Traker Engineering Limited (www.traker-eng.co.uk) was established in 1980 and is based in Cardiff, South Wales. They are a leading subcontract manufacturer of precision sheet metal and power press tool components who also specialise in hinge manufacture. They have extensive experience of working with all types of mild steels, stainless steel, aluminium and other non-ferrous materials such as copper and brass and supplies many well-known and respected national companies both in the UK and Overseas.
Traker Engineering’s strength over many of its competitors is that they can provide a one stop shop for any sheet metal requirements. The complete service includes product design, CNC laser cutting, CNC folding, CNC punch press, guillotining, power press manufacture, welding including MIG & TIG, spot welding, assembly, fastener insertion, hinge manufacture, master/ brake cylinder caps and many other types of ancillary processes. Using trusted business partners, they also offer a range of metal finishing including painting, powder coating and plating to companies throughout Cardiff and Wales.
Traker Engineering Limited decided to upgrade to Sage 50 Accounts Professional from Pegasus in 2016 on the advice of their management accountants and to enable them to bring their outsourced weekly and monthly payroll in house, also implemented Sage 50 Payroll and The Pensions module at the same time. Managing Director Gary Henley preferred to implement the new accounts system in phases to ensure that his staff where not overwhelmed with setting up and learning the new accounts system whilst having to also keep their Pegasus system up to date so a parallel run approach was introduced to manage the workload.
A 3 day workshop covering Sage 50 Accounts Professional and Sage 50 Payroll / Pensions module
An initial 3 day training workshop schedule was put in place over a two week period to setup and learn both Sage 50 Accounts Professional and Sage 50 Payroll/Pensions module. The initial sales and purchase records were imported via Excel and opening balances entered to establish a starting point. After a successful parallel run, Sage 50 Accounts Professional took over the day to day sales, purchase and bank transactions which included a successful VAT Return submission directly from the software. Their management accountants were already familiar with Sage 50 Accounts and duly designed a bespoke Profit and Loss report using the integral Chart of Accounts grouping option. The Sage 50 Payroll/Pensions module, once setup to suit their pay structure and mapped to their Nominal Ledger records to automatically post the payroll journals to Sage 50 Accounts was re-run from the beginning of the current tax year to date so that they could be sure they were achieving the same figures as their payroll outsourcing company and learn the Payroll and Auto Enrolment process at the same time before live processing was undertaken in house which also meant that they had a full tax year’s history on their own system.
Once these new systems were bedded in, Traker Engineering took a further one day training workshop to setup and learn the Sage 50 Accounts Professional Sales and Purchase Order Processing modules and incorporated the use of their Sage 50 Accounts Professional Products and Services database. During this workshop, Jayne also designed their bespoke Sales Order Acknowledgements, Delivery Notes, Sales Invoices / Credit Notes, Statements and Remittance advices to include their company logo and standard text lines.
Traker Engineering were also advised to take out a subscription to Sage Cover (https://www.sage.com/en-gb/shop/sagecover.aspx) as it includes not only telephone and email support but also web chat sessions which is very useful in a busy environment when a quick question needs answering.