Sage 500 ERP – Page 3 – Schulz Consulting

SAP Business One VS MAS 500 Down & Dirty

January 7, 2010 by Wayne Schulz

A Sage Business Partner who represents both Sage MAS 500 and SAP Business one has weighed in with a most interesting assessment of how Sage matches up against SAP in the mid-sized business ERP market.

Super consultant Mark Chinsky posted yesterday a very extensive list of how SAP Business One kicks MAS 500’s ass compares against MAS 500.

Mark’s intimately familiar with both products and for a period of time in the late 1990’s ran the #1 Sage MAS 90 and MAS 500 consulting firm in the United States (he sold the very first copy of MAS 500 then called Acuity).

Here’s a peek at his post – follow the link at the bottom to read the really good stuff on his site:

SAP Corporation is the 2nd largest software company in the world. Sage is much smaller. Sage is basically a UK finance company that has acquired over 100 companies over the years and they operate mostly independently with limited sharing of best practices and solutions. They more often compete with each other rather than complement each other. Sage must spread their R&D over hundreds of different code bases. SAP currently only has 2 code bases. MySAP, the product for very large companies, and SAP Business One for small and mid-size companies. This means their rate of progress and enhancements can be substantially faster in terms of long term improvements.

And to be fair, here’s some positive feedback from Martk about MAS 500:

MAS500 has some built in functionality that doesn’t exist in SAP Business One. It has Inventory Replenishment logic for companies with many warehouses and strict adherence to specialized buying processes. It has out of the box Intercompany GL & AP processing, the available manufacturing modules go deeper on shop floor and work order controls, MAS500 has more advanced bin management as well, SAP cannot tell you what location in a warehouse an item is in, if its in more than one bin location. SAP’s vast third party library can address any of these issues but they aren’t out of the box.

If you are considering MAS 500 vs SAP Business One want to speak with the smartest ERP consultant I know – head over to Clients First, read the post.

Clients First Business Solutions

ISM and 7 Others Named Sage Preferred Development Partners

December 16, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

Angela Goldsmith from Information Systems Management (ISM) just emailed to let me know that their consulting firm, ISM, has been named a Sage Preferred Development Partner. These are partners that Sage is recommending for upgrading Extended Solutions that have not been incorporated to versions 4.4+ of their MAS 90 or MAS 200 software.

A Preferred Development Partner is a firm that has gone through the application process and have 15 positive references on their Providex programming work. They must have 5 partner and 10 client references that Sage checks. If the development partner is already a Gold or Endorsed Partner they get to skip the reference check and are considered a preferred development partner.

The idea behind Preferred Development Partners was that some ISVs might want to help their own customers upgrade their solutions but might not want to be in the general business of supporting & upgrading the ES titles for the Business Partners in general.

ISM is a developer for Sage and one of the leaders in the community with respect to the eBusiness Module. Based in Oregon they work with Sage MAS90, MAS200, MAS500, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft CRM.

Newly added Sage Preferred Developers:

Exeplex – http://www.exeplex.com
ISM – http://www.goism.com
Steward Consulting – http://www.stewardconsulting.com
Accounting Systems – http://www.asifocus.com
xKZero – http://www.xkzero.com
Midwest Commerce – http://www.mcsresults.com
TAIRAQ Systems – http://www.tairaq.com
Innovative Consulting Systems – http://www.innovativeconsultingservices.net

Via: ISM – Information Systems Management- Portland Oregon

Save up to 15% on Sage MAS90 or MAS200 Maintenance With A Multi-Year Renewal

August 28, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

Sage is now offering a new Multi-year Policy which applies to renewals of Basic Software Maintenance. The savings are applicable across all their product lines – not just the Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 software products.

In order to take advantage of this deal simply agree to prepay for multiple years’ of software maintenance. You can pay for this in one lump sum ~~or over a series of payments charged to your credit card via Easy-Pay~~.

Basics:

Applies across all product lines (I asked if it was MAS only)
Applies to both Basic and Clientcare (support)
Does NOT apply to support cases that are purchased individually

The MAS 90 and MAS 200 Basic Maintenance Savings Are:

2 years: 5% discount (multiply this year’s 1-year renewal amount by 0.95, then multiply that by 2)
3 years: 10% discount (multiply this year’s 1-year renewal amount by 0.90, then multiply that by 3)
5 years: 15% discount (multiply this year’s 1-year renewal amount by 0.85, then multiply that by 5)

The Multi-Yr can be paid through the partner or Sage.

Everything is prepaid but the yearly rates are locked into the total price so the pricing can not increase.

~~Also, the multi-year contract can be paid through the Easy-pay (monthly bank draft or credit card charge) option as well.~~

Update 9-8-09: Per Sage – multiple year discounts can only be achieved by pre-payment in total and NOT via easy-pay.

For more information contact Wayne Schulz – 860-657-8544 or wayne@s-consult.com

Sage to implement Ideascope for MAS90, MAS200, MAS500 product enhancement requests beginning May 2009

April 9, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

picture-1-68 Sage North America has announced that Ideascope usage will be expanded to include the MAS product line.

Ideascope is an hosted feedback management solution for software developers. It allows them to gather suggestions from end users and consultants on what new features or changes should be implemented in the product.

Ideascope: Changing the Face of Enhancement Requests

Ideascope is an interactive program which allows customers and partners to submit enhancement requests hassle-free through the Web. Peachtree has had great success utilizing Ideascope with their products. In May 2009, Ideascope will be available to Sage MAS customers and partners! Customers and partners will at first be able to access Ideascope through the Sage MAS Online Community. And later this year, Ideascope will be integrated directly into Sage MAS products, radically improving the ability for customers and partners to submit their requests and generate change!

This unique program is simple to use and completely automated. To submit an idea, a customer or business partner clicks on a link on the Sage Web site (or within the Sage MAS product) bringing up the Ideascope form. They chose the product line and type in a brief description of their enhancement idea. Quickly, the Ideascope server analyzes the submission to determine if something similar has already been suggested. The individual is offered a list of previously-submitted matching requests to choose from, or to submit their own as a new or unique idea. Ideascope will automatically update the request frequency each time. The customer is sent an automated e-mail, informing them of their initial request’s status and each time there is a status change.

On our side, Ideascope categorizes, prioritizes, and catalogues the requests for easy searching and review. A key appraisal team (consisting of product management, product marketing, and other key internal constituents) will periodically assess the top-requested enhancements, and create a priority list for our development team. Anytime an enhancement request is included as a fix or addition to a new product release, those who requested that enhancement will receive an automated e-mail update informing them of this news.

MAS90 and MAS200 supported versions list

March 18, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 version 3.71 and higher are presently supported by Sage. This means that in most instances you can obtain the current release levels, service updates (if any) as well as tax table updates.

There are some restrictions on what older versions of MAS 90 and MAS 200 are entitled to.

For example, versions 4.20 and earlier no longer receive service updates. Instead if you find an error you’ll have to beg and plead ask for an individual program fix. Also, version 4.05 and lower no longer have the knowledgebase kept up to date – so if you’re looking for a problem report on a version 4.0 issue you’ll probably not have much luck.

Curious what the restrictions are on the supported levels of Sage MAS 90, MAS 200 (and MAS 500 is even thrown in for good luck)?

Here’s the PDF showing all versions starting with 4.30 and their appropriate level of support.

Supported Versions Policy MAS90 MAS200 MAS500

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Brochures & Catalogs version MAS200

Basics:

The MAS 90 and MAS 200 Basic Maintenance Savings Are:

Ideascope: Changing the Face of Enhancement Requests

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