Schulz Consulting

Sage 100cloud Consulting

What Are The Various Sage 100 Business Care Plan Benefits and Costs?

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sage_business_care_plans

 

Sage Offers Three Levels of Business Care.

  1. Sage Silver – 21% of current suggested list price of modules licensed
  2. Sage Gold – 25% of current suggested list price of modules licensed
  3. Sage Platinum – 25% of current suggested list price of modules licensed plus $2,000

These plans are annually recurring and the selection of one plan is required with your initial purchase of Sage 100 accounting (formerly MAS 90 or MAS 200).

The plan cost is built-into the subscription pricing of Sage 100c. With Sage 100 you must compute the annual Business Care costs by multiplying current perpetual license cost times the level of Sage Business Care selected (Silver/Gold/Platinum).

The top benefit of a plan is the annual software upgrade and periodic Sage 100 program updates. These are NOT sold individually. You must be enrolled in an active Sage Business Care plan in order to receive updates or to purchase any new module licenses.

What Happens If I Drop Sage 100 Business Care?

If you are using Sage 100c which is sold only on subscription, your software will revert to a read-only state and you are unable to perform any further data entry.

If you are using Sage 100 which is sold as a perpetual license you may continue using the software (subject to the EULA) however you will lose all access to Sage support and upgrades. Should you wish to re-join the Business Care plan you will be subject to a penalty which varies based on current Sage policies. You can also rejoin the Business Care plan by subscribing to Sage 100c.

Sage modifies the plan benefits and costs from time to time. Before making any decisions about your Sage Business Care you should check with your Sage partner to receive the most current costs.

 

How To Remove A Sage 100 ERP Module That You No Longer Use And Stop Paying Maintenance On It

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Occasionally you may find yourself with Sage 100 ERP modules installed on your system which you no longer uses. We’ve been asked in the past by our customers if there is a way to remove those modules and stop paying maintenance?

The answer is yes. First you must contact your business partner – or Sage Client Care Representative. They will send you a form (Word Document or PDF ) which you complete and send back to Sage.

Once Sage approves the downgrade they will send you new unlocking keys. You’ll need to first remove the module(s) (as well as ALL historical data). Then you use the new unlocking keys to permanently remove the module.

 

How To Remove Modules

  1. Make a full backup of Sage MAS 90 or 200.
  2. In Windows Explorer, go to ..\Mas90\ and copy the data folders of the module to be removed (optional).
  3. In Sage MAS 90 or 200, rename, move, or delete the data folder for the module from each company (for example, ..\Mas90\Mas_abc\Apabc).
  4. Open Library Master / Setup / System Configuration.
  5. Click the ‘Uninstall’ button.
  6. Select the module to be deleted and click the ‘Delete’ button.
  7. Click ‘Yes’ at the confirmation prompt.

Sage Modifies Bronze Maintenance Effective 3/1/2012

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Effective with maintenance plan renewals on or after March 1, 2012 Sage have indicated they will eliminate their Bronze maintenance plan option and move all Bronze users up to Silver plan.

The Bronze plan is the one used by most of our customers and, until Sage abruptly discontinued it, allowed for periodic software upgrades with no help desk access to Sage.

Under Sage’s Silver plan the additional percentage paid to Sage will be 3% (Bronze was 18% and Silver’s new price is 21% of product SLP). In additional to the benefits Bronze previously offered Sage adds very limited help desk access (5 contacts per year ).

This Sage access is best used for basic front line questions about things such as an error message or a request for a copy of your software unlocking codes. Do not expect them to advise you on best business practices, provide candid opinions on third party solutions  or guide you with non-routine implementation questions. They are technicians working from a knowledgebase, not experienced field consultants with decades of business experience.

Schulz Consulting has a network of 90 fellow consultants working to provide feedback on:

  • What is the real world experience with the latest MAS90 upgrade? Is it relatively bug free and  ‘safe’ to install (On December 14, 2011 three of our 90 Minds members caught a critical v4.50 error that was causing some daily transaction registers to double during Sales Order updates – and immediately notified our mutual customers to defer upgrades pending a Sage fix)
  • Consultants with skills in scripting (our group has 4 of the best Sage scripting consultants in the country), reporting (we have a Crystal Reports export, a Sage MAS Intelligence expert and several BizNet consultants, custom programming (three of our members are authorized to modify Sage 100 ERP source code), manufacturing (we operate a full time 24 x 7 support area for Job Ops manufacturing software and have half a dozen experts), eBusiness
  • Unpublished workarounds for issues not document anywhere in the knowledgebase
  • Experiences with add-on software from various third party providers – EDI, Bar Coding, Sales Tax – often we provide references for these services that may or may not reinforce a decision to continue investigating them

 

In short, if you were previously on Bronze maintenance, you will see a 3% increase in the cost of your annual plan if it renews on or after 3/1/12.

If you were on Silver or Gold with Sage – there’s no change.

Schulz Access Agreements for your consulting and systems support remain unchanged.

Sage EasyPay Makes New Purchases or Reinstating Maintenance Easier Through March 2012

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Looks like Sage is rolling back out (continuing?) their EasyPay plan where customers off plan can get back on by making monthly payments.

I’ve used this in the past and it’s a pretty nice incentive for someone off-maintenance who owes a large back maintenance amount in order to become current.

I believe the changes this time around:

a. You can use credit cards for the monthly payment. Previously it was only a direct ACH and some customers balked at giving access to their checking account.

b. 5 year and quarterly payments are no longer being offered effective December 1, 2011

c. Partners on the hook for defaults (I’m unsure if this has always been the case – correct me if I’m wrong). Seems fair to me though.

d. Add-on modules (qualifying) can be put on Easy Pay – though oddly there is a separate payment that you have to make – they don’t add it into your main payment.

e. Discounted multi-year M&S subscriptions cannot be combined with Easy Pay (I believe you could before)

f. The following items are NOT eligible for the SAGE ERP EasyPay Purchase Program:
• Other non-ERP Sage products (Abra, FAS, SalesLogix, etc.)
• Endorsed Partner products
• Third party products and OEM’s
• Edition upgrades (e.g., Sage ERP Accpac 200 upgrade to 500)

I’ve had several customers use this program to lessen the burden of becoming current on maintenance and it’s a nice deal in my opinion.

MAS90 Users Off Maintenance? September 8, 2011 Could Be Your Last Day To Reinstated Inexpensively

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My fellow 90 Minds collaborator Beth Bowers dropped this into the group a few days ago. I think it’s worth sharing.

I’ve not seen an official memo on this from Sage but the reinstatement folks are advising:

On September 8 (I believe the magic of that date is when 4.5 is slated to be available for new sales) those users on version 4.1 or earlier who are OFF SAGE MAINTENANCE will no longer have the option to reinstated for the price of the penalty.

Instead those users on 4.1 and earlier who are also off maintenance and wanting to come back on will have to re-purchase the package – which depending upon configuration – could be two or three times the reinstatement cost.

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Schulz Consulting
Connecticut Office
Phone: 860.931.9363
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Available remotely nationwide.
We are a local branch of DSD Business Systems Connecticut.