Home Window

The Home window is the first window that you see when you open your company's data. It reflects your security access rights to your company and changes if you decide to turn off features or hide modules.

Views

Sage 50 Accounting provides two views of the Home window: the Classic view in all versions before Sage 50 Accounting 2008, and an Enhanced view with easier navigation, helpful task flow diagrams, and quicker access to records and reports. If you want to explore the Enhanced view or return to the Classic view, a single click takes you from one view to the other. Each Sage 50 Accounting user can set their Home window to open in either view.

Although there are some elements that are exactly the same in both views, each view has a different interface and some modules do not exist in the other view.

To change your view of the Home window, click the switch view option right below the toolbar on the right side of the Home window.

Enhanced View

Enhanced view helps you work more efficiently by putting important information at your fingertips and better organizing the tasks you need to perform. Elements in this interface include:

  • One-click navigation - Quickly move between module pages or open a Shortcut link on your navigation pane with one click.
  • Pages - Located on the right side of the Home window, each page represents a module that contains all the information and tasks required for one aspect of your business, such as Customers & Sales, Vendors & Purchases, or Projects. Each user can change their default page at any time.
  • Navigation pane - Located on the left side of the Home window, the navigation pane opens the module pages that represent different aspects of your business.
  • All on one page - Get a more complete and meaningful picture of your business with all the tasks, reports, and information for a specific module on one page.
  • Shortcut links - Create a list of up to 10 Shortcuts on the navigation pane to quickly perform tasks on any page of the program.
  • Panes - Each page is divided into the following panes: Tasks and Related Tasks, list of key records (also called List panes), and Reports. Although the panes on the right side of the page can be minimized, only the List pane expands when the Reports pane is minimized.
  • Task flows - Understand the accounting process through easy-to-understand task flow diagrams in each module.
  • Shortcut menus - Right-click an icon on the Task pane or a record in the List pane to open a shortcut menu of select options for these items.
  • Hide or show inactive records - Show inactive records on the Home window by selecting the Include inactive ... box at the bottom of each list. This option is available on all modules except the Company module.
  • Quick access to recently viewed reports - Quickly re-open the last four reports you used.
  • Banking module - Find account information and banking tasks, such as bank transfers, deposits, and reconciliation, on the Banking module.
  • Toolbar buttons - The buttons on the toolbar and in some windows perform various actions, such as displaying help and advice, searching for records and transactions, printing reports, and changing options. Each user can show or hide text on their toolbar buttons.

Classic View

If you have used version Sage 50 Accounting 2007 or lower, then you may already be familiar with the Classic view. This view of the Home window has been the only view in earlier versions of Sage 50 Accounting. Elements in this interface include:

  • Modules - Each tab is called a module, representing different aspects of your business.
  • Icons - When you click an icon on a tab, you open either a record window or a transaction window. You can switch between using a single-click and double-click, depending upon your preference.
  • Toolbar buttons - The buttons on the toolbar and in some windows perform various actions, such as displaying help and advice, searching for records and transactions, printing reports, and changing options.

Restricted Access

If you set up users with passwords in Sage 50 Accounting, you can limit their access to certain modules or areas of the program. The Classic view of the Home window offers the following visual aids to tell users which areas they can access:

no access icon This symbol means you cannot use this feature.

View only icon This symbol means you can only view information in the window. You cannot change it.