We often get asked by Sage 50 users ‘Why is my Sage 50 system running so slow?’ There is not a quick and easy answer for this one. It’s a question that is asked of Sage 50 Support teams and Consultants constantly with a customer expecting a quick answer. This is not the case when it comes to speed issues within Sage 50.
Things that typically cause speed issues in Sage 50 are:
- The volume of data or data corruption
- Environmental Issues such as computer/ network/ antivirus software
- A known issue
- Remote data access issues
When customers ring support they often feel they are stuck in the middle of a Sage 50 Specialist and an IT Specialist. All they want to be able to do is process their accounts and then get back to doing the exciting stuff of running their business. On other occasions, they are the ‘IT Specialist’ within their small company too, which leads to more frustration.
Below I will run through a few simple checks and recommendations to try and resolve speed issues within your Sage 50 software. However, it may be that you will need to get an IT specialist involved or ultimately move away from the Sage 50 software altogether and look at an alternative such as Sage 200.
Check for any known issues in Sage 50
Use the Sage Help Centre if you are getting any error messages
Look at your Sage 50 setup
Your PC specifications and network setup. Smaller businesses normally have one PC to run the accounts on and in even larger businesses, you find the accounts department is forgotten about and therefore the PC you are using has not been upgraded. As you upgrade your accounts software to make use of the new and improved features it will slowly start taking up more resources on your PC and if it is not powerful enough this is when it can start slowing you down.
Use the following link to check the minimum specifications to run the latest Sage 50cloud Account software. All PC’s in a network environment need to meet the minimum specifications.
System Requirements for Sage 50cloud Accounts v28
Windows permission and Sage 50cloud Accounts
Look at the Sage data itself
There is no limit to the number of transactions or records you can have in the software. The capacity is only limited by the amount of free disk space you have and the memory available. Plus other factors like network speed/number of concurrent users.
As a rough guide, Sage recommend the below (however, I have seen customers running a lot more with no issues but on the flip side, some customers with less but are having issues).
- Fewer than 1,000,000 splits (transactions)
- Fewer than 50,000 invoices/purchase orders/sales orders
- Fewer than 2,000 customer records/supplier records
- Fewer than 20,000 product records
- Fewer than 2,000 project records
This can be checked under Help > About > Data Information
If you have more than what is listed above it is recommended that you make sure you have an archive of your data and run a Clear Audit Trail on your data. This will clear down the historic transactions that have been fully dealt with in the program.
Run a check data to check for corruption in Sage 50
This is done via File > Maintenance > Check Data – if this throws up any errors you can use the following guide to see what your options are.
If the check data routine does not throw anything up then we can do some general maintenance on your data.
General Sage 50 maintenance
Over time the data can become a bit jumbled up. The way I describe it is this:- Imagine you are still using manual books and paper. At the end of each day you just want to go home so you just pick everything up and dump it in the drawer. The next day you come in and need to start working but everything is all over the place meaning it’s taking you longer to find what you need. That afternoon you spend the time putting it back in some order. That’s what the maintenance does, it reindexes all the files and puts them back in an order making it quicker and easier to find what you are looking for.
Running on a network?
If you are running across a network via a mapped network drive try using a UNC path. Check the data’s current location under Help > About > Program Details and note down the Data Directory.
Browse to the Company File:
V28 – C:\ProgramData\Sage\Accounts\2022
V27 – C:\ProgramData\Sage\Accounts\2021
Double click the file called company and choose to Open with Notepad. Change the path in the company file to point to the data location using your Server name and shared data folder \\SageServer\Sagedata. Close and safe the company file.
Antivirus software conflicts
Configure your antivirus software so it does not conflict with Sage 50cloud Accounts.
Sage Drive / Remote Data Access
There are a number of things that could be causing you issues. First I would recommend checking that all PC’s meet the minimum internet connection requirements.
- Internet Explorer 11 or above
- Download speed of 4Mbps or more and upload speed of 2Mbps or more.
If you do meet the above take a look at the Sage Troubleshooting Remote Data Access (sage.com) article.
Next Steps
If after checking all of the above you are still continuing to have problems, give us a call to discuss the next steps. We may be able to help in troubleshooting other issues which can resolve the issue or it might be a case that you have outgrown Sage 50 and it is time to start looking at alternatives. If you would like to do your own research we would recommend you take a look at the following products:
We have a great quiz tool that can help you identify which Sage product is the best fit for your business, all you need to do is answer a few simple questions here!
We also have some useful content about migrating from Sage 50 to other Sage products:
If you would like to have a chat about any of the above, give us a call on 01824 780000, email us at info@itassolutions.co.uk or fill out our contact form here, and someone will be in touch with you to help!
David is one of our Implementation Consultants for Sage 50 Accounts, Payroll and Sage 200. He has over 10 years of experience in supporting, selling, training and consulting coming from working directly with Sage in their base in Newcastle upon Tyne. When he’s not in the office he enjoys spending time with his family, supporting his local ice hockey team Whitley Warriors and when he can, play a bit of ball hockey himself!
