Sage MAS 500 Version 7.3 has been available for a number of months now. Major features include a new Credit Card Processing module, new Business Insights Explorer Views, numerous enhancements to Inventory, Purchase Order and Sales Order, as well as ACH processing for Accounts Payable. Click here for a full release guide (Sage_MAS_500_7.3_Release_Guide).
As with my former post on Sage MAS 90/MAS 200 product roadmap, let’s take a look at the Sage MAS 500 roadmap. The roadmap (Sage MAS 500 Roadmap) outlines Sage’s future plans for Sage MAS 500. I’ll summarize a few key points below.
- Product Strategy: Sage wants to provide more ‘value for maintenance,’ which will include incorporating features and functionality based on top customer-requested enhancements. The idea is to release new features & functionality over time with regular product updates, rather than waiting for “major” upgrades.
- New financial reporting alternative: Business Insights Intelligance, a new reporting tool in a familiar Microsoft environment. FRx will be supported by Microsoft until December 31, 2012.
- Focus on enhancements to advanced manufacturing/distribution.
- Goal to reduce impact of upgrades on MAS 500 customizations.
Following is a general timeline for Sage MAS 500 product updates.
- Product Updates for Version 7.3 (December 2009, February 2010, May 2010)
- Version 7.4 (Quarter 2, 2011)
- Product Updates for Version 7.4 (expected to be released every 3 to 4 months after the official release of 7.4)
- Version 7.5 (Quarter 4, 2012)
Visit the Sage roadmap (Sage MAS 500 Roadmap) for more specific details about Version 7.3 features, as well as a retirment schedule for previous versions. And, as always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions!
