Sage 50 Accounts v32.0 is now available to download.  This upgrade includes the following new and improved features to help you to run your business more efficiently and save time.

• Sage Copilot – this is a dedicated AI- powered productivity assistant, launched from the Sage 50 menu bar in several ledgers. This version of Copilot consists of two themes:

Report with Copilot – this lets you create reports using natural language, which means that you can efficiently tailor report outputs to your exact needs.

Instant Report Analysis – allows you to view your business performance quickly and easily using your Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports.  The detailed analysis lets you see the strengths and weaknesses of your businesses.

• Manage Cloud Connections – this has been altered to improve the look and feel to make it easier to use.
• Connected Cloud Purchase Automation update to AI Document Capture – the feature Purchase Automation has been renamed to AI Document Capture and has been updated, extending the ability to add transactions to a greater number of transaction types. In this version Sage have extended it to:
  • Customer Activity
  • Bank Payment
  • Cash Register
  • Bank Activity
  • Bank Receipt
  • Customer batch invoice
  • Customer batch credit
• SEPA implementation for new plugins (Ireland) – the new SEPA pulgins for supported banks is only for the latest version of Sage 50 Accounts. This is for mandatory changes in November 2025.
• Miscellaneous updates – Remove OAuth support from Report Designer for Gmail, support for Hotmail/Microsoft remains unchanged.

If you would like any more information on the new Sage 50 Accounts v32.0 and how it can help your business or need help installing it or if you would like to purchase an upgrade or need any other help with anything else, please contact us

Payroll

Sage 50 Payroll year end update v31 is now available to download

Sage 50 Payroll v31 yearend update is now available and includes the new legislation for 2025/2026 tax year: –

• Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP) – this is a new statutory parental payment that provides eligible employees with support at a challenging time.
• Employer’s National Insurance (NI) increase – contribution rates for employer’s NI increase for the next tax year and the threshold that it the NI is due from decreases also.
• Employment allowance – the employment allowance increases from £5,000 to £10,500 in the new tax year. This will reduce the employer’s NI liability for eligible businesses by an annual amount of £10,500.00.
• Small employers’ relief (SER) – The compensation rate of SER increases to 108.5% in the new tax year. This increases from 103% last tax year.  This means that eligible employers claim more back from HMRC after paying employees statutory parental payments.
• Payroll Assistant – this was previously only available with a Professional subscription; Payroll assistant is now available to everyone from v31.
• Salary sacrifice pension NI reinvestment – If you process a salary sacrifice pension scheme, employees’ pay that is subject to NI reduces the amount of their pension contributions. This means that the employee and the employer often pay less NI with this type of scheme.

If you need help running a payroll year end or need any other help or advice with your payroll, please contact us

We can also provide a remote access service where we can link into your computer to help you resolve your Sage Accounts or Payroll problems.

In August 2024, HMRC announced that it was going to defer a payroll reform that it had scheduled for April 2025, which required employers to report the employee’s actual hours worked, rather than the normal hours worked, and this would not come into force until at least April 2026.

After consultation with businesses, payroll providers etc and the potential administration strain on businesses, this has now been scrapped all together. You will still be required to record normal working hours for National Minimum Wage calculations as normal.

If you would like help with your payroll, please contact us

Sage is bringing in 2FA as increased security, there are 3 different scenarios as to when you will need to set up and use 2FA.

Scenario 1 – this is applicable to all versions of Sage 50 Accounts if you are using any of the following applications, if you have not already been prompted to set up the 2FA you will be required to do so in the near future.

• Bank Feeds
• Remote Data Access
• Invoice Finance
• Go Cardless
• Supplier Payments
• Sage Connect

Scenario 2 – this is applicable if you are using Sage 50 Accounts V31

• AI Tools
• Launch Sage CoPilot

Scenario 3 – for the moment you will be able to login as normal, there is a phased approach and in time everyone will need to use 2FA to login.

• Product road map
• Phased approach.

If you would like help to set up and use 2FA or need any other help or if you need any other help, please contact us

Sage 50 Accounts V31.0 is being released in a phased roll out and comes with many new and improved features.

• Sage Copilot is a dedicated AI powered productivity assistant, launched from the Sage 50 Accounts task bar in several ledgers, which helps you to look at profitability, anomaly detection, report analysis, debt management, inventory management.
• User management has now been updated, and when you create a new user in Sage 50 Accounts you now need to choose between a log in for Sage 50 Accounts or Use third-party applications only.
• Remote Date Access and 2-factor authentication – when Remote Data Access is enabled in V31.0. any user will now be able to authenticate with their Sage account (currently every 6 months), so they can continue to work uninterrupted when they encounter 2-factor Authentication (2FA)
• Sage Connect: Discoverability – if this is enabled, when emailing customer invoices and statements a hyperlink is now automatically included. This is the customers’ direct link to the Sage Connect Portal where they can check their account status, download invoices, and view their account history.
• Purchase Automation – this has been automated to save time, manually upload a file or forward supplier invoices and credit notes to a specific email address. Transactions can be reviewed before they are posted to the purchase ledger (additional charge for this feature)
• Sage Network: Futrli – Futrli offers simple and fast budget creation, cash forecasting and reporting.
• Supports modern authentication methods for email.

If you would like help to download and install Sage 50 Accounts V31.0 or want to know more on how it can help your business or if you need any other help, please contact us

The prices for Sage Accounting, also known as Sage Business Cloud, have increased from 1st September 2024, but you can still get the subscription cheaper directly through ourselves rather than through Sage.

Sage 50 Accounts and Sage 50 Payroll subscription prices are also increasing by 10% from 1st September 2024.

If you would like to discuss what program would suit your business needs or if you need any other help, please contact us