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
