Sage Software announces big Kahuna business partners

October 17, 2008 by Wayne Schulz

Sage Software Announces Top Business Partners for 2008

The awards are out and the top business partners for 2008 have been named by Sage Software.

Announced are the 2008 Business Partner of the Year and Million Dollar Achievers. The overall top partner will be announced at the Sage Software January 29th Kauaui HI President’s Circly and Chairman’s Club awards ceremony.

Million Dollar Achievers are business partners who have exceeded one million dollars in business with these Sage products. Business Partner of the Year recipients and Million Dollar Achievers are based on performance during Sage Software’s 2008 fiscal year, which ran from October 1st, 2007 to September 30th, 2008.

Here are the Sage Business Partners of The Year – 2008:

Blytheco, LLC, Laguna Hills, CA, for Sage ERP products, and Overall
Business Management Division (BMD) Partner of the Year
Infinity Info Systems Corporation, New York, NY, for Sage CRM
MIS Group, Dallas, TX, for Sage CRE products
NFP Consultants, Inc., St. Louis, MO, for Sage NPS products
Galaxy Technologies, Inc., Madison, WI, for Sage ES products

Also announced were the Million Dollar Achievers.

These folks sold $1 million dollars of software (an impressive feat in today’s economy). The product lines that they represent run the entire spectrum of Sage Software’s offerings and include ERP, CRM, Non-Profit, Construction, etc.

Accordant Company LLC, Whippany, NJ
ADSS Global, Miami, FL
Aktion Associates Inc, Maumee, OH
Alliance Solutions Group, Brandon, FL
Arxis Technology, Inc., Simi Valley, CA
BAASS Business Solutions, Thornhill, ON
Bangert Computer Systems, Burlington, IA
BCS/ProSoft, Inc., San Antonio, TX
Blytheco, LLC, Laguna Hills, CA
Brainsell Technologies LLC, Ipswich, MA
CA-Plus Inc, Toronto, ON
CFO on the go co, Temecula, CA
CIS Consulting Group, Charlotte, NC
CompuData, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Construction Real Estate Software, Mill Valley, CA
Constructive Solutions For Business, Vancouver, BC
Con-Tec Management Systems Inc, Concord, CA
Contractor Business Solutions, Monroe, WA
Cornerstone Solutions, Oak Brook, IL
Crouch, Slavin & Company, Tulsa, OK
Delphia Consulting LLC, Columbus, OH
Digitek Inc, Gilbert, AZ
Dresser & Associates Inc., Scarborough, ME
Emerald TC, LLC, Suwanee, GA
Eos Group Inc, Scottsdale, AZ
FCA Technologies, Falls Church, VA
Fortsum Solutions D Affaires, Laval, QC
Galaxy Technologies Inc, Madison, WI
Hagel & Company, Puyallup, WA
HighTower, Incorporated, Skokie, IL
Idysys, Irvine, CA
Infinity Info Systems Corporation, New York, NY
ISM Barsa – Portland, Portland, OR
JMT Consulting Group, Patterson, NY
Logical Construction Concepts, Pleasant Hill, CA
MIS Group, Dallas, TX
Net@Work, Inc., New York, NY
NFP Consultants, Inc., Saint Louis, MO
Practical Software Solutions, Concord, NC
SGS Technology Group, Ogden, UT
Skyline Business Systems, Beaverton, OR
Socius, Brecksville, OH
Software Professional Center, West Haven, UT
SWK Technologies, Inc., Livingston, NJ
Technology Advisors, Inc., Des Plaines, IL
Techware LLC, Lakeville, MN
The Strategies Group, Suwanee, GA
THG Sales Automation , Wilmington, MA
United Solutions, Marlborough, MA
WAC Consulting, Inc., Northborough, PA
Zybertech Const Software Services, Red Deer, AB

The overall Business Partner of the year is expected to be revealed at the Hawaii awards ceremony on January 29, 2009. Pictures of the happy revelers are usually shown at the annual Sage Software reseller conference in May.

Link: Sage Press Release

MAS 90 General Ledger journal entries print one per page with paperless office

October 15, 2008 by Wayne Schulz

Several members of my 90Minds Consulting Group have been discussion an odd issue that appears to be a WAD (works as designed) within Sage MAS 90 and 200 version 4.3. The issue is that when paperless office is enabled in the general ledger module and several journal entries are made – each of them will print on a separate sheet of paper.

The reports do not print as one entry per page when the paperless office module is not in use. Our speculation is that the logic behind paperless office dictates that one journal entry must print per page. This is likely to keep the abililty to search the paperless register for a single journal entry.

Suggested workarounds:

Option # 1: Enable the ability to post after previewing a report – and allow the user to preview the journal entries and then answer “Yes” to the “Do you want to update” question.

Using this option you are assuming that if a journal needs to be re-printed that you could do so via the regular report printing option to reprint journals.

Option #2: Modify the options for the paperless journals and registers – specifically the general ledger and the general journal register.

Set the “Autocreate PDF ” option to “Prompt” which will cause MAS 90 or MAS 200 to prompt you during printing of the journal/register and ask if you want to send the document to PDF (paperless). If you answer no you can preview the register or print it normally. For times when you want to send the report to paperless just answer “Yes” to the prompt.

