Sage ERP MAS 200 SQL 4.45 is Now Available

For many years, I've been asked about MAS 90/200's database.  I'd answer "Providex" and while fast and flexible and very reliable it wasn't well known.    This made company's with IT staff leery and also meant that those who know other databases couldn't easily integrate their products with their accounting data without learning a new product.     Well those days are over.   You can have Providex as your database and go for the speed or you can go with MAS 200 SL wich is built on the popular Microsoft SQL database product.

Sage ERP MAS 200 SQL version 4.45 is now available. Sage ERP MAS 200 SQL 4.45 is a milestone release enabled by the Business Framework™ modern architecture. Management will appreciate the robust accounting and operations functionality in a solution tailored to your processes. Your IT will value how easy this modular ERP system is to implement, customize, and maintain - with SQL providing database stability and scalability. You will all embrace innovative customization that allows you to optimize MAS 200 to meet the unique needs of your business. And because your customizations survive upgrades, it will help keep the total cost of ownership (TCO) low.

The 4.45 release is now featured on its own microsite at SageMAS.com/MAS200SQL. 

Additional documents are available at:

• SQL Server Licenses data sheet
• Technical White Paper

The pricing for the SQL product is the same as the Providex Sage MAS 200.     

Note:  Converting to the MAS 200 SQL from the current MAS 200 is not yet recommended by Sage.   Look for announcement in 2011 or contact us for more informaton.  

Unlike some new kids on the block, Sage Software has to be responsible to their existing client base as well as their new customers’ desires for the latest and greatest. With a large installed base comes great responsibility.   DSD is happy to be in the same situation.    We are contacted every week by vendors who want us to represent their "Latest and Greatest" products.  Some of them are rolling out something they call "Software as a Service" and make all sorts of claims about why that makes them superior to what Sage Software offers. 

We have tried some other vendor’s products but we have found that the "new and better" stuff always has growing pains.   We are being recruited by other vendors every week. We get into details that most people who are not VARs can't fathom.   Remember that most ERP shoppers only do this once in a great while . . . if they do it right.   The other vendors products often are missing what they call "small stuff"  but we call vital tools that the new guys don't think needs to be there.   Stuff like merging vendor’s records or re assigning customer records to new salespersons and even leaving out one step billing.   If they also sell direct, that should be a RED FLAG to any VAR as our experience is not so good with being treated as a "partner" by organizations with a direct sales force.  If the vendor isn’t treating their VARs well, imagine how the customer/client gets treated.    We have seen it up close and it’s not a pretty sight. 

When our work is compared to how email systems are sold and operated, that tells me that the comments come from people who don't really understand why we exist in the ERP marketplace. Our "raison d’être" (reason for being) isn’t the software; it's the Service as a Service that we have been providing for over 25 years. We have to select our vendors based on their ability to provide the tools we need to do our job or our customers/clients will find themselves stuck with no help from us.  It doesn't matter where the data is stored or who the IT people are!  It always comes down to understanding the client's business processes and business environment. We need to walk in their shoes and not step on their toes.   That is quite the trick.    Even people on "America's Got Talent" don't try that!   A really great performance is being done over at the Sage Accpac ERP group. 

Sage Accpac ERP version 6.X product is being released in a few months and will have a new "Google friendly" interface. In a year or two, all the modules will also be switched over and also allow for concurrent availability of the current look and feel for their existing users. Sage  CRM. which is fully integrated into Sage Accpac and now with MAS 90/200.   So, these users can have their cake and eat it, too.    Maybe this looks like Sage is late to the party, but there is a ton of work to make this happen and I for one don't see too many others doing it better.   This is a race that the tortoise wins over the rabbit.    Our clients who are accountants understand this better than anyone.

 Sage offers us a great community of people who all put the client first.  Technology is changing faster and faster but Service as a Service (SaaS) is what we are about at DSD of GA.

Sage Software ERP products replacing FRx with Sage ERP MAS Intelligence as alternative for Financia Reporting. 

As a result of Microsoft’s decision to retire FRx, the module will no longer be distributed with the Sage ERP MAS product effective January 31, 2011.* In response to Microsoft’s announcement, Sage ERP MAS Intelligence will be provided to customers using FRx as an alternative solution for Financial Reporting. In the coming weeks, you’ll see information from Sage providing current on-plan FRx customers with an offer to transition their FRx licenses to Sage ERP MAS Intelligence. Customers will receive one free Intelligence Report Manager or an equivalent product mix depending on the FRx licenses purchased in the past by the customer.

