General improvements

The following new features and enhancements are available in both Sage 300c web screens and Sage 300 classic screens:

• Export Declaration Number field. On the Taxes tab of the A/R Invoice Entry and O/E Invoice Entry screens, an Export Declaration Number field allows you to enter export declaration numbers for exported goods. This information is required for tax purposes in some jurisdictions (such as Malaysia and Singapore).

Sage 300C Web Screens

This release includes the option to install Sage 300c web screens: modernized versions of Sage 300 screens that you can use in a web browser.

Web screens run in parallel with the classic Sage 300 desktop screens, so there’s no need to choose between desktop or web. Everyone in your organization can use the interface that best suits their needs, while working seamlessly with a single shared set of company data.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s new in Sage 300c 2018 web screens:

• Find and open recently used windows. On the web toolbar, a new Recently Used Windows list displays windows you’ve opened recently, making it easy to quickly find and open those windows again.
• Improved performance in the Finder. The Finder displays results faster than in previous versions of Sage 300, particularly when using a large database.
• Improved import/export process in I/C Physical Inventory Quantities screen. When importing and exporting data on the I/C Physical Inventory Quantities screen, you can now choose to import/export data from the detail table (select Inventory Worksheet Header) or the fields above the detail table (select Inventory Worksheet).

Upgrade to Sage 300 2016 today and enjoy streamlined workflows, improved usability, Affordable Care Act compliance, and more. Take advantage of all the new customer-driven enhancements that are included in Sage 300 2016 so you can be even more productive.

Ensure compliance with Affordable Care Act requirements

With Sage 300 2016, you can ensure your company meets the new requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). To address the legislative requirements, a tool called My Workforce Analyzer1 in Sage Payroll 7.2 will help you stay compliant with government regulations.

Assistance with ACA reporting includes:
• Establishing employee work hours.
• Verifying full or part time status.
• Showing health care coverage costs to determine affordability.
• Tracking self-insured employee coverage.
• Reporting employer-sponsored health care coverage on W2 forms.
• Printing forms1094-Cand1095-C.

To learn more about Sage 300 and ACA, please visit the Affordable Care Act center on Sage City.

Connect your entire business

Sage 300 is integrated with the latest versions of Sage Payroll (7.2), Sage Intelligence (7.6), and Sage CRM (7.3), allowing you to improve effectiveness and make better decisions across your business.

Enjoy easier posting, reporting, and bank reconciliation

You can now post invoices, receipts, adjustments, refunds, and more directly from the entry screens for GL, AP, AR, and Bank Reconciliation. A significant time saver, you no longer have to run an entire batch to post an individual invoice or receipt.

Add clarity with improved tax tracking reports

When printing the Tax Tracking report by fiscal period, you can now specify a range of fiscal year/periods to include. This allows you to run tax reporting on periods other than the fiscal year to increase flexibility in tax tracking and planning.

Get more from an enhanced Business Care plan

Sage now offers three new Sage Business Care plans, which feature more support options and discounts on services, events, and more as well as access to add-on solutions such as Sage Intelligence, Sage Payroll, and Sage CRM.
Depending upon the plan you choose, you’ll receive enhanced support from our customer support team, which includes:
• Customer support when and how you need it.
• Discounts on Sage training classes for individual and team solution education.
• Discount registration to the Sage Summit annual solution conference.

Along with the enhanced support and discounts, some new plans include additional Sage solutions to help you gain better business insight, forecast demand, and win new business.

Save time when designing reports

When designing custom financial reports using the Sage Intelligence Report Designer with Sage 300, you now can:
• Automatically detect missing accounts from reports.
• Exclude zero value rows from reports to make them easier to read.
• Select dynamic ranges that detect any changes to the General Ledger.

You will also be able to distribute reports with calculated values or with embedded formulas, to see how calculations were made. Plus, additional reports were added to the online library and will automatically be uploaded into Report Manager.

Do contact us regarding the new SAGE 300!

The next major release of Sage 300 ERP (named 2016 but released in 2015) will be dropping support for Pervasive.SQL and Oracle as database servers. This means the only supported database will be Microsoft SQL Server.

The database world is changing and Sage 300 ERP needs to change with it. That’s why they are making these changes.

