Sage Software have just released their “Version 4.4 Pre-Release Guide” to MAS 90 and MAS 200.

The document contains the latest expected features and outlines the overall enhancements to the version 4.4 release of Sage MAS 90 & M AS200 which is expected to ship in the first calendar quarter of 2010.

Among the highlights:
– New direct “suggest a feature” – spot something you’d like to see added into MAS 90? Send a suggestion directly to Sage.

– Customer number expands From 7 to 20 characters

– Inventory item numbers expand from 15 to 30 characters

– Batch entry for inventory transactions

– Batch entry for purchase order receipts, returns and issues

– Parallel data migration

– Act Link retired suspended

– Data migrator retired in favor of Sage’s conversion service for QuickBooks, and Visual Integrator for all other conversions (BusinessWorks, Peachtree)

The Extended Solutions shown below will be rendered obsolete by the new features and functionality of the 4.4 release, and therefore retired.

More from the Sage

Focusing on workflow and business processes, the 4.4 release will apply the power of the Business FrameworkTM standards to Purchase Order, Inventory Management, Bill of Materials, and Bar Code.

These add to the modules already in the Business Framework: General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Sales Order, Return Merchandise Authorization, and Bank Reconciliation.

The Business Framework also provides many usability features that will allow an easy upgrade to new releases and will lower customers’ TCO by providing simple tools they can use to create and modify existing reports, and add user defined fields.

The Business Framework also provides the functionality for features and functionality such as: Business Insight Explorer, Memo Manager, wizard-based report creation, personalized data grids, and maintenance task hyperlinks. Following 4.4, our next Sage MAS 90 and 200 release will focus on adding features and functionality throughout the system, in some cases incorporating many of the features from popular Extended Solutions titles.

Version 4.4 will continue to build on the vast number of predefined Business Insights Explorer (BIE) views that are shipped in Sage MAS 90 and 200, and provided to every customer.

Our powerful ad-hoc reporting tool will continue to provide visibility into every customers business; additional BIE views will include Item Quantities by Warehouse View, Vendor History Purchases View, Open PO by Vendor Name View, Bill of Materials View and Component Where-used View. Quick-click charts, introduced in 4.3, and related tasks will also be available for the new views. The PO views will include drop ship information for more visibility into the details of that business process.
Parallel Migration will provide the ability to migrate from previous versions of Sage MAS 90 or 200 (version 3.71, 4.0, 4.05, 4.10, 4.2 or 4.3), to version 4.4 with more freedom and control over the upgrade process, and remove some of the time constraints previously experienced. While continuing normal business operations on the current software installations, customers will be able to work with their Business Partner to begin their upgrade by installing the new software in a separate (parallel) location on the same server or on a different server.

On this second location, the new system can be prepared and tested until it is ready to be adopted by the customer’s business. When ready, the current operational data is re-migrated to the new system. Customers may reduce the overall cost of their upgrades by minimizing the impact on their business and the amount of time that their system is down, especially since the entire upgrade will not need to occur outside of normal business hours. Built-in pre-migration utilities will be included to prepare data prior to the upgrade and migration.