Sage MAS Intelligence offers powerful and easy to use graphical financial reporting capabilities to access business-critical information and makes complex reporting easy using a new report designer. Going beyond General Ledger reporting needs, Sage MAS Intelligence provides Business Intelligence across the entire Sage MAS ERP system, including CRM and Abra.  Sage MAS Intelligence benefits include:

• Quickly identify and respond to trends using sophisticated, customizable dashboards
• Empower your staff with timely, meaningful information and trend reports
• Easily create in-depth financial, operations, customer, and vendor reports
• Efficiently view, manipulate, analyze, and distribute reports in a familiar Excel format
• Extract up-to-the-minute high level summaries, account groupings, or transaction details
• Effortlessly consolidate data from multiple companies, divisions, and databases
• Streamline customized work in Excel

Spend more time focusing on strategic analysis and interpretation and less time pulling the data together from static reports.

*After January 31, 2011, customer’s current on maintenance and using FRx will continue to receive support from Sage. Microsoft will no longer be providing any bug fixes for issues found within the FRx product so Sage will only be able to support matters that involve the integration between Sage MAS and FRx. Sage will maintain backward compatibility between FRx and Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 V4.5.

**  This same Intelligence report writer is also available for the Sage Accpac ERP product.  

Maybe you’re already turning off the water while brushing your teeth or carrying around your reusable water bottle like it’s your wallet. Now, it’s time to get eco-conscious at the office. An easy way many businesses are greening their companies is by making their supply chains more sustainable.

To start, communicating with the companies in your supply chain about their environmental initiatives can be helpful. In fact, a study published by Business for Social Responsibility says most suppliers’ clients are asking about their environmental performance.

Using an ERP system is one way you can hold your company to higher environmental standards. Not only does the technology eliminate annoying time spent dealing with invoices and save you money, it will make your dedication to an environmentally conscious business clear to customers.

Also, if you don’t already, choose post-consumer recycled materials for your packages. The box is the customer’s first impression of your product, as Scott Wicker, VP of Sustainability for UPS, pointed out in an article on Environmental Leader. Packaging your products in smaller boxes is also an easy way to green your shipping.

Greening your supply chain could make you money, impress your customers and save the planet. Puma and Walmart are doing it – you probably can too.

Instituting a "Green Program" means new processes that must be monitored by you or someone in your company.   It this is what's holding you back, then you need your ERP system to allow you to do that.    Sage's sytems are flexible enough to do that if you work with the right Sage Value Added Reseller.

Going Green will improve your bottom line by saving on costs as well as attracting new business.   

    ***************************************************************************************************************************************

Note:  This posting was first made on Sage's blog  put out by the "Sage ERP Team".   As a Sage Value Added Reseller, we are part of their Team and I've added how an ERP system's usefulness can be multiplied by inviting your VAR to make it do what you need it to do. Free

Welcome!

Monday March 15^th  we launched a new website for DSD Business Solutions of Georgia.    www.dsdincga.com 

So what?   Why bother to read DSD Business Solutions of Georgia's blog?    Aren’t there enough blogs already?   Isn’t everything in the world that needs to be said already being said?  Why add this blog to the website?   Isn't the website enough?

We don’t think so!     

Our blog will be a window into our organization that will show the viewer the changing landscape inside DSD Business Solutions of Georgia.

Our blog can show you why we  care about what we do as an organization.   (Why else do this?)

Our blog is a way to explain why we do what we do.   (No, we are not crazy!)

Our blog should demystify what we do.     (No hocus pocus.)

Our blog will reveal how we are different from other organizations you have worked with.   (Why you may want to invite us to work with you. )

Our blog will be a way for you to learn more about who we are so you have more than our bios to check us out.   (I don’t usually wear that suit!)     www.dsdincga.com/company/who-we-are/index.html

Our  blog offers you, our readers,  a way to tell us what you think about the topics we write about.  (Conversations are good!)

Our blog makes it easier to listen to you so we can learn about you and what you need from us.

We see this blog as a way for you to get to know us and a way for us to get to know about you.  

Please consider subscribing to this blog so you can be notified of future entries to this blog.  

Our team has learned how to assist many different types of organizations to be more successful at what they are doing.    We do that by looking at their business processes.

My next blog will show why looking at an organization’s business processes is vital to its prosperity and even to its survival.