PMPro is moving towards a much more comprehensive and more intuitive working application that allows the use to focus on Sage's management accounting functions which are of course its main strengths.

It's documents are also generated in HTML so that eventually PMPro's own form designer will be fully integrateable with a business's emails, website, preferrred HTML authoring package etc.

At probably only around £165 + VAT for 5-user accounts, PMPro will end up as a highly affordable package.

Regards
Toby

[johndon68]

Hi Toby,

Out of curiosity, are you writing back to Sage using CSV file import or via the SDO?

John

[TobyHS]

Hi John

No. CSVs are too cumbersom, too limiting and the user might want to update Sage real-time, so I rejected that route right at the start.

All data exchanging is done directly via the Sage Data Objects route which also means that PMPro can handle data more intelligently and supplement it when necessary e.g. in PMPro discount matrices are stored to 3pd to avoid that very annoying 1p variance that can happen in Sage (and be magnified with multiples) when you've got a published price list with carefully rounded prices.

PMPro also has a very sophisticated Cascader so that when the price of a component is changed it automatically searches the entire database for all related BoMs and matrices to update them following user-set calculation rules e.g. maintain previous margin%, maintain previous ex-VAT prices, round to 5p etc etc. And different rules can be set for each of the 5 discount matrix sets or any number of 'Depts' i.e. classes of customer.

PMPro also has a Batch Pricer so that sets of products can be changed either in single steps or automatically using any pricing metrics.

That would never be possible using CSVs although early models were trialled in Excel and so I could have done so.

I'm using the same methodology for an Actinic-Sage link that I'm about to begin this week and which will overcome some of the limitations of Actinic's own CSV-based linker.

Unlike Actinic PMPro has been written around Sage's data structures so that we've got exact field and data-type matching even if PMPro's database structures are more 'modern' e.g. discount matrices and BoM are in separate relational tables.

Regards
Toby

[Larissa]

Hi Toby!
Finally, someone is kind enough to help the beginner. THANK YOU.
I'll be happy to join the group. I understood that your program is working on SAGE platform or it is completely independent? My boss wants everything "under one roof", if possible. What would you suggest? Will email you as well.

Regards, Larissa

[TobyHS]

Hi Larissa

You're welcome! We've all been stuck at some time and have got through eventually with the help of a few generous souls on the web so one gives back in return. Anyway over the next few years businesses that coorperate for mutual success will be the survivors...

Yes the 'under one roof' is VERY important and has been the underpinning criterion in the development of PMPro. Application proliferation is bad news.

You can use PMPro as much or as little as you like in support of Sage as the central business 'data machine', or some might not initiially have Sage but want something to improve their management of products and pricing and then later bring Sage in mainly for management accounting. Others might nibble at using an accounting package by starting with Sage Instant and then wish to upgrade. Flexibility and user choice is the key.

Also PMPro is going to be a 'wot it says on the tin' product so we won't be including a raft of supplemental features to edge the price up or charging annual support or upgrade fees. We don't actually feel that busainess need such hassle and software is only just a tool like any other.

So you can reassure you boss that if she/he wants Sage to be at the core, it can still be. All we've done is to take some of the features Sage does not do very well and provided an environment which sits along Sage (if you want it to) that'll do Sage's work more easily (and better). It also works with whatever version of Sage 50 Pro you have or upgrade to.

The opther important thing is that PMPro has its own database and looks after its own backups so you are NOT increasing Sage's data security risks with our program.

Also you wouldn't want another package actively swapping data with Sage all of the time which would lead to huge complications. In that sense it is indpendent but that's deliberately a very positive strategy.

You might like to send me your Excel BoM spreadsheet to have a look at to see what might need to be done to extract Sage data from it. All I'd need is the spreadsheet structure (i.e. any workbooks and headings), not the actual data!

Regards
Toby

[johndon68]

Just to add to Toby's post - his application, like every other 3rd party add on for Sage 50 for that matter, sits completely outside of Sage, it is not going to change the way that Sage looks or works (just in case that is what you were hoping for), it is not changing the BOM feature of Sage 50, it is an external BOM system that links to Sage...

John

[TobyHS]

John's absolutely right and the massive advantage is that it's given us a clean slate when it comes to interface design to make sure that everything behaves as you would expect normal Windows applications to.

It's taken us 2 1/2 years to hone the application down to achieve this and in that time we would have had to have coped with 3 Sage version changes and required our customers to also continue to keep pace with Sage's annual upgrades!

A major objective has been to make PMPro's forms as user friendly as possible and of course that also means having database structures that are more versatile and agile than Sage's, and free from some of Sage's basic technical and design glitches. That has meant freeing ourselves from the quite idiosyncratic 'Sage Culture' that really does wind a lot of people up.

I know because for several years I taught Sage and too often had to calmly talk students down from rafters! In contrast, when we first introduced some retail staff to PMPro's EPOS they were confidently using it within 15 minutes. That's what 'clean slate, used-based design' is about.

For instance a very annoying Sage feature is its large, undifferentiated and fragmented forms for managing products, customers and suppliers and its still quirky way of making you close forms before you can open other features, whereas we've concentrated on trying to emulate the way real, busy multitasking business people work with lots of balls in the air at the same time.

If we had stayed within Sage we would not have been able to do that, whick is a reflection on Sage, not on us.

Best to think of PMPro as a fully integrated extension of Sage, or Sage as a fully integrated extension of PMPro depending where you are coming from. But the degree of integration is entirely up to the user and we think user choice is paramount.

Our approach is also very mindful of SME start-up costs. With PMPro you will be able to start doing sophisticated pricing and product management work for just the price a PC and £200 inc-VAT and when you've made some money you can then invest a good chunk of it on Sage and import PMPro data into it at a click of a button, and it's then that you'll probably need to.

Nobody should ever be under the allusion that having an accounting package is more important than pricing your products intelligently, or that Sage will actually help you to do that strategic, DYNAMIC pricing.

There's nothing wrong with counting out your money at the end of each day on the kitchen table . . . but you'll only have enough money to make into nice little piles if your sourcing, costing, operations, marketing and pricing are right.

Accounting is fundamentally about history, pricing is about making it.