It is always harder to define how successful an IT project such as ERP implementation has been in comparison to a financial procedure or even the aims of a manufacturing entity. This is why it is always better to have a written-down set of expectations that you have from a project after it goes live. If you do not have this, then anything regarded to the success of your ERP implementation endeavors just becomes an opinion. In worst cases, the number of opinions becomes more than you would care to count. In case your organization does not have the best work ethic and people are more interested in negative discussions about the aftereffects of the said implementation then you can be jolly well sure that it will be deemed a universal failure.

It is always better to have a group of criteria that can be measured properly. This is helpful for the team that is dealing with implementing the processes and also for the organizational health in the long term. This is also comes in handy in resources being allotted in the proper way. Overall, there is a sense of focus among people who dedicate themselves to the cause of implementing ERP solutions.

This needs to be done before your project goes live. Remember that this is the biggest determinant of whether you have succeeded or not. Unlike popular conception it need not be too tough to measure the success of ERP implementation. The first indicator is your self-satisfaction regarding how the implementation was carried out. You can always come up with catchy statements to motivate people into adapting this procedure and it can contribute to your success in the end. You can also set time limits for achieving the goals that you have set yourself. With every sequence, you can take the bar higher.

It also needs to be kept in mind that as a business organization you should be able to reach a common ground as to what should be regarded successful and what not. It is important that your peers or workers do not end up criticizing the guys responsible for implementing the ERP processes in a random manner just because they have been unable to achieve some aim. With random – and unwarranted – criticism they will not be in the right frame of mind to do their work properly or look for answers in case of failures.

They need to be given the leeway to express themselves properly and come up with ways to avoid failings. After all, success is built on a pillar of failures. Instead, they need to be encouraged and congratulated when they are finally successful in their endeavors. After all, water, and not sand, is needed to grow flowers.

Do contact us for more ERP related questions.

When you are trying to implement ERP solutions such as Sage 300 or SAP Business One in your company the biggest problem that you will face is in terms of changing the business processes of your company in such a way that they can get used to what is known as an unconventional mode of operation in today’s world. The timing is highly important over here. The same can also be said of customizing ERP in such a way that you can have the edge that you previously had from the point of view of strategic business processes.

The major reason for such a statement is the fact that there are not too many business processes that are sure to provide you a strategic edge over that of your competitors. You will always see that people in your company are resisting this much-needed change. These systems have been created and then maintained following years of observation and appreciation of what works best for individual businesses. It may be so that the way your business works does not conform to ERP principles. This means that it can work even better.

In spite of this, you will be opposed in your company. This is because people will have to do something that they do not wish to do in the first place for the simple reason that it is unlike the way your business is supposed to function. So, the question is how to be successful in this case. For starters, you need to create a mental distance with your peers and friends even if you acknowledge the concerns that they have. On top of this, you need to be sure yourself as to whether the policy that you are following is in the best interests of your company. You need to be strong enough to say no at times.

This is where your strength of character comes into play since such situations can drain you completely from an emotional point of view. At times, your colleagues might come and say that ERP implementation might harm their prospects for the year, you need to stand firm in the face of the storm and retain your faith in the ERP processes. You need to know what the advantages of implementing these systems are going to be. It is also important to be secure in the knowledge that these norms are the best in the business.

With ERP you can be sure that in actuality you are carrying out some corrective measures that have been necessary for a long period of time. This might actually benefit your company in the long term and in more ways than anyone might care to understand. This is where prior education and training are of such importance.

Do contact us for more ERP related questions.

It is often said that when you are trying to implement ERP the costs can go up to double of what you had expected originally. Once stumbles upon this realization after the entire process has been completed. There is no shadow of a doubt that you are bound to spend much more than what you had planned initially with ERP implementation especially with top-class software such as Sage 300 and SAP Business One.

However, this does not mean that you cannot stay within limits and also use the funds to implement the project successfully. There are a few things that need to be done in this regard.

For starters, you need to work closely with the various stakeholders such as the information technology department in your office as well as your software vendor. This list is also inclusive of the implementation experts. The only time you can be sure that there is no looking back is when you the scope of your project increases suddenly. You need to know how to keep the working relationship going even while saying no to requests for more money. The second thing that you can do is have a training plan that has been defined properly for the perusal of one and all.

This will come in handy for the different teams dealing with various stages of development, implementation, etc. If you lack a written plan that does not have proper objectives as such, you will obviously spend much more than what you had intended to. A majority of the sum will be spent in educating people. Without proper details people will always ask for more classes and there is very little chance that you will be able to deny them in a justifiable manner. You can also deal with this issue by regarding your budget as a financial flow that lasts for a certain period of time.

