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Sage 100cloud Consulting

Eight Tips for Speeding Up Sage 100

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We’ve heard from some users that after upgrading Sage 100 to version 2020 that they’ve experienced slower performance.

Slow performance can be cause by many things ( see below for a list of the top 8 reasons your Sage 100 might be slow ).

In many instances the slowness of a new Sage 100 upgrade can be traced back to overly aggressive anti-virus or malware scanners causing interruptions in processing.

The suggestions below may ( or may not ) help speed up your Sage 100 system. Prior to calling support I recommend walking through each and seeing if they might apply to your particular installation.

  1. Change the default printer to another physical or network printer and then test/check the performance
    1. Sage 100 Advanced and Premium looks at the default printer on the server every time a task is launched.
    2. Sage 100 Standard edition checks the workstation’s default printer.
    3. Make sure all Network Printers are on-line
    4. If a Network Printer is off-line and no longer needed, remove it from Control Panel, Devices and Printers
  2. Check the path
    1. For Sage 100 Standard, Workstation Setup should be installed from a mapped drive letter path, such that the shortcut to launch Sage 100 also has the mapped drive letter path. The drive letter must be mapped to a directory above “MAS90”
    2. For Sage 100 Advanced or Premium, Workstation Setup should be installed from a UNC path, such that the shortcut to launch Sage 100 also has the UNC path. The UNC share point must be a directory above “MAS90”
  3. Check that the latest Sage Anti-Virus setting exclusions have been applied
  4. Consider temporarily disabling anti-virus and malware scans
    1. This is trickier than it should be – and may require uninstalling and rebooting the server
  5. Consider setting Sage 100 so that the shortcut always “runs as administrator”
  6. Check ping times for Advanced/Premium
    1. PING servername -l 1800 ( Note the -l is lowercase letter L ) 
    2. Anything over 40 ms is slow and may be cause for further investigation
  7. Turn off the Sage Product Enhancement Program
    1. Login to Sage as Administrator
    2. Select Sage Product Enhancement Program
    3. Deselect “Participate in the Program” by removing the checkmark
  8. Never run Sage over WiFi without use of RDP or Terminal Server/Citrix
    1. Customers may refer to this as “using a VPN” but the VPN does NOT act as a remote desktop
    2. Customers running solely over WIFI or the Internet with RDP will see most pronounced slowdowns in printing

All information was drawn from this Sage KB article – Slow performance when opening a new task or starting Sage 100, or when running Sage 100 across a network

Sage 100 Files to Exclude from Antivirus Scanning

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No matter how fast your computer system hardware may be there is always room for improvement. One way that Sage 100 users have found to improve the speed of their accounting software is by excluding certain Sage 100 files from scanning by antivirus software.

Sage has a published list of the files and file extensions which may normally be excluded from scanning by antivirus software.

Since these file extensions are specific to Sage 100 there is a small risk of infection which leads Sage to recommend their exclusion.

There is a Sage knowledge article available online – How to exclude Sage 100 from antivirus scans.

The article recommends the following antivirus expulsions which may speed up the processing of Sage 100.

In general these exclusions should happen on both the server and workstation.

Update 3/2/2021

Consider testing by temporarily disabling your antivirus product to see if this improves performance: speed, file locking problems encountered, error messages, etc.

If performance improves, exclude the Sage 100 programs, folders, and file extensions from your Antivirus program:

In your Antivirus product:

  • Disable any aggressive or continuous (also known as on-access, constant, or real-time, or “network scanning“) monitoring or scanning of Sage 100 (formerly Sage MAS 90 or 200) programs if they exist:
    • “..\MAS90\Home\Pvxwin32.exe“
    • “..\MAS90\Home\pvxiosvr.exe“
    • “..\MAS90\Launcher\Launch32.exe“
    • “..\MAS90\Launcher\Launcher.old.exe“
  • Exclude the “..\MAS90” directory and sub-directories and contents on the server where Sage 100 is installed.
    • Note: Do the same for the workstations, if using Sage 100 Advanced or Premium editions (formerly Sage MAS 200 and Sage MAS 200 SQL editions)
  • Exclude the following file extensions:
    • AUC, DCL, DD, DDE, DDF, EXP, LCK, LIB, KDF, M4D, M4L, M4P, M4T, M4X, PRM, PVC, PVX, RPT, SOA, XEQ
  • Spa.NA.Com must be a trusted site

Note: It is okay to run nightly scans when users are out.

We advise that you consult with your IT staff prior to making any exclusions. Never disable your antivirus or malware scanners without understanding the risks involved.

WFH Tip For Sage 100: Go Paperless

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If your workflow is now like that of many companies you probably have most or all of your staff working from home.

