Aries Technology Group Blog

Sage Software has announced that Sage MAS 500 Version 7.3 will begin shipping in November.  Many new features are included, in addition to more streamlined usability, scalability and system performance enhancements.  One of the most positive things about this new release is that it utilizes Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.  The retirement of VB 6 is indicative of Sage’s commitment to using the latest Microsoft Development Tools.

Below, I’ve outlined some of the key new features in Sage MAS 500 v7.3.

A new module, Credit Card Processing, is available to enable customers to quickly process payment receipts.  Features include multiple credit card accounts per customer, multiple credit card types and Processor types (Sage Payment Solutions, PayFlow by PayPal) and address verification and card security code.  Credit card transactions can be initiated and managed through Sales Order, Accounts Receivable and Cash Management.  There is no charge for the module if you are using Sage Payment Solutions as your processor, or if you are already licensed for Sage MAS 500 PSG Credit Card Processing.

Global enhancements include:

• Updated Desktop.   The Tasks Explorer Bar has been updated, allowing you to display menus for one module at a time.  You can also choose from various Explorer styles to set how your menus are displayed.  The ‘My Tasks’ Explorer Bar has been modified and can be more easily personalized. 
• Extended Platform Support.  Sage MAS 500 is now supported on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008.  Also supported are 64-bit versions of client & server operating systems.
• PDF Document Transmittal.  Vendor and Customer documents can be generated and e-mailed in PDF format.
• Applications and Database Auditing:  A database auditing trigger tracks changes made to the database tables by non-Sage MAS 500 applications.  You can also track user deletions, additions and modifications made through Tasks.
• Full Company Name Displayed During Login.  During login, the full company name is displayed (instead of an abbreviation).

Inventory Management enhancements include:

• Physical Count.  In Inventory Management, the physical count process has been enhanced to include a new grid entry, expanded item selection criteria & sort order control, warning messages for items with missing counts, filtering a list of count items, option to set remaining uncounted items to zero, the ability to delete frozen controls from a batch, new detailed transaction report, exporting items to Excel to be counted.
• Recalculate Inventory Quantities.  This utility can now be run on demand (executes the SQL Server “QtyOn” job).
• Business Insights Explorer Views.  New views are available such as Pending Increase Transactions, Pending Decrease Transactions, Pending Physical Counts, Posted Physical Counts, Pending Lots (Preview) and Pending Serial Numbers (Preview).

Sales Order Enhancements include:

• Shipment Commit Workflow.  Previously, shipments had to be confirmed before an invoice could be printed.  Now, you are able to print a pro-forma invoice before committing the shipment.  Thus, a printed invoice can be included in a shipment.
• Cascade Sales Order Line Updates.  Updates made in the order header controls will optionally cascade down to all open sales order line items.
• Credit Card Entry.  Credit card payment info can be entered in Enter Sales Orders and Quotes, Edit Shipments, Process Sales Orders.

Accounts Payable enhancements include:

• ACH.  The ACH feature allows you to use electronic funds transfer as an alternative to checks.
• Positive Pay.  You can help prevent check fraud by generating a file that is submitted to your bank to verify check information prior to a payment. 
• Vendor Merge.  You can now easily merge vendor information from one “source” vendor into another “target” vendor and permanently remove the source vendor from your database.  All history is retained.

Accounts Receivable enhancements include:

• Customer Merge.  You can now easily merge customer information from one “source” customer into another “target” customer and permanently remove the source customer from your database.  All history is retained.
• Invoice Merge.  Multiple shipments can be merged into a single invoice.
• Credit Card Refunds.  Refunds for credit card payments can conveniently be issued in the Process Cash Receipts and Process Invoices tasks.

System Management enhancements include:

• Enhanced System Status.  View and hide other SQL Server connections outside of Sage MAS 500, set automatic refresh interval and initiate on-demand refresh.
• New Security Events.  There are new security events in Accounts Receivable, Credit Card, Inventory Management, Accounts Payable, Purchase Order and Sales Order.

In addition, scalability and system-wide performance improvements have been made.  Processing sales orders, creating invoices, creating purchase orders, creating vouchers and creating journal entries are just some of the tasks that have been enhanced to process more transactions faster!  Performance enhancement has also been applied to  Crystal Reports, Manufacturing Production Entry and Labor Entry.

There have been no changes to the versions of Crystal and FRx.  Crystal remains at version 10.0 and Frx at version 6.7 SP 10.

Please call or email us if you would like further information.

Sage_MAS_500_7.3_Pre-Release_Guide-07-10-09

Recently our friends at Microsoft Business Solutions (Great Plains, Navision, Solomon and Axapta) have been attacking Sage and their partners from a truly odd angle.  Apparently the folks at MBS think that businesses purchase accounting, inventory, manufacturing, human resources and customer-relationship management software based on whichever software vendor is currently running a sale on their respective products.

For a business, implementing a new software system is just as invasive, complicated and risky as it is for a human to go through triple bypass open heart surgery.  In both cases, the patient could very well die!  Many businesses have been put out of business by software implementations gone sour.

I posed this question to several of our MAS 90, MAS 200, MAS 500 and Abra customers:  If a Microsoft (or any other software) representative called or came by your office today and offered you their software for free, would you be interested?  The answers are a unanimous NO.  Just like the kids in the Lio cartoon below, they are not interested in open heart surgery for their business even if the doctor gives it away for free.

Would you go to a doctor who discounts or offers a buy one/get one free surgical procedure?  I don’t think many of us would be interested.  So, why would any business purchase a software implementation based on price?  Especially when that software becomes such an integral and vital part of that business that it cannot live for long without the software functioning properly.

