Sage North America today announced high-level findings from Aberdeen Group's recently published third annual payments report, titled "Global Payments: Maximizing Cash Flow with Electronic Payments and Process Automation." According to the report, leading companies are employing electronic payments and process automation to streamline and accelerate finance processes, reduce operating costs, and improve visibility, control, and efficiency to provide a foundation for increased profits.

"Despite the reign of the paper check and manual-based processes in business-to-business transactions in the U.S. and many parts of the world, economic and efficiency gains from automating the financial supply chain-from invoicing through payment settlement-are key motivators for demand and supply to align," said Nasreen Quibria, senior analyst at Aberdeen and author of the report. "While the adoption of electronic payment vehicles requires businesses to alter their payment behavior and restructure their financial processes, companies that can make the shift will gain competitive advantage."

Reflecting the unpredictable economic conditions of the past year, Aberdeen found that companies are focused on maximizing cash flow and taking a holistic approach to transactions-examining the flow of funds into Accounts Receivable (AR), and outflow of funds from Accounts Payable (AP).

In its survey of more than 160 companies worldwide, Aberdeen found that businesses adopting electronic channels have been able to achieve a 16% decrease in accounts receivable (AR) processing cost, and a 14% decrease in accounts payable (AP) costs year over year.

"Aberdeen's report shows the value that systems interoperability with electronic payment networks has for both buyers and suppliers," said Greg Hammermaster, president of Sage Payment Solutions, the payments division for Sage North America. "We believe this interoperability is critical toward achieving three major payments objectives for every business: improving cash flow, reducing costs, and maximizing the utility of their ERP environment."

The Aberdeen survey identified two main pressures creating the need for improved payments processing:

• Corporate mandate to reduce overall payment transaction costs, such as staff and processing (65%); and
• Stakeholder demand for improved operational efficiency, such as reduced reliance on paper documents (47%).

Also, according to Aberdeen, 50% of best-in-class companies integrate their electronic payment solutions with their accounting, enterprise resource planning (ERP), or other financial systems. At the same time, 39% of best-in-class companies identify a lack of integration between electronic payments and accounting systems as a barrier to increased electronic payments.

Last month, Sage introduced Sage Exchange, a new secure, Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) certified payment platform that will allow businesses and organizations to accept all forms and methods of payment, with seamless data integration to a wide range of Sage business management software products and third-party business solutions. Seamless integration between payment applications and back-office software can improve an organization's cash flow and forecasting, while eliminating manual data entry and the risk of errors.

"Integrating electronic payment networks with back office ERP systems is a challenge faced by all businesses," added Hammermaster. "Sage Exchange overcomes this challenge by tightly integrating Sage's accounting and ERP solutions, on both the AR and AP sides, with the most widely used electronic payment networks, including credit and debit cards, electronic check, ACH, and even private label networks. While electronic payments data integration is the foundation, exponential value will be gained through a suite of connected services focused on streamlining the financial supply chain. Sage Exchange is set to deliver on that value proposition."

Aberdeen's payments study was co-underwritten by Sage Payment Solutions and Syncada. A joint venture between Visa and U.S. Bank, Syncada provides a business-to-business network for financial institutions to enable their clients to increase control over their financial supply chains.

Sage North America today announced additional findings from the 2010 Business Minds survey, which gauges small businesses' experience in managing through recent economic conditions, as well as business owners' opinions on the government-sponsored job stimulus programs. Sage conducted the survey this spring, shortly after the Obama Administration announced a series of proposals aimed specifically at small and midsized business owners.

Respondents weighed in on the small business proposals, on topics such as capital expenditure deductions, new employee tax credits and refinancing existing debt, among others. While there was support for some of the proposals from individual respondents and 61% of those surveyed found at least one of the proposals helpful, there was no universal endorsement, by a majority of participants, for any one single proposal.

The proposal that was considered to be most helpful-to extend through 2010 the provision that accelerates the rate at which businesses can deduct the cost of capital expenditures-was found helpful by only 37 percent of respondents. Other proposals found most helpful were the payroll tax reimbursement (33 percent); elimination of the capital gains tax for investments (33 percent); tax credit for new hires (31 percent); and the immediate expense of qualified investment (30 percent). In general, the proposals related to SBA (Small Business Administration) loans were seen as less helpful than the other proposals.

