If you purchased or upgraded an ERP system less than 2 years ago, chances are great that in 5 to 6 years when you upgrade, you will upgrade to a cloud based system. So, what does that mean:  

MARKETPLACE FAIRNESS ACT:

What it is and how we got there: 

There are four big deadlines on the horizon for Sage Pro and PFW customers. In many cases, customers will wish to do nothing and continue to use their existing system. However, the lack of software publisher support for the software will be a red flag for some users, and the use of older 32 bit programming languages will be a red flag for other users. (Note, with virtual systems becoming more supportable, it may be possible to run Pro and PFW indefinitely, but the caveat is that the longer this is done, the greater the risk that the software will become a black box that nobody understands. See our blog article on " Software Rusts"). Because of business reasons, Sage has chosen to declare that Sage Pro and Sage PFW will not be supported by Sage after March 31, 2014. (PCM will continue to support this product as long as there is a demand for support).

• First Deadline is March 31, 2013. This deadline is for Sage Pro and PFW customers who wish to get on plan (get current with software support). Customers must be on plan to purchase additional modules, so off plan customers have until March 31, 2013 to decide if they want to purchase additional modules or user licenses for Sage Pro or PFW. They don't have to purchase the licenses by then, but they do have to get on plan by then.
• The Second Deadline is September 30,2013. This deadline is to qualify for the migration discount described in the table below. No license fees will be charged for on plan customers wishing to migrate to a Sage 100 ERP or Sage 300 ERP license with the same number of users. A $2000 per user credit will be offered for on plan customers wishing to migrate to Sage X3 ERP. The cost to do so is a prorated portion of the annual software support fee for the new system only. (So instead of paying 118% of list which is the normal new license and support cost, you pay only 18% of list and even that is prorated). Off Plan users are not without discounts either.  They get $750 per user trade in credit toward any of Sage 100, Sage 300, or Sage X3. Technical support will be offered for Sage Pro and Sage PFW to on plan customers for 6 months after the new licenses are purchases, since most users will probably continue to use the old software during the conversion process.
• The Third Deadline is March 31, 2014. After this time, NO MORE MODULES or USERS MAY BE ADDED TO Sage Pro or Sage PFW even if you are on plan.
• The Fourth Deadline: After September 30, 2013 and until September 30, 2014, on-plan users will receive a $2000 per user trade-in credit for migrations to Sage 100, Sage 300, and Sage X3. They will still have to purchase licenses and the software support plan, but get this credit to reduce the cost. Off plan users will only get $500/user trade in credit.
• Of course, Sage may offer some discounts after September 30, 2014, to try to round up addtional Pro and PFW users, but there is no promise or guarantee (or even a hint) that they will do so.

  Some accounting systems and ERP systems such as QuickBooks Pro have built in support for reconciling credit card type accounts. Most of the mid level ERP packages such as Sage 300 ERP and SAGE PRO ERP do not have this support. So, what can be done to work around this missing feature?

Seagull Scientific's Bartender Software prints barcodes, RFID tags, asset tags, shipping labels, from other software such as SAP, Sage Pro ERP, Sage 300 ERP, and custom software. Precision Computer Methods has customers who print millions of labels per year with this software rapidly and accurately.

Service Release #1 (first available on May 25, 2012), introduces translation updates and a variety of enhancements that many users will find useful. The most significant new developments are:

• Translations Completed: Some user-interface components that had been new to version 10 had initially been released as "English only." That content has now been translated into the 22 additional languages supported by BarTender.
• True Edition Emulation: It is now much easier for both Trial users and purchasing customers to try out the individual feature sets provided by each of the four BarTender editions available for purchase.
• Previously, users of the Trial edition were basically trying out the full Enterprise Automation edition. Although it was easy to confirm that the features they needed were available, it took somewhat more effort to determine which of the four editions they should get.
• Also previously (again, within the first 30 days), users of a purchased edition could easily try out features normally only available in the Enterprise Automation edition. (In this case, any features not normally available in the user's purchased edition would have the text "(Trial)" listed within the feature description.)

• Regardless of whether you had a Trial or purchased edition, after designing the document that you need using BarTender, you could run the Help, Edition Requirements option within BarTender to learn which edition was required to address the design features you ended up using. Although this approach still works, BarTender SR1 now offers the added convenience of true "Edition Emulation." This allows users of any edition (including Trial) to try any other edition (instead of being limited to trying out just our highest-end Enterprise Automation edition). For example, Trial users that think they might only need the Professional edition can quickly switch to emulating exactly that edition, instead of being limited to effectively trying out only the Enterprise Automation edition. The first chance to specify an edition to emulate happens at install time. However, the edition to run can be easily changed later from within BarTender using the Help, Edition Selection option. As with the previous approach to running BarTender, purchasing users that emulate a higher edition will still see the text "(Trial)" listed within the description of higher-end features for the first 30 days. In the past, however, once this first 30 day period was over, these "Trial" features were no longer available. Now, with SR1, these features continue to be available for use after the first 30 days are over.

