In today’s economic climate, the world is fast moving, ever changing and incredibly demanding. You just need to be in the tube during rush hour to experience the rush of suits as they hurriedly make their way into the office or to their meetings for the day. The UK startup market is a saturated one with only 6% of startups and SME’s going onto become larger businesses. Managing Directors of small to medium sized businesses are expected to be on top of their company and their offerings in order to compete with the larger corporations.
Without the larger and more intricate financial and operative infrastructure of larger companies, this can be a demanding task and sees many MD’s working late into the night and waking up in the early hours to ensure that their day is planned, their meeting preparation done and their company running as smoothly as it possibly can.
For those SME owners reading this, it is as if we are preaching to the choir as they already know small business statistics. Annually in the UK, more than 500 000 people start their own business. Nearly one in six of the UK workforce is running their own micro-enterprise with 90% of all new jobs being created by new single person, self-employed enterprises. There is a marked 40% increase in micro enterprises for this millennium with numbers growing by ½ million each year.
In this climate, SMEs need to seize every opportunity that they can to reach success. At the Sage Summit earlier this year in New Orleans, Sage stepped up to the plate with regards to their SME offerings. With the announcement of the newly relaunched Sage Live, Sage has hopes to provide a cloud based product perfectly suited to answer the daily requirements of any SME.
Partnering with Salesforce, Sage Live is built to break down the virtual barriers between front office and back office accounting operations. The software provides a single live view of customer finance, payroll and accounting data in one place.
The product was announced amongst a number of cloud based offerings from Sage, such as Sage x3 in the cloud. However, Sage Live has been heralded as the answer for many fast paced and growing SME’s. Sage aims to redefine the way businesses handle their finances, moving away from a stagnant form of doing accounts at the end of each month and towards real time capturing of data at the source. Instead of waiting for financial reviews after mandatory end of month accounting procedures, owners and MD’s of companies can capture receipts and invoices themselves, providing them with an immediate view of their company’s financial position.
Sage Live is built on the cloud and allows for third party integration. It brings to the party multi-dimensional interactivity as well as real-time integration and audit logging. With access to your business operational stats from anywhere, Managing Directors are able to stay on top of their business at all times leading to quick decision making and instant accounting solutions. The product can also be personalised to suit every business, making your accounting software work in the way you work.
Having been commonly seen as a rather conservative company, under the new leadership of Stephen Kelly, Sage looks to have taken a big step into 2015 and LSA Systems are one company that are very excited about their latest offering and Sage solutions.
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