Sage 300cloud is now available on the industry-leading Microsoft Azure

Summary: There are ample benefits of moving your IT infrastructure to the cloud. For example, it collects customers’ crucial details at the click of a button and provides instant access to critical information to relevant stakeholders. Moreover, sales reps need not visit the client’s place because they can interact with the customer anywhere, anytime, and through any device. In addition, cloud systems are inexpensive compared to On-Premise systems making them ideal for companies of all sizes, especially small and medium-sized businesses. Now that Sage 300cloud, one of the best cloud ERP systems, is available on the industry-leading Microsoft Azure, it makes all the more sense to migrate to cloud infrastructure and reap the benefits.

Does a cloud IT infrastructure makes sense for me?

1. Flexibility and affordability

Each company grows with time, which translates to an ever-growing customer database. So, the primary question is whether you have enough storage capacity to store every minute detail — customer contact details, past purchasing patterns, past conversations, geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data. For keeping this immense pile of data, you need a significant storage capacity that on-premise systems fail to provide. 

Today, cutting-edge cloud systems like Sage 300 ERP and Microsoft Azure provide extra storage capacity, thereby ensuring that your data needs are always met. The best part is that cloud-based services charge based on the amount of space you need for data. So, if your data needs are less, you also pay less. Therefore, cloud systems are scalable as they allow organizations to pay only for what they use and eliminate frivolous expenses. 

2. Serve customer needs effectively

You don’t have a business if you don’t have customers. So, therefore, customers are the bloodline of your company. But it’s not as easy as it sounds! 

Do you know that it’s five times more expensive to search for new clients than to retain the existing ones?

Therefore, you need to develop a sound customer support strategy to remain relevant in the industry. And this is where a cloud application helps.

Cloud systems help develop customer-oriented apps that provide a personalized experience to customers. Employees can access crucial details about any customer from anywhere in the world through any device. The other benefits include:

• Cloud systems have a repository that stores answers to common questions that customers can refer 24/7.
• Cloud systems can handle multiple client queries simultaneously.
• Cloud systems allow multiple users to take action on requests.
• Cloud systems collect real-time client details and update them instantly.
• Cloud systems have eliminated the boundaries between employees and clients by creating a conducive mobile/desktop environment.

3. Eliminates the need for a specialized IT team.

There’s no doubt that a top-notch IT team is indispensable for an organization’s success. But this statement is far from true for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that run on a shoestring budget. 

SMEs need to think twice before hiring a big IT team primarily because of two reasons:

• Highly experienced IT professionals draw heavy paycheques.
• SMEs hesitate to spend on IT-related technologies. Thus, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to splurge money on hiring a robust IT team when they don’t have a lot to do.

Sage 300cloud and Microsoft Azure provide a robust platform that takes care of all IT-related needs, such as installing new applications and updating them from time to time to maintaining the servers. 

You will be relieved from these responsibilities because you can transfer them to third-party vendors. Moreover, there is no need to pay a fixed amount of salary at the end of each month, which will help you lower your operational overheads.

>>>Also Read: Using ERP System to cut your Company’s Operational Costs<<<

4. Enhanced security

Cybersecurity is emerging as one of the essential attributes of secure ERP software. 

Do you know that India reported about 6.07 lakh cyber security incidents in the first half of 2021? 

Cloud systems like Sage 300cloud will take care of the security demands of your company. It has various features that monitor security breaches. In addition, it doesn’t allow unverified stakeholders to access the system or edit critical data. The best part is that you can set different access protocols for different teams. For example, vendors, suppliers, and distributors can only access the vendor portal and nothing else. On the other hand, the customer support team can access only client-related details. In contrast, the finance & accounting teams can view the expenses incurred over a specific duration and work on balance sheets. 

Sage 300cloud and Microsoft Azure have multiple ironclad security tools that guarantee top-notch security protection for your confidential online data. 

>>>Also Read: ERP and Cybersecurity – What no one is talking about?<<<

Here are 15 features of Sage 300cloud that explain why you should implement this ERP software at your workplace.

1. Do you have multiple branches spread across various geographies? If yes, then Sage 300cloud’s multi-location capability will allow you to manage operations across various cities and states.

2. Do you have multi-lingual employees working in your organization? If yes, you will feel happy to know that Sage 300cloud supports the process workflow in multiple languages.

3. Do you have branches spread across different countries, or do you make transactions in multiple currencies? If yes, then Sage 300cloud is the most suitable ERP software for your company. Its multi-currency capability monitors daily currency trends and performs instant currency conversions. For eg., INR to USD conversion and vice-versa.

>>>Also Read: The Objective of Financial Management<<<

4. Do you sell big items (such as a car) or small items (such as a car tyre)? The cost accounting feature of Sage 300cloud will enable you to summarize, record, and critically examine the company’s cost spent on any item — big or small.

5. Sage 300cloud maintains ledgers that store records about sales, purchases, expenses, salaries, and much more. In addition, you can create ledgers based on varying accounting principles, such as GAAP, GST, IFRS, and many more.

>>>Also Read: General Ledger integration with Tax Services | Sage 300cloud<<<

6. Sage 300cloud ERP software has a multi-ledger capability that means it can shift values from the GAAP ledger to the IFRS ledger and vice-versa without any human intervention.

7. Sage 300cloud ERP software has a cutting-edge AI tool that checks for frauds in accounting.

8. You can also set dimensions based on various parameters like geographies and departments. For example, suppose you have three departments in your company, namely marketing, sales, and IT. And you distribute salaries to employees working in those departments at the end of each month. So, “Department” is a dimension. Similarly, suppose your company is spread over multiple geographies, let’s say North, East, and West. Then, “Geography” is also a dimension. Therefore, you can use the multi-dimensional capabilities of Sage 300cloud that allow you to monitor the salary of a sales representative working in the East zone. 

9. The stock management feature of Sage 300cloud has stock allocation capabilities. For example, if you have listed 10 smartphones on an e-commerce platform. And if someone purchases a smartphone, then the number of available smartphones will automatically fall to 9 on the website.

>>>Also Read: Stock transfer for serializable items<<<

10. Sage 300cloud can immediately find the valuation of the entire lot. For example, you run a stationery store and list 10 pens on your website. Supposing the cost of 1 pen is Rs. 10. Then, Sage 300cloud will automatically evaluate the valuation of the entire stock = 10 X 10 = Rs. 100. 

11. You can set varying commercial rules using Sage 300cloud. For example, a user must buy at least 2 kgs of sugar to be eligible to make the final payment.

12. Sage 300cloud has a multi-warehousing feature that records and updates the real-time location of each product stored inside the warehouse according to a set nomenclature. For example, locating a king-sized double bed in a large warehouse becomes simpler when you know it’s stored in location 2 and bin 8.

13. Sage 300cloud has excellent quality assurance tools that ensure top-notch quality of finished goods. This feature plays a critical role in processing industries, such as chemical, food, pharma, and much more. Sage 300cloud stores batch number, serial number, and QA/QR (Quality Accepted/Quality Rejected) status that shows which items have been accepted and rejected.

>>>Also Read: Efficient Quality Management in Sage X3<<<

14. Sage 300cloud also has a forward and backward traceability feature that tracks the incoming raw materials and the outgoing finished products. The backward traceability feature allows the company to identify the raw materials that were used to prepare the finished goods. Similarly, the forward traceability feature will enable companies to determine which vendor received the defective batch. 

15. Sage 300cloud is the best ERP solution for preparing top-notch reports that help get a 360-degree perspective of the changing market trends and customer preferences.