Sage Simply Accounting Delivers Integrated Business Intelligence Reporting Solution That Makes Critical Information More Visible for Small Businesses

RICHMOND, BC--(Marketwire - May 10, 2011) - Sage North America announced today that small businesses (SMBs) can gain better insight and access to real-time business information through Sage Simply Accounting's integrated business intelligence reporting solution. Sage Simply Accounting Intelligence's 17 ready-to-use and fully customizable dashboards allow SMBs to understand the health of their business at a glance.

"Our research on Canadian small businesses' financial literacy over the past two years indicates that a significant number of entrepreneurs are still unable to identify the key costs that need to be managed for success," said Hugo Croft-Levesque, director of product management for Sage Simply Accounting. "Cash flow, financial management and inventory management were some aspects that respondents felt that they could be more well-versed at managing. The reporting capabilities of Sage Simply Accounting Intelligence can help put critical information at their fingertips so they can take a more strategic approach when responding to business trends."

Many small business owners have difficulties managing their operations when the information they need to make informed, timely and strategic decisions is stored in different databases or applications. Craig Juta, principal at Intelligence Consulting knows this firsthand as his practice focuses on delivering customized business intelligence tools to North American companies.

"Traditionally, it has been very difficult for businesses to obtain a holistic view of their operations when data is stored in multiple applications. Many of my clients want a overview of various aspects of their business, but this can be very time consuming to do or requires more expertise than most can afford," said Juta. "Sage Simply Accounting Intelligence solves these challenges and provides businesses the ability to pull real-time data from Sage Simply Accounting and other databases so they can really drill down and get an accurate, consistent and dynamic report of their operations."

Utilizing software that most small business owners are already familiar with and use -- Microsoft^® Excel^® -- Sage Simply Accounting Intelligence automates the reporting processes eliminating tedious and inefficient manual reporting as well as the potential of inaccurate reporting.

"The flexibility of Sage Simply Accounting Intelligence allows users the ability to customize any of the existing reports to meet their unique business needs," added Juta. "Most people can see the value in knowing their best selling items or gross profit by customers, but customizing this reporting solution further can cull valuable non-financial performance data that can prove to be invaluable. Access to this type of information wouldn't be easily obtainable without this tool."

Sage Simply Accounting Intelligence is available for Sage Simply Accounting Premium and Enterprise customers in two editions: Standard and Advanced. In addition to a full suite of online resources providing tips and tricks and video 'how to's,' a team of Sage Accountants Network members are readily available to provide additional training or support on customizing the 17 ready-to-use templates.

About Sage Simply Accounting
Celebrating 25 years, Sage Simply Accounting software is the #1 choice of Canadian small businesses and accountants,¹ used by more than 500,000 Canadian businesses. Developed in Sage's global research and development centre in Richmond, B.C., the fully bilingual Sage Simply Accounting is known for its easy to learn, easy to use approach to accounting, while providing the most comprehensive features that small businesses require -- from start-up through to maturity. Sage Simply Accounting is supported by a highly trained team of customer service specialists in our Richmond, B.C., centre, and by more than 11,000 consultant partners located in communities across Canada who help thousands of companies daily to manage their business more effectively with Sage Simply Accounting. For more information about Sage Simply Accounting, please call: 800-665-8805, or visit www.SimplyAccounting.com. Follow Sage Simply Accounting on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SageSimplyAccounting, and Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/SimplyBySage.

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and related products and services, principally for small to medium-sized businesses. Sage North America employs 3,900 people and supports more than 3 million small and midsized business customers. Formed in 1981, Sage was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989. Sage has more than 6 million customers and 13,600 employees worldwide. We operate in over 24 countries covering the UK, Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia, India and China. For more information, please visit the website at: www.SageNorthAmerica.com. Follow Sage North America on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SageNorthAmerica, and Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/SageNAmerica.

© 2011 Sage Software Canada, Inc. All rights reserved. Sage, the Sage logos, and the Sage product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc. or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

(1) Based on independent surveys of 236 Canadian small businesses conducted November 2009 and 362 accountants who work with small business clients, conducted June 2010.