Catalog of Sage 50 (and Peachtree) titles
Our Sage 50 practice sets immerse students in realistic merchandising scenarios
in which they assume responsibility for completing a one-month accounting cycle
for their business in an actual copy of the Sage 50 Complete Accounting software.
Students follow the US GAAP accounting standard, use the perpetual inventory system, and
manage sales tax as part of their transactions.
Two titles and the differences in their design
We publish two Sage 50 accounting practice set titles.
Our active back catalog also includes two titles
for earlier versions of the Peachtree software.
(These older titles may be relevant for your school if, say, your computing lab
facilities are still running an older version of the software.)
The pedagogical approach between our two titles differs, with each title
having been written for a distinct purpose:
The Electronics Specialist practice set challenges students with a
large project that is designed to be completed as a homework activity over a multi-week period.
The student is appointed as the new accountant to an "Electronics Specialist" retail store and
their first task is to convert the current accounting system of that store into the Sage 50
software. They then begin analyzing the transactions for the month before completing end of month
processes and financial reporting.
As the more difficult title, this practice set expects students to submit answers and review
their feedback, and then independently identify any individual transactions that may be causing
discrepancies. Our multimedia resource, the
Sage 50 Learning Center, provides students
with significant support but they are still required to problem-solve on their own, and to
identify and correct any mistakes they may have made in their Sage 50 files.
The VirtualTutor format of this title is graded out of 419 points. You can review more
detailed information about the academic content of both titles using
our topics covered page.
The Sage 50 Complete Accounting 2013 edition of the Electronics Specialist
practice set is available only in our VirtualTutor format. Our active back catalog
includes earlier editions of this title in paper, Excel and VirtualTutor
formats to support both Peachtree by Sage Complete Accounting 2009
and Sage Peachtree Complete Accounting 2011.
The paper and Excel formats of this title are available for
free. You can learn more about these different formats and pricing on our
formats & pricing page.
The Corporate Gift Baskets practice set is significantly easier.
The student is the owner of their own sole proprietorship and their Sage 50
data files, suppliers, inventory, customers and opening balances have already been set
up for them. The business is smaller with significantly fewer transactions, simpler
transactions (for example, no discounts, no sales/purchase orders, and no sales/purchase returns)
and no staff payroll to manage.
This title provides more guidance to students to assist them in reaching the correct answers
and is explicitly written to be relatively more of a learning task. To build confidence
and assist students to check their understanding, additional feedback is provided early in
the practice set on key purchase and sale transactions to help students ensure they are
making the major entries correctly before working through the remainder of their transaction list.
Detailed feedback includes a line-by-line break down of each transaction
that is recorded in each general ledger account to assist students to quickly and easily
identify any mistakes they may have made in their Sage 50 files.
This title is graded out of 136 points. You can review more detailed information about the
academic content of both titles using our topics covered page.
The Corporate Gifts Baskets practice set is available in VirtualTutor format to
support Sage 50 Complete Accounting 2013 and
Sage Peachtree Complete Accounting 2011.
You can learn more about this VirtualTutor format on our
formats & pricing page.
Please download our
Title Overview
as a PDF brochure for a detailed comparision of the two titles in an easy-to-print format.
Selecting which title is the best fit for your course
The two practice set titles have been designed so that they can be used together or independently.
Use the topics covered page to gain a deeper understanding
of the academic design of each of the two titles. You may find that the design or
content of your own teaching, or the skill and knowledge that you require your students to
demonstrate, better suits one title over the other.
Alternatively, the two titles complement each other and can be used together for the same cohort
of students with the Corporate Gift Baskets practice set being used as an introductory learning
activity and the Electronics Specialist practice set as a more rigorous assessment activity.
Because the Corporate Gift Baskets practice set is designed to assist introductory accounting
students gain familiarity with Sage 50, it is likely that the grade distribution for this
title will be skewed towards high outcomes, and that a grade of 100% will not be uncommon.
On the other hand, the Electronics Specialist practice set is significantly longer and more
demanding, resulting in a lower average score and a more normal distribution of grades for
most typical accounting courses. As a result, if assessing your students’ deeper knowledge
of Sage 50 is your primary goal, you may find that the Electronics Specialist title
is more appropriate.
Adopting is easy
Adopting a Perdisco practice set (in any format) is like adopting one from any other publisher.
We'll help you select the best resource and send you and your teaching team free online and
review copies. You can review our sets yourself, or we can guide you through a
review and demonstration.
With over fifteen years experience in publishing tertiary level e-learning, we can also offer
you insight into how other academics use our resources worldwide - including recognized
best practice approaches for using Perdisco resources in teaching, revision and
assessment programs. Our learning resources have featured in academic studies
published in the
that demonstrate (quote) "students’ learning was significantly enhanced through the
use of the Perdisco e-learning resources".
Once you adopt, we'll provide you with lecture slide packs and course syllabus inclusions to help students access their Perdisco
resource. And once semester starts, our customer support team will stay in touch - providing ongoing assistance to both you and your
students.
Don't teach Sage 50?
If your accounting course teaches students how to use a different accounting software package,
or focuses on how to complete the accounting cycle manually,
please check our manual practice set catalog for more information
on the other practice set editions we have available.
Getting started
Contact us to find out more or to order a review copy.