Company Overview
Sage Software, a subsidiary of The Sage Group plc, provides three construction project management systems -- Sage Timberline Office, Sage Master Builder and the new Sage Project Lifecycle Management. In addition, Sage Software offers Peachtree Accounting for American companies and Simply Accounting for Canadian firms.
15195 NW Greenbrier Parkway
Beaverton, OR
Toll Free: 800-628-6583
Web: sagenorthamerica.com
Timberline was first sold as mainframe software in 1971; Sage acquired it in 2003. Today Sage Timberline Office provides financial and operations management solutions to a variety of contractors -- commercial, industrial, electrical, mechanical, specialty and service -- as well as residential homebuilders and real estate developers and managers. Sage Timberline comes with up to 60 construction accounting, estimating, and project management modules, which are organized into several different suites.
- Timerbline's accounting suite includes regular accounting features, allowing users to manage accounts payable/receivable, job costing, payroll, and billing, in addition to equipment cost, contracts, financial statements, and a general ledger.
- The estimating suite comes with information about thousands of industry items, and also allows users to add their own items and formulas. It can be integrated with RSMeans databases. Sage also offers a digitizer add-on. Finally, with modeling estimating, it is possible to see what various changes to a plan would cost, the vendor noted.
- Sage Timberline Office Procurement allows users to create purchase orders, receipts, and track change orders following the estimating process, the vendor said.
- The production management suite helps contractors manage purchase orders and communicate with other team members, the vendor said.
- The project management suite has features that aid contractors in managing change orders, RFIs, subcontracts and purchase orders.
- Sage Timberline Office's property management suite provides developers and property owners/managers with the tools to manage many aspects of leases, such as interest on deposits, billing, lease options, overage rents, lease information, and credits. This module also comes with accounting features specific to property management, a billing module, and property management reports.
- Sage Timberline Office's reporting module includes features such as an address book, integration with Crystal Reports, a report designer and a module to initiate tasks, the vendor said.
- Finally, the service management module assists contractors with field purchasing, service agreements and warranties, and preventive maintenance.
Sage Master Builder, acquired from Intuit in 2006, provides industry specific construction management software for contractors, subcontractors, and trades such as homebuilding, remodeling, HVAC, electrical, commercial and heavy construction.
Master Builder integrates four areas: estimating, project management, accounting, and analysis/reporting. The estimating module allows contractors to do plan takeoffs, create and export proposals, and track client leads. The production module includes features allowing users to verify job costs, create job cost reports and manage scheduling, purchase orders, subcontracts, change orders and equipment. An accounting module allows users to manage a general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, control billing, payroll, loans and inventory. The analysis tool makes it possible to create financial charts and graphs, includes reports and a custom report writer; it also includes a job cost analysis feature, the vendor said.
Peachtree Accounting software is designed for small businesses and offers normal accounting functions in addition to construction-specific features. Some of these latter features include progress billing, labor burden calculation, and insurance expiration tracking, according to Sage.
Simply Accounting is Sage's accounting software designed specifically for Canadian companies. It comes in five editions.
First Step: This is the most basic level of Simply Accounting and was previously known as Entrepreneur. Its capabilities include essentials such as writing checks, preparing invoices and storing financial history. It can also switch from English to French.
Pro: Moving up to the Pro (formally called Basic) edition of Simply Accounting provides seven additional capabilities -- managing inventory, preparing sales/purchasing orders and quotes, handling payroll, tracking projects, budgeting, dealing with two forms of currency, online banking reconciliation and integrating with Microsoft Word and Excel.
Premium: The step up to Simply Accounting Premium is far more significant, including features that Sage calls advanced and in-depth. Among them are a few that are particular useful in construction, the vendor said -- project tracking and bills for materials, integration to Microsoft Outlook, and the ability to keep inventory of multiple locations and license.
Enterprise: This version of Simply Accounting offers additional capabilities that include role-based security, serialized inventory and a sales analysis tool.
Accountant’s Edition: While not all contractors will have an actual accountant, this edition can be useful for those who do. Users need to join the Sage Software Accountants Network and, from there, they have some more flexibility. It includes all the features of the other editions, but users have the ability to create, open, edit and save data from all editions.
Sage Project Lifecycle Management uses the Software as a Service model to help contractors collaborate on and manage documents, workflows and financial data. Collaborative processes can be customized to match existing or newly implemented workflows, the vendor said.
Collaboration can be conducted across the design, engineering, construction, and operational phases; it can encompass standards documents ranging from policy statements and contract to design drawings and models, among others. Sage Project Lifecycle Management also supports submittals, RFIs and change orders.
All project data is stored in a central, secure repository, the vendor said. Users can store supply chain information online or in a searchable archive.
Sage Project Lifecycle Management also offers an optional Web-based bid management system.