To me it is very accessible, but I know Sage 50 like the back of my hand because I have been using it and its previous version, Simply Accounting, for well over 20 years.

There are things  you have to do with the Jaws cursor, sometimes the touch cursor and under Windows 10 you are generally better off not to use the traditional accessibility display driver which is still the default. The new so-called “GDI Hooking” method reads more in Sage, for example, if I lookup a transaction I entered in the purchases journal or bring up a trial balance or vendor aged report then I can read this information with the Jaws cursor if I don’t use the accessibility display driver, if I use it the Jaws cursor only reads blank. You can of course get around this as well by bringing up the report and then press Alt + F followed by “O” which is the command to “Open in Excel”. It will ask you to save the file, but once you do Excel opens and loads whichever report you have on the screen. If I have to really do a lot of detailed checking of data and maybe search for something this is my preferred method.

Also, the main screen of Sage does not read at all, this is where you select if you want to use the General Journal, Bank Reconciliation, the Purchases or Payments modules/journals etc. I know that if I open Sage I have to tab 5 times for the general journal, 6 times for bank reconciliation, 7 times for the Suppliers list, 8 times for purchases and 9 times for payments.

Somebody who wasn’t as familiar with the program and who tried to use it for the first time would probably be very frustrated and conclude that it is largely inaccessible.

I haven’t upgraded because I was sick and tired of paying them hundreds of Dollars every year for their so-called support which I never use and to get a new version which essentially was no different than the previous one. I also used to use their payroll module and during that time I had no choice because my annual payment also included the updates to the tax tables for Canada and so on. But for some years now I use a payroll service called Payworks where all we have to do is log in and enter each employees hours and they do the rest. A few days later (I do payroll every 2 weeks) the wages are auto-deposited into each employees bank account, Payworks does the monthly payments to the government for employment insurance, Canada Pension Plan and the income tax deductions and if an employee quits they file the Record of Employment and all that. I am a member of the Canadian Federation for Independent Business and as such I get a pretty big discount for this service, it only costs I think $11.95 per pay period (26 per year) and 99 Cents per employee for the auto deposit etc.

If you need a comprehensive accounting solution and are not invested in one yet I would absolutely recommend Quickbooks. They have an accessibility department and have done a lot to make their online solution which works via a monthly subscription accessible. If you want to use their desktop version you do have to pay for scripts which some company developed. Intuit also sponsors Aira so if you use their software or service you can call Aira for free to get help with anything. The person you want to contact about accessibility is Ted Drake:

Ted Drake

Principal Engineer, Intuit Accessibility

Work Phone: 650-944-5265

Cell Phone: 650-245-4825

Email: ted_drake@...

Twitter: @ted_drake

Best regards,

Sieghard

Hi Sieghard!

I noticed in your below that you use Sage 50 Accounting 2014.  How accessible is it with JAWS 2019?

Thanks,

Richard

I use Outlook and Excel all the time, often have several Google Chrome tabs/windows open plus usually
Sage 50 accounting and my point of sale software and I often go weeks without a Jaws crash. I am not saying I have some issues with Windows 10, I do and they are mostly related to the fact that I can’t read some stuff with the Jaws cursor which I used to be able to read under Windows 7, but strictly from a stability perspective Windows 10 is amazing and while my 2014 version of Sage 50 does sometimes go down the drain, Jaws, Excel and Outlook crashes are extremely rare.

I guess everybody’s system is different, I do have a high-end laptop at home, but at work all 4 PC’s we use there are mini PC’s, two of them Intel NUC with an I3 and an I5 processor, the other two are HP EliteDesk 800 mini PC’s, one has an I5 and one has an I7 processor. All of them except for the I3 system run very well, the I3 system which has 12 Gb of RAM is a bit sluggish even though it does have an Intel SSD, I certainly would never buy an I3 again..

Regards,

Sieghard