Small businesses represent a strong voice in the American economic conversation. According to the most recent figures by the Small Business Administration, there are 27.2 million small businesses in the United States which are responsible for jobs of more than half of the population, including both their owners and employees.

"Our survey results echo what has already been widely reported, but also indicate that small business owners are incredibly passionate and will be a strong voice at the polls come November elections," said Connie Certusi, general manager, small business accounting solutions, Sage North America. "Sage is listening to its customers and in response we are providing an open forum for Congressional delegates, public officials and small businesses to come together to discuss issues affecting American small businesses through our SageSpark.com Small Business Forum."

Earlier this week, Sage launched the Small Business Forum on SageSpark.com as a place where business owners can connect and discuss current legislation and other issues affecting their business; share tips and advice; and access helpful resources from Sage. Today, Sage is extending the invitation to Congressional delegates to participate in the online forum and engage directly with small business owners to discuss the issues they face and share ideas for solutions to those issues.

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. Sage North America employs 4,000 people and supports 3.1 million small and midsized business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 13,100 people and supports 6.2 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the website at www.sagenorthamerica.com.

Sage North America plans to launch Sage Connect, a portal for accountants and their clients that is designed to enable them to collaborate via the Internet, along with providing other functionality such as some document management capabilities.

The portal can be used by anyone, according to product manager Jared Smith. "It's product agnostic," he said. He noted that it will be offered for free to members of the Sage Accountants Network. No plans have yet been made for selling it outside of that network.

Accountants will be able to setup notices to clients for recurring events, such as information needed for quarterly filings. They will also be able to set up types of files that they are requests from clients.

"We want to be proactive in helping partners drive the activities that spur growth," said Tom Miller, vice president of channel management, in a preshow interview.

This Insights is the last partner-specific conference for Sage, which will run a combined partner and customer event starting next year. Miller said Insights is being combined with the annual Summit customer conference at the request of partners who complained about the burden of attending two conferences.

About 1,000 partners have registered for this year's conference, Miller said, approximately the same number as last year.

Sage and its partner program came under scrutiny last July when MIS Group, one of the company's largest North America VAR's, suddenly closed its dorrs, leaving hundreds of Sage customers without an IT solution provider. While MIS Group's collapse has never been completely explained, it's generally believed the company was overextended financially after making a number of acquisitions.

Miller said that of all Sage's channel partners, the company has had to develop payment plans for only about a dozen that fell behind in their payments to Sage. And all but one of those are still in business, Miller said.

At Insights Sage will reveal that it's developing free workshops for partners in time management and business strategy development, a move Miller said will help solution providers be more effective business managers. The workshops, which will include tips on business plan development and resource prioritization, will be held in multiple cities starting in Portland, Ore., in July.

The workshops are patterned after similar workshops Sage already offers partners for developing sales and consulting skills. While Sage also runs weeklong "Sales Academy" and "Consulting Academy" courses, Miller said attendance was lackluster -- likely because of the expense and time commitment. The traveling workshops have proven to be more popular, he said.

"It's really given me the tools to run my business more effectively," said Mark Dresser, president of Dresser and Associates, a Sage partner who resells Sage's Abra human resource management software. Dresser has sent his four consultants to the consulting workshops and he's taken advantage of the vendor's marketing assistance programs.

Sage is also developing a two-and-a-half-day "Leadership Academy" course, tentatively scheduled for February 2011, that will include classes and workshops to help solution provider executives hone their personal leadership skills.

Sage also will reveal it is making its "Fast Track for Growth" initiative, a program to help channel partners develop marketing campaigns to attract new customers, available to a larger number of solution providers.

Until now Sage has had to maintain a cap on participation of about 50 partners a year because the company used its own marketing staff for the program, Miller said. By contracting with outside marketing experts to help run the program, Sage can open it to about 100 partners over the next year.

"This is one of those programs [where] the partners can really see the results," Miller said, noting that Sage has calculated the net benefits of the initiative at $4,000 per partner.

Sage has also run a "Hire Assist" program that has helped channel partners hire nearly 300 salespeople, Miller said. Dresser recently tapped into that program, which included the cost of a professional recruiter, to hire a new sales representative.

In addition, Sage will tell Insights attendees that it is expanding the program to help partners find marketing and consulting talent, in addition to sales personnel.

This will be Miller's first Insights, given that he was named to the channel chief post shortly after last year's conference. The appointment of Miller who spent much of his career at Great Plains Software and Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT), was widely seen as indicative of Sage's commitment to the channel.