I seek out the doctors who have new patient waiting lists of several months.  They’re the best ones and they are almost always the most expensive and the most successful.  The same goes for technology consultants.  Do you really want to work with software from a consultant who isn’t busy and can only compete based on price?  Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

And notice how many customers Dr. Lio brought in with his free offer.

 While visiting Charleston, SC this past weekend, my family and I stopped by the Cathedral of St John the Baptist.  It’s a beautiful Gothic cathedral which began construction in 1890 and is still a work in process.  Currently, its Connecticut brownstone exterior is being renovated and a spire is being added.

What also caught my attention are the markings on each and every one of the brownstone bricks.  Since there obviously were no electronic time keeping systems in the 19th century, the stone masons kept track of their time on an honor system.  For each day of work they completed, they would imprint one star into a brick.  The church elders were confident that none of the workers would cheat on their time because they were working on a church.  Who would dare to pull a scam on God, right?

Unfortuntely technology projects are not churches.  Time sheets and billing by the hour are fertile territory for cheating.  Rarely are time sheets accurate which means that you rarely receive an accurate bill from a consultant who bills by the hour.  In almost every situation, a consultant is compensated based on the number of billable hours she or he generates.  Where does that put you if you are their customer?  In a very unholy position!

How do you avoid being in this predicament?  Insist on an up-front, fixed price for every project before you move forward.  The consultant should be focused on your desired results and should not care how long it takes to accomplish those goals.

We drove down to Georgetown, SC this past Saturday from our condo in Myrtle Beach.  We would spend most of the afternoon on a lighthouse and shelling tour on Winyah Bay.  What a perfect day for the trip.  Calm winds (since with even a moderate breeze Winyah Bay gets very choppy), sunny and temperatures in the high 80′s.

Winyah Bay is formed by the confluence of the Waccamaw, Black, Great Pee Dee and Sampit rivers.  It provides access to the Atlantic Ocean and was a favorite hiding spot for Blackbeard.  It’s also part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway which runs from Norfolk, VA to Key West, FL.

As we headed out of Georgetown Harbor aboard the Carolina Rover, we were introduced to Captain John and First Mate Ed.  Ed also served as our tour guide and local historian.  The history lessons were especially important since the Georgetown area has a long and interesting past.  Many historians believe that the first settlement in North America by Europeans was in Winyah Bay in 1526.  When the Marquis de Lafayette landed in Georgetown in 1776, he described it as DeBordieu which loosely translates to a place so beautiful that it must be the border of God’s country.  During the Civil War it hosted a Confederate fort and was the scene of the Confederate sinking of the USS Harvest Moon.  The Union ship’s smoke stack is still visible.

We found several perfect whelk shells and a horseshoe crab tail on the North Island.  The North Island is a totally undeveloped island which still supports wild pigs, bears and Carolina panthers.  It is part of the Tom Yawkey (former owner of the Boston Red Sox) Wildlife Center.  My daughter and I had a blast looking for and finding some incredible shells along the jetty.

On our return trip we passed the Georgetown Lighthouse.  It’s been operational since 1801 although it is no longer manned and has been completely automated.  It continues to serve marine traffic in the bay.  We were not allowed to go inside of it due to security concerns resulting from 9/11.  It has also survived many hurricanes over the years including Hugo in 1989.  The water was as high as the lowest window on the lighthouse after the storm.

I hung out at the stern and had a great conversation with Captain John.  It turns out that we are both from Charlotte, NC and that he now lives in the town where I grew up.  He had his captain’s license for many years but never really put it to use.  Having become a little bored with retirement, he decided to captain the Rover tours.  Other than the excitement of dealing with the occasional thunder storm, captaining the Carolina Rover is relaxing and fulfilling for him.  He also knows exactly where to find dolphins in the bay.  That really made my daughter’s day!

Last week I went to get my hair cut at Belleza Salon in Knoxville.  I’ve been going to Belleza every 4 weeks since 2002 and highly recommend their services.  My most recent trip was a little different than any other previous trip, however.

I showed up a few minutes early for my appointment (I know it’s hard to believe that John was actually early for something!) and was greeted by stylist extrordinaire Rob Davis.  Rob told me that the customer ahead of me had shown up late so he was running behind.  He apologized and offered a free salon treatment while I was waiting.  Being a guy, I was a little apprehensive.  Was I really interested in a hand treatment?  After a little deliberation, I decided to take the offer.

 I sat down for my treatment and met Holli Brockwell who explained the process.  She offered a card that is good for $20 off of a facial treatment.  Again, being a guy, my response was that I ‘m not interested in that but my wife definitely would be.  Holli said that was not a problem and that my wife could use the card anytime.  And she offered a great suggestion:  Go ahead and book the appointment for my wife, prepay for it and surprise her.  Holli didn’t approach this like a sales person.  Rather, she made sure the Belleza experience was exactly what you would expect from a high-end salon. 

While I was getting my treatment, I noticed that several other customers were getting the same treatment.  The thought crossed my mind that Rob wasn’t really running late at all and that this was a smart marketing move on Belleza’s part.  What a great way to show even a long-time customer that they are capable of much more than just hair cuts.  And of course, what guy isn’t going to take the suggestion of setting up a day at the spa for his wife or girlfriend?

What type of experience do you provide to your customers?  Even if your business’s products are not easily differentiated from your competitors, you can always differentiate by creating an experience that your customers enjoy and look forward to.  Many of your customers may not be aware of all of your company’s capabilities.  There are many creative and innovative ways, like the approach taken by Belleza, to make sure they know about everything you can provide to them.  The art is to create an experience that customers will want to return to.