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SAGE SOFTWARE OVERVIEW

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

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• Sage Master Builder
• Sage Timberline

FEATURED VENDORS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sage Software, a subsidiary of The Sage Group plc, provides three construction software solutions -- Sage Timberline Office, Sage Master Builder, and Peachtree Accounting.

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.

According to the latest CFMA technology survey, Sage Timberline Office is the market leader in both job costing and construction project management software. Nearly 30% of contractors using Timberline for job costing and more than 15% of contractors using Timberline for project management, the survey noted.

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.

Finally, Peachtree Accounting 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.