Sage 50's Action Item center is a useful tool to help you keep track of your business. All of the events you need to take action on—such as expiring quotes, overdue invoices, and scheduled meetings—can be viewed, printed, and checked off as you complete them.
First, let's define the difference between events and action items. Events are any contact you have with a customer. To display the Event Log, select the Log button in the Maintain Customers/Prospects window. Action items are events that you want to take some action on in the future: scheduled meetings, expiring quotes, and overdue invoices. Sage 50 lists these in the Action Items window, which can be displayed as a reminder each time you open a company.
There are basically three steps to using action items:
- Set up the events and transactions you want to appear in the Action Items window.
- Enter any contact events you want to track, as you enter invoices, quotes, or receipts. (Sage 50 automatically creates action items for the transactions you choose to display in the Action Items window. You can manually enter contact events you want to schedule: calls, meetings, letters, comments, and miscellaneous or other.
- View, act on, and check off the events as they become due and are completed.
Set up
You set up the events and transactions you want to see in Action Items/Event Log Options. On the Activities tab, you're setting the default for contact events. That is, this determines whether or not the Display in Action Items check box will be selected automatically for these types of contact events. On the Transactions tab, you're telling Sage 50 which transactions to create an event for and which to list in the Action Items window.
The Create Event column creates events, which can be viewed from the Maintain Customers/Prospects window, clicking the Log button. These provide a running history of your contact with the vendor. The Display in Action Items column makes these events visible in the Action Items window. These are events that you need to take some future action on.
For accounts receivable, you could select all of the following in the Create Event column: Quotes Sent, Quotes Expiring, Invoices Sent, Customer Invoices Due, Collection Letters, and Receipts. As for the Display in Action Items column, it depends on what's important to you. However, if you select Quotes Expiring and Customer Invoices Due, then you'll know when it's time to quote a customer again and when it's time to check on an outstanding invoice. (You cannot check something in the Display in Action Items column if it's not checked in the Create Event column.)
Creating Events and Action Items
Sage 50 will create an event and an action item for each transaction type you checked in Options. In addition, you can create contact events from several places in the program:
- in the Sales/Invoicing, Quotes, Sales Orders, and Receive Money windows, using the Event button.
- in the Action Items window using the Event button.
Viewing and Acting on Action Items
- From the Tasks menu, select Action Items. Sage 50 displays the Action Items window. All of the events you chose to display in Action Items are visible here. (If you specified a number of days' range, today's date must fall within that range.)
- Double-click an item to display the Create Event window.
- Select the Event button to create a new event if no existing event is highlighted.
- If Sage 50 created an event, you can view the originating transaction. Double-click the event in the Action Items window and select the Detail button.
- When an action item is complete, select the check box at the far left of the event to mark it as done.