If you’re struggling with wrong totals appearing in your MAS 90 or MAS 200 version 4.4 Job Cost files then you may have hit upon a bug that I just spent a good 6 to 8 hours uncovering — only to realize that Sage seemed to know about it but had the problem report “hidden” so that it’s only uncovered by a phone call to the publisher (way to be efficient – not)…

Here’s the situation:

Sage has an acknowledged product bug in Job Cost 4.4. You can read about it fully here:

Jobs are missing and customer lookups are incorrect in Job Masterfile after rebuilding JC1 i fA/R invoices are updated to jobs

What the problem report didn’t tell us (and admittedly this could be specific only to the customer where I encountered this issue – but I’m betting it’s more widespread) is that if the JC1 (Job Master File) is damaged then after you load the Product Update 4 you will most likely continue to have problems as described in the hidden Sage knowledgebase entry below.

The solution that finally appears to have worked for us is to take the time consuming and inconvenient step of manually applying the “possible workaround” to each job cost master record (JC1) that appeared damaged and lengthening the key.

It seems that Sage might be working on a product fix to correct data however this bug is so old and known that I advised the customer not to hold their breath waiting for a fix.

Note to Sage: Please improve your customer and partner service and publish all KB entries so in the future your customers don’t have to reinvent the wheel trying to re-produce and issue that you are aware of.

The Job Status tab displays data in the incorrect fields and Job Cost Reports with Job-to-Date, Period-to-Date or Year-to-Date information display data in the incorrect fields. Requesting Data Fix Utility related to LM4051-T (Defect 94422)

Entry Type: Program Issue
Product:
Sage MAS 90 ERP
Sage MAS 200 ERP
Application: Job Cost
Version Reported: 4.40.0.x
Status:
For current information on this issue, please click the Engineering Status link above. To record the occurrence of this issue, respond Yes to the question, “Did this answer help you?”

Subject:
The Job Status tab displays data in the incorrect fields and Job Cost Reports with Job-to-Date, Period-to-Date or Year-to-Date information display data in the incorrect fields. Requesting Data Fix Utility related to LM4051-T (Defect 94422)

Steps to Duplicate:

4.40 mas90, company EEC; do not use 4.40.0.4., or higher for the steps; it has the fix to prevent the issue.

Using Data File Display and Maintenance, in file JC1EEC, view the record for job EEC4575, JC1 record is not short

Enter AR invoice data entry for customer 01-COLDWEL, select job EEC4575 on Main tab. Enter at least one sales code line.

Update AR Sales Journal; can update DTR but not necessary.

Repeat step 2. Record is short.

Note: You can use SO invoice data entry for step 3 in place of AR Invoice Entry; results are same.

If you were to use Rebuild Key Files on JC1 (job masterfile) right now, job EEC4575?s JC1 record would be deleted.

Select Job EEC4575 in Job Masterfile Maintenance, Status Tab, note the invoice entered is not in the JTD, YTD, PTD fields. The FUTURE button should be illuminated and the data is displaying in the Invoice Billed and Payment Received next period fields.

Expected Behavior:

A/R Invoices that reference a job should post to the Invoice Billed PTD, YTD and JTD fields in JC1 Job Masterfile. A/R Payments that reference a job should post to Payment Received PTD, YTD, JTD.
When a short record exists in JC1 (program issue corrected in LM4051-T but existing data was not corrected), the invoice and payment amounts post to the incorrect field in JC1, therefore displaying in the incorrect fields in the Job Status tab and on Job Cost Reports.

Possible Workaround:

Library Master / Data File Display & Maintenance / Select JC1xxx.

A short record displays only 5 lines for the 01 String field and a correct record will display 6 lines for the 01 String field.

Select the short record, Edit, 1,334,50 and answer YES to Expand the field. Accept.
This will correct the record size and data will post in the correct fields going forward.

Currently, data will need to be manually edited using Data File Display and Maintenance to enter the correct values for the job.