Other changes to the BarTender suite include:

• BarTender User-Interface Improvements:
• Object Creation Improvements:
• BarTender's Text Toolbar and Line and Shape Toolbar are now always active. (Previously, they were only active when an appropriate object was selected.) This new capability allows you to specify settings for objects before you create them. For example, you can choose a default font and point size before you create one or more text objects. Or specify a line thickness and color before you draw a line.
• "Lock aspect ratio" is now the default setting for certain shapes that should, by default, be based on circular or square shapes (such as arcs, pies, rings, chords, stars and regular polygons).
• When drawing or resizing shapes, holding down the Shift key temporarily overrides the selected object's current Lock Aspect Ratio checkbox setting. For example, objects based on squares and circles (which default to Lock Aspect Ratio being checked) can be stretched in a single direction if you depress the Shift key when resizing. Similarly, objects based on rectangles and ovals (which default to Lock Aspect Ratio being unchecked) will temporarily force any resizing to be proportional if you hold down the Shift key.
• Better feedback when objects cannot be moved or resized
• Improved Print Station Performance:
• The Print Station companion application is now optimized for faster printing.
• Recently-used BarTender documents are now retained in memory instead of having to be loaded again from scratch for subsequent print jobs of the same document. (Print Station is now using the same document caching technology previously added to the Commander companion application.)
• In addition, Print Station Setup now allows you to optionally specify any BarTender documents you would like to have preloaded into memory. Any such documents start out cached in memory and ready to use, even before you have printed them for the first time.
• Since Print Station uses the BarTender SDK, it benefits from the SDK stability enhancements described below.

Print Server SDK Improvements: Applications based on the BarTender Print Server SDK now benefit from a number of performance enhancements. These include the same stability improvements that Commander received as part of BarTender 9.4 SR3. New capabilities include:

• Restarting the BarTender process if it becomes unresponsive.
• Automatically restarting the BarTender process on a schedule.
• Document caching. The new properties and methods are summarized here. (For more detail, please consult the SDK documentation.)
• IsResponsive property added to Engine and TaskEngine classes.
• ResponsiveTimeout property added to Engine, TaskEngine, and TaskEngines classes.
• RestartSchedule and StartupCommand properties added to TaskManager class.
• Additional Start() method added to TaskManager class in support of document caching features.
• CloseFormatAfterCompletion property added to all tasks that open BarTender documents.
• Priority property added to Task class.

Seagull License Server (SLS) Improvements:

• A User pane has been added to the SLS that allows administrators to view the active connections to SLS by user name. (A feature similar to this was present in versions of SLS prior to 9.3. It has now been restored by customer request.)
• Installer user-interface more easily supports a minimal download size: Early in the install process, when users are asked to select an edition, they are given a new option of specifying either "Trial" or one of the four available-for-purchase editions. If the "Trial" option is selected, users are offered the option of a minimal, full, or custom download. When downloading and installing from the web over a slow internet connection, the option of downloading only the modules that you need can significantly speed up your install time.

The Trial edition was updated to SR1 on Seagull's web site on May 25th, 2012. Existing owners of version 10 can download either from there or the main Service Release page. True Edition Emulation Provided by this Service Release.

Sage has seemingly reversed a policy to deprecate Sage Pro Series. This makes sense because Sage Pro is the only open source product Sage has in its ERP arsenal. One of the indicators of this shift in policy is a new website inviting anyone to post new feature requests for future version.   At the time of this writing there were 16 ideas posted. You can also vote on other ideas that have been submitted. If you need it sooner than the next release of Sage Pro, please call Precision Computer Methods Inc. at the number above and we can quote your idea on your system for you. For most ideas, there is no charge to obtain the quote.

Spreadsheets weren't designed for the potentially complex job of tracking and managing fixed assets. And that can mean BIG problems for your company:

Blue Screen or Crash in Sage Pro ERP

(Reprinted with permission from Redtail Solutions, one of PC Methods EDI partners)

Relationship Management is something that every successful business MUST focus on improving every day. It is the core of our existence and applies to any department, title and any organization. Having a system in place to centralize all of your important financial and client data will make it easy for your financial team to do what they are supposed to do, collect money.

PrintBoss Enhancements for 2011

Special Offer!    Schedule your PrintBoss enhancement in the month of May or June and receive 1 hour of consulting time FREE!   Call our office to schedule your enhancement today!

PrintBoss provides protection and increases service   Now more than ever you need to have complete control over all your assets at every step. PrintBoss is a state of the art software that integrates with Sage Pro, and many other accounting systems and allows you to print checks, invoices, deposit slips and other documents directly from that accounting package.   We have installed PrintBoss for many of our clients. They benefited by reducing receivable cycles, implementing internal controls and providing employees better paystub reporting and direct deposit. Using PrintBoss you will be able to have:  Positive Pay Files to protect against fraudulently produced checks Direct Deposit for employees Invoices sent via e-mail or fax And much more! PrintBoss is a useful ehancement to Sage Pro, Sage Accpac, Sage Peachtree or any accounting or report based system.   Call our office today to schedule your PrintBoss enhancement. Or Click below to request more information on PrintBoss