Consulting and Upgrades
Sage released a patch for Sage 100 2023 which resolves an issue for Sage 100 Standard – now referred to as Sage 100 Stand-Alone or Sage 100 LAN – where unspecified prerequisite files failed to install as part of the workstation setup.
The resolution is to download LM7200T from the Sage KB and then install to the server and re-run the workstation setup.
A more complete description of the issue is available here (pdf).
Sage advises that users of Sage 100 Payroll must upgrade to Sage 100 v2020.x (or higher) before the end of 2023. If you are a payroll user on a version of Sage 100 prior to 2020 then you won’t be able to load the year-end payroll update and will be unable to print or eFile W2 or 1099 or related tax forms.
The reasoning behind this is explained in Sage KB 119228:
Due to compatibility issues with the latest software provided by our tax reporting partner, the Sage 100 Payroll 2.24 release and 1099 update scheduled for December of this year will not be compatible with versions of Sage 100 before 2020 (6.20.0). Specifically, payroll customers and those utilizing 1099 functionality running Sage 100 versions 2018 and 2019 must upgrade to a supported version of Sage 100 to install the Payroll 2.24 release and the latest tax form updates.
Important Note: Customers running unsupported legacy payroll versions do not have the option of a separate payroll installation and are not impacted by this change.
Effective with the release of Payroll 2.24, payroll and 1099 customers on versions 2018 and 2019 will need to be running one of the following versions of Sage 100 to install the latest release of Payroll and 1099 forms:
Customers not running a compatible version of Sage 100 will experience a failure of the Payroll update installation and the inability to generate 1099’s, W-2’s or associated tax reporting documents.
Starting with our 2024 Payroll release, we will have an n-3 support policy for payroll updates, compatible with the latest and three prior versions of the Sage 100 software.
For more information, see Sage KB entry # 119228
Based on a recent post to the company’s knowledgebase, the next release of Sage 100, version 2023, has been slated for April 27, 2023.
Update: Sage 100 version 2023 was released in April 2023 – here’s what’s new in Sage 100 2023
Sage recently noted some additional updates expected to be released around the time of the Sage 100 v2023 version. The following versions are all slated for April 2023 release – presumably around or on the same date as the version 2023 release.
Sage has yet to release a list of expected new features publicly. Once this information is released, it will be cataloged online at Sage 100 Product Documents.
Beginning in October 2023, Sage announced their licensing servers would be updated to exclusively use the more secure TLS 1.2 (or higher) protocols.
Beginning in December 2023, Sage will require payroll users to be on one of the following Sage 100 versions:
Users not on one of the compatible Sage 100 versions shown above cannot install payroll update 2.24 required for year-end tax reporting. Beginning with the release of payroll 2.24, Sage announces they will support the current and three prior versions of Sage 100 for payroll users.
In October 2023, Sage plans to update their licensing servers and remove less secure TLS 1.0 and 1.1. All Sage 100 users must be on TLS 1.2 or higher, the only version compatible with the licensing servers, or risk having their Sage 100 system go into read-only mode after being unable to communicate with the licensing server.
The chart above shows exactly which versions of Sage 100 and 300 are compatible with the upcoming changes.
According to Sage, license checks occur upon the regular expiration date of your subscription. Monthly subscribers will therefore have licensing checked more frequently, while annual paid subscription is only checked once per year.
TLS 1.2 is more secure than prior TLS versions because it uses more robust encryption algorithms and cipher suites. TLS 1.2 also includes several security enhancements that make it more difficult for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities.
One of the most significant security enhancements in TLS 1.2 is using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cipher suite. AES is a block cipher that uses a 128-bit key, which makes it much more secure than the 64-bit keys used in earlier TLS versions. TLS 1.2 also supports several other cipher suites, including ChaCha20 and Poly1305, which are even more secure than AES.
In addition to using more robust encryption algorithms, TLS 1.2 also includes many other security enhancements. For example, TLS 1.2 uses a more secure method of generating random numbers, which makes it more difficult for attackers to guess the random numbers and launch a man-in-the-middle attack. TLS 1.2 also supports Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), a more efficient and secure alternative to RSA.
As a result of these security enhancements, TLS 1.2 is a significantly more secure protocol than prior TLS versions. Organizations that use TLS 1.2 can be confident that their data is protected from unauthorized access.
Here are some additional details about the security enhancements in TLS 1.2:
Once a Sage 100 license has expired (including being unable to reach the licensing server), there is a 45-day grace period to renew. After that time, Sage 100 will only have read-only access to data. Customers will still be able to Sage 100, which will display a message that the Sage 100 subscription has expired, and may view existing data, but it will no longer be able to make changes or enter new transactions.
From the Sage update:
As previously communicated, effective October 2023, Sage License Servers will no longer accept communication using the less secure TLS 1.0 and 1.1 protocol. Therefore, Sage 100 and Sage 300 customers must be on a recent version.
While in Sage 100, go to your Help menu and select About. This will display the current release level. If you are not on 2018 PU10 ( or higher ), 2019 PU4 ( or higher), 2020 PU1 ( or higher ), or 2021+, contact your Sage partner for further consultation about upgrading before the October 2023 deadline.
As announced in a Sage City Post, the tracking button in Sage 100 is working again.
Previously functionality saw the button, when used to lookup tracking information for a package tracking number, redirect to a third-party site – iShip. This site provided multi-carrier tracking number information and was convenient because it could be used to lookup many carriers from one website.
iShip – was purchased by UPS and, on 12/31/2022, ceased to provide a public API.
Users who tried to use iShip to track carrier packages by tracking number were met with an error message.
Because Sage maintained the link to the tracking site on their servers, they have been able to fix this on their end, and no patch is required to restore functionality.
According to a Sage City posting, this is how Sage will manage requests for carrier tracking information:
The new implementation will now use the tracking ID, to determine which carrier it belongs to and re-direct to the appropriate site. The carriers that this will handle automatically will be USPS, UPS, Fedex, DHL, and Ontrac. If the package id is not determined to be one of the aforementioned carriers, it will be re-directed to a google search with that package id.
In Sage 100, this will work from any package tracking buttons (ie Shipping Entry) and for paperless emails that use the embedded tracking token [TrackingNo]
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