This process should cover the period from when you start the project till a couple of months after you have gone live. You should be able to set up things in such a way that you do not need to spend more than 75% of the budget even when factoring in all the known expenses. There will be plenty of work to be done – you can divide it into needs and wants. If you can cover all this in just 75% of the specified budget then it is a fabulous situation to be in. You will not need to make any hard choice as such.

In case you can use the 75% of your budget to cover all your needs but not all the wants then you may need to trim that least so as to arrive at a profitable situation. If the said amount is insufficient to cover even your needs then the scope needs to be re-evaluated and downsized and you have to make good choices regarding areas where the risk exposure can be increased. You can easily get the most-efficient and talented workers from different parts of your organization and thus make the necessary adjustments.

You can always do away with the consultants and pay more to the talented people in your company to implement ERP. The remaining 25% needs to be used in final phase – in the six weeks that immediately precede the project becoming live and then the immediately-next 6 weeks. You can always be sure of problems you had not accounted for in such situations. Then, you need to be assertive so that money can be spent as you see fit. This will help the rumors die down and make people more confident as they realize that the problems are getting solved. This is when your implementation will be successful as well.

Do contact us for more ERP related questions.

A process for training end users, which also happens to be effective enough, is one of the surefire ways in which one can make the process of implementing software tools such as SAP Business One and Sage 300successful. If you are able to execute the program for training end users properly then there can be several levels – ascending ones at that – of contribution to the ERP implementation process. There are certain things that you need to ensure from the first day itself:

• Everyone should be able to log on to the new system
• They should get access to the dealings that are required to do their job
• They should know how to perform the transactions by themselves

These are the most-basic ingredients of success. If this much competency cannot be achieved then there is no denying that the efforts will fail. One thing is also sure. Only when the end users have been provided the necessary instructions then the basic level of competency can be achieved. It is also imperative that they are asked to practice what they have learned as part of the basic instructions. There is another tier of training the end users.

You can train some end users in such a way that they are able to take part in volume training when the process goes live. Thus, their contribution is much beyond the amount of participation in the said task since they are able to provide a different and realistic perspective to things. These may be problems, which the team responsible for implementation may not have been aware of. They can actually understand the areas of training that will become problematic later on. They are also able to take just about one look at data output and get the errors that happen because of the lack of common sense. It needs to be remembered that a team that is not acquainted with the ways data works on a daily basis might jolly well overlook these.

The biggest benefit of training users is that the team, which is supposed to solve problems, will have more people to work with. They are helpful in any effort since they come with a lot of positive energy to the whole process. The ones that we see commonly are only good at identifying problems. They will just find the issues and let the implementation team take the brunt of the same.

The best way in which you can create more problem solvers in your company is to find out people who are able to understand the training material in a short span of time as well as ones who are more curious than usual. It is important that these people are mentored properly and given more training. It also needs to be understood that at all these levels the process of education needs to be logical and consistent. It is important that every individual who is related to ERP has a proper job function and an identity.

All the transactions needed for the process should be identified and there should be a proper security role in order to assemble them. The training material should also be created in such a way that there are enough practice problems. This will make sure that everyone is able to take part properly in the practice sessions. There are various kinds of deals where the amount of master data and preparation is different from others. With sufficient amount of valid customers and materials it is possible to create a wealth of sales orders. However, production cannot be reported till there is enough inventory and a work order of all the constituent parts.

It is also important that the instructors come with a certain amount of enthusiasm as well as patience and knowledge. The training should be timed in such a way that it is not too far before training. If the time gap is too long, then obviously people will retain less. If you are able to train the most-possible number of people trained properly before your ERP goes live then it would be good enough for the success of your company. It is important to have focused people and training is a key component of the same.

Do contact us for more ERP related questions.

It is always important to have the right team in order to be able to implement ERP successfully. This is almost as obvious as growing revenue is good for business or greater saving is greater for personal wealth. Yet, as an ERP project manager, everyone has to do a fair share of fighting in order to be able to recruit the right talent. How committed a company is to staying healthy in the long term and how much it understands such factors can be gauged from the quality of people it entrusts with the responsibility of implementing ERP systems. If you have not assigned the best talent in your company for implementing the ERP processes you should not be surprised if the results do not match up to your expectations.

