One area where this is seen most easily is in Stock Control. Sage 50 Accounts has no concept of e.g. supplier lead times, maximum stocks, alternative suppliers or order multiples etc. To overcome this disadvantage the Product Information screen is present in Sage 50 Manufacturing where a wealth of information may be stored – which could be seen at least as a partial duplication of data already stored within Stock Control in Accounts. However, it is this Product Information file which gives the program its ability to offer Batch Traceability and Multiple Locations – of which Sage 50 would not otherwise be capable.

The Product Information file is straightforward to create and maintain. New stock items can be created directly within the Product Information screen and Sage 50’s Stock Control is automatically updated. It may however be necessary to then go to the Stock Control record to enter financial information such as default Nominal Codes and a Tax Code. Even this is not really problematic as a ‘Smartlink’ is provided to jump the user to the correct record with one mouse click.

Product Information is accessible from virtually anywhere within the system, and its influence extends to BOM, MRP and Works Order Processing.

The Product Information screen is not available in Sage 200 Manufacturing because the data stored appears in the Stock Control module.

Next: Multiple Stock Locations (Sage 50 and Sage 200)