This option may also be set to “NO” if there are any journals and registers that you do NOT want sent to PDF.

As a best practices we recommend that you adopt an all or nothing approach. Instructing staff to print certain registers to PDF (paperless office) while previewing and posting others is fraught with opportunities for error.

What’s new in Sage MAS 90 4.3? (PDF)

October 8, 2008 by Wayne Schulz

Are you wondering exactly what’s new in the latest accounting software release from Sage Software. Download this 4 page PDF and you can see what Sage Software is highlighting in their latest Sage MAS 90 and 200 version 4.3 release.

This latest release provides an invaluable new feature in the ability to send all reports, forms, and registers directly to a PDF file.

While sending reports to PDF files is nothing new, the process that Sage uses to secure, name and manage the PDF information is the piece of the puzzle that most companies will welcome. When you elect to send your journals and registers to a PDF file via Sage’s paperless office you ensure that nobody in the office can mistakenly forget to print a journal to PDF. This is because Sage MAS 90 automatically remembers for you. Then once the PDF is printed it takes care of automatically naming and filing the document.

Sage MAS 90 and 200 4.3 Delivers Customer Value In These Areas As Well:

Go green with paperless office
Turn your data into actionable knowledge
Immediately access up-to-date information the way you want to see it
Streamline your tax reporting process
Provide employees safe and secure direct deposit choices
Simplified report selection
Set income statement formats to chose actual, budget and budget variance information
Globally change customer salesperson information in A/R
Protect against accidental discounts

Link: What’s New In Version 4.2

MAS90 and MAS200 Manuals Online in PDF Format

October 6, 2008 by Wayne Schulz

Have you been searching for a MAS90 manual to take home and read? Product manuals for Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 are no longer available in printed format. Sage software stopped shipping manuals with version 3.71 and instead has included all the information in their help files.

Several clients have said that they prefer to the paper manuals over help files since they can print off the manual to take with them when they are away from the computer.

Fortunately, there is a way for you to view printed manuals for Sage MAS 90 and 200.

Although the manuals are a little dated, there is an active link to all the Version 3.71 documentation which can be downloaded to your computer (or printed out).

Access the Sage MAS 90 version 3.71 version of the product manuals at this link – MAS90 Manuals.

Another way that users can access a more updated set of documentation is directly from their Sage MAS 90 or MAS 200 help screen. If you would prefer to review the available courses on your own – navigate to http://www.sagesoftwareuniversity.com or simply follow this link directly to the Sage Software MAS 90 self-study materials list.

Open your current version of Sage MAS 90 or MAS 200 and select Help – Help Topics – and then scroll down the Contents to the very bottom where you will see a “Module PDF” item.

Click on the “Module PDF” link and you’ll be able to view the list of all the help files (already in PDF format) from which you can view online or print to hard copy. These are essentially compilations of the help files – so they’re a little less detailed than what you have available in version 3.71’s PDF manuals.

If these manuals are not enough information, our advice is to consider the Sage Software self-study guides. These are courses sold directly by Sage Software that document the processing procedures within Sage MAS 90 or 200. Although they’re sold as a study course, we have many clients who have found them to be very useful as an ongoing resource when trying to learn a new feature in their accounting software.

Your Sage Business Partner can provide you with information about the self-study courses.

If you prefer, you can browse to http://www.sagesoftwareuniversity.com or view the list of available MAS90 self-study guides directly by following the links.

Available self-study courses include:

Core Applications Period and Year End Procedures
Distribution Applications Period and Year End Procedures
Payroll Quarter and Year End Procedures

Link: Sage Software Self-Study Guides for MAS90 and MAS200

Client Advisory: Do not install any Extended Solutions without calling Sage and asking for the latest version

October 6, 2008 by Wayne Schulz

If you are upgrading you Sage MAS 90 or 200 accounting software and are using Extended Solutions from Sage Software we strongly advise you call Sage (or your Sage Business Partner) immediately prior to installing the upgrade and request a free update to the latest version of your Extended Solution (Sage tracks the different levels by program release date).

In many instances you may be told that you’re at the latest release. Don’t let that discourage you from calling each and every time prior to upgrading.

Update – 10-7-2008: Spoke with Paula Mikkelsen at Sage Software Extended Solutions and she provided me with the name, email and phone extension of the person who is in charge of generating the Extended Solutions for customers and resellers. I’m not going to post her info here because I don’t want a flood of spam to chase her inbox. Send me an email and I’ll be happy to forward you the contact information.

Why do you need to do this?

Sage Software does not have an automated way to provide the latest versions of their Extended Solutions to resellers. When solutions are initially available they are sent out in an email to the reseller which announces the availability of the upgrade.

This email is often weeks (if not months) ahead of when a company may actually install their Sage MAS 90 or 200 program upgrade. In the passing months there are increasingly more program fixes needed for Extended Solutions.

Unfortunately there is no central place to regularly view what the current release levels are for the Extended Solutions. All of this work must be done via phone call (or email) to Sage Software.

What We’ve Suggested To Sage

In the future we are hopeful that what can happen is that the intial link that is sent to a reseller points to the very latest copy of the enhancement (including any patches made since the update was released).

Another possible solution would be for the enhancement itself to contain a “self check” where it would query a database to make sure that the latest version is being installed.