When your staff is working in Sage 100 they are likely printing and updating journals and registers as they go about their regular workday.

These registers require paper and if you are manually printing and requiring staff to come into the office to later file the journals and registers – you are working too hard.

Sage 100 includes a feature called Paperless Office. It’s essentially taking all those journals and registers and automatically saving them as PDF files in a location determined by you.

What’s nice about this feature is that once enabled it automatically saves a copy of the output no matter whether your staff tries to send it to a printer or manually creates a PDF.

Sage has a set of detailed instructions online. These only look complicated as the actual setup is fairly straightforward.

If you decide to setup Paperless Office in Sage 100, here are a couple quick tips.

  • Create a common storage location which will survive upgrades. Don’t embed the saved paperless documents inside the \MAS90 folder or you’ll need to move them ( or keep that old folder ) with each upgrade.
  • Usually what we do is create a folder \acct then inside there have a folder \v20xx for the actual Sage 100, also a \acct\Paperless folder which holds the paperless documents.

That’s it. It’s very easy to automatically saved copies of your journals and registers to PDF automatically which will save your staff from having to manually file those documents.

With a little more setup effort you can also email out invoices using paperless. Some third-party credit card processors also support embedding links inside the invoices so your Sage 100 customers can pay directly from the invoice.

Previously we’ve had some customers dismiss paperless office as an unnecessary step. Now with more companies adjusting to working from home this handy feature is not only included in your product but can provide a very real return on your Sage 100 investment.

Expect Sage 100 1099-NEC Functionality in Purchase Order With These Updates In Spring 2021

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For the 2020 tax year, the IRS introduced a new 1099-NEC form. This new form replaces the 1099-MISC for reporting non-employee compensation.

Sage has incorporated this update into accounts payable provided you are using the most recent versions.

What has been missing is the ability to set 1099-NEC boxes in the Purchase Order Module. Initially Sage indicated that this functionality would be added in a future release.

Recently Sage provided guidance on how they would add 1099-NEC functionality for those who rely on purchase orders.

The following Sage 100 versions will receive an update adding 1099-NEC functionality to purchase orders (Estimated release – Spring 2021 ):

Sage 100 2021
Sage 100 2020 Update 2
Sage 100 2019 Update 5

What Are The Differences Between Sage 100 Perpetual and Subscription Licenses?

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Sage has been urging their Sage 100 customers to migrate their perpetual licenses to subscription since launching Sage 100c in November 2015.

This release was primarily a subscription version of their Sage 100 perpetual license.

Prior to the introduction of subscription pricing, Sage 100 modules had been sold as perpetual licenses meaning a company would pay a larger up-front initial license fee and a somewhat optional annual maintenance fee which covered upgrades and Sage support.

While the ongoing costs were typically the same the subscription ( Sage 100c ) version offered a much lower initial purchase price.

The biggest difference initially between perpetual and subscription was that if you stopped paying your subscription license fee the Sage 100c offering would go into read-only mode.

Over time Sage adjusted their subscription offer. First, by rebranding Sage 100c as Sage 100cloud in November 2018. Next Sage signaled that they would likely do away with the confusion over the cloud brand and simply refer to their Sage 100 offers by three broad brands.

  1. Sage 100 Perpetual
  2. Sage 100 Subscription
  3. Sage 100 Partner Cloud ( Subscription – partner-hosted on Azure )

What Are The Differences Between Sage 100 Perpetual and Subscription

Sage 100 Perpetual offers a somewhat limited number of modules than either Sage 100 Subscription or Sage 10 Partner Cloud.

The biggest current feature difference is that Sage 100 Subscription ( including Partner Cloud ) offerings provide access to multiple bin usage for inventory items.

Many companies assign multiple bin numbers to the same inventory items for a variety of reasons – including inspection, committed quantities, and other requirements.

The most important distinction between the perpetual and subscription license is that Sage indicates perpetual licenses will receive maintenance and compliance updates only.

New feature releases will focus on enhancing or developing features for Sage 100 subscription licenses only.

Here Are The New Features Added To Sage 100 Subscription Only In 2020 and 2021

During 2020 and 2021 Sage has added a number of new features which are exclusive to their subscription license.

Some of these features – such as pre-defined role security templates – are slated for release in the upcoming 2021 release.

Prior to Sage 100 2020, there were a number of features and add-ons which were exclusive to subscription – including

Moving forward all of Sage’s development efforts for Sage 100 will center on the subscription version of the solution which is less costly to acquire and also less expensive in most cases to add or remove user licenses.

For more information on the new features in Sage 100 subscription please see this Sage brochure.

1169452_Sage100_ComparisonGuide_2020Download

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