SageForum for UK versions of Sage 50- Help and support.

Hi,

Not sure if you can help me here. I am a freelance bookkeeper and have recently taken on two new clients (they happen to be husband and wife, but each have their own business) I duly sent them out to buy a copy of Sage Instant each, and now find that I can't install both programmes on my computer! Sage inform me that I should upgrade to Line 50 and get a licence. This would be far more expensive, I can't afford to take that cost, and why should my clients when they have bought Instant already. Alternatively Sage suggest I might buy a computer for each client (!) My gripe is that my clients have bought what they need as individuals and I cannot provide the service I have contracted to do. Everything is fully above board and Sage have had their money. I don't know what to do next. Any suggestions?

What you could try is installing the Sage once and using it for both data sets - not sure if this is kosher but effectively 2 liscences have been purchased so might be ok. You would need to get a system of backups going so you didn't lose data but as long as you back up each set before restoring the next it should be ok.

Hope this helps

You can be a little smarter than doing countless backups and restores with a single copy of Instant.

You don't say what version and I don't do Instant so this is approximate.

Open explorer,
go to
C:
Documents And Settings
All Users
Application Data (This is a little tricky as it is a hidden directory you might need to go Tools>Folder Options>View>Hidden Files and Folders>Tick the box for "show hidden files and folders" to see it)
Sage
Accounts (Maybe instant)
2009 (Maybe other year)
in here you will find a file called "company"

open the file with notepad and you will see it contains the path to a directory where your sage data is held

eg C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sage\Accounts\2009\company.000

go to that directory and copy the company.000 folder and paste it then rename it to company.001

back in notepad change the path to the new path and when you start sage you will be using the other set of data.

Now, to switch between the two easily.

Make 2 copies of the company file call them company1.txt and company2.txt
Put the path to each company in each of them.

Now the clever bit
make a batch file to copy company1.txt over company and another to copy company2.txt over company.

you can make 2 batch files using notepad, you just need to give it the file extension .bat
(you need to turn off hiding of file extensions in explorer to do this) Tools>Folder Options>View>...

The contents of company1.bat file will be one line something like

COPY /Y "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sage\Accounts\2009\Company1.txt" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sage\Accounts\2009\Company"

You need to change the path to yours.

Now right click on the batch file and send to desktop as a shortcut.

Double clicking on the company1 or company2 shortcut on your desktop will switch instant accounts between the two datasets

You need to ensure that your licensing permits this.

Thank you very much both, your help is much appreciated! I will need hubbys help with the second reply, and as we are moving house this week, it won't be for a while. I will be back to post how we got on with it.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

Oh dear, thought I would have a try myself this evening, and when I get to All Users~Application Data~Sage all that is in there is Ebanking. No Sage, Accounts Date or "Company". Not sure what has gone so wrong at this early stage....

Thoughts ...

Back up the directories and look for a different name e.g. instant

Use windows search to find the file called company

What version of Instant Accounts are you running, earlier versions had it in c:\Program Files\Instant Accounts (or something similar) might be worth looking there.