The biggest benefit of having a talented team is that it is able to see the bigger picture to a much better extent than a normal executive would. It can understand the results of strategic decisions much better and evaluate decision likewise. It is the long term that excites them and not the immediate time. They know what will happen tomorrow. They are also capable of implementing the process-related changes that have to be made.

There are some signs that some individuals are talented and thus worth depending on. The first is that they are good enough to be promoted. These people have very little interest in maintaining status quo. They are one day likely to get to the head of the management setup of their companies. They will always have a basic understanding of how and why various processes came into being. It is always good to have individuals who are quite intelligent themselves but it is even better to have people who are intelligent from a team perspective.

At times, it has been seen that people who are smart themselves meddle with the way a team works. Normally, there is very little connection between team intelligence and personal intelligence. When you are smart from a team perspective you are able to understand why it is important to have consensus on various matters. You also do not stretch a conversation beyond a certain point. You are able to understand the effect a decision will have on the organization as a whole and evaluate it likewise. You also do not let personal ego come in way of work.

The third benefit of having a strong team is that they have a rather deep understanding of how to work in an organization. They know what they are supposed to do and they also know the reasons for the same. Such understanding comes in extremely handy when a company decides which processes need to be changed and which need to be retained. Perhaps, their best quality is that they are able to listen to different points of view coming their way and then choose the one that happens to be the most appropriate one or even assimilating the best among these.

As could be understood from the discussion, with a talented team there is an overall improvement in processes. With them change management becomes easier. There is improvement in testing as well since the choice of such scenarios is judicious and execution is intelligent. Since the team members are not averse to being given extra responsibility, the organization does not miss milestones or at least the ratio comes down by a significant extent. They can contribute as and when help is needed. There are several factors that are important in the context of implementing ERP processes. Perhaps, no factor is bigger than team talent. While there is no guarantee that a talented team will always deliver exceptional results you can always be sure that a mediocre team will perform poorly.

Do contact us for more ERP related questions.

It is very important to have a committed team in order to be able to implement ERP with some modicum of success. If all the people working in your company are aligned towards making your ERP implementation successful, then they will put in efforts likewise. This will help you to focus on other areas that are important in helping your company become successful in the long run. Consider another situation. Your middle management senses that it can create problems between the team that is implementing the EPR and the one that takes all the executive decisions. In that case, the environment can actually become rather poisonous.

In such a situation you will find that you are spending a lot of time – much more than you intended to in the first place – in review meetings where you end up defending the decisions that you have taken. This is why it is important to have some leadership commitment and the best thing about this is that it does not take a lot of effort. As an initiative, ERP is strategically important. This means that when you decided to implement it, there must have been a certain level of commitment and interest in the same.

You also need to take into consideration the fact that ERP is known to have medium to high levels of risk. Its benefits (read about the benefits of SAP Business One and Sage 300 ERP) are also hard to quantify in the strictest sense of the term. In such a case, as an organization, your aim should be to foster the support you enjoyed originally and keep it growing. It could so happen that nothing remarkable may happen in months. Patience is the key over here. When one looks at design sessions it becomes rather clear that ERP implementation will need a significant amount of change. There are times when one hears that implementing ERP could have a destructive effect on business.

This happens mostly in the communications between lower positions and the higher-ups. Most of the time, such situations do not have because people have malicious intentions but because they are afraid of changes and what they might do to them. There are certain steps that you need to take to make sure that the leadership is on your side as far as ERP implementation is concerned. The first thing is that you should always be the first one to communicate any changes being made to the process followed in your company.

It is always not easy to do this. It becomes really hard to do this if you follow a routine of review cycles that occur every couple of weeks or a month. If you are good with written communication, you can try e-mailing people at these intervals. You can also communicate with them over the phone. It is important that you make your decisions seem justifiable from a business point of view. If you are unable to explain it to others, it means that your decision may not be sound enough.

It is also important to make the executives look at the big picture when you are making the presentations. This is why you need to make them aware of the possible results of some ERP strategies from a strategic point of view. This way you will be able to engage them in a positive and fruitful way. You should also look for feedback on your plans from the executives and while at the receiving end of the same, you should never be defensive. It is always important your goals with that of the executive leaders. In order to achieve this, you should be confident enough to listen to the problems they come up with and then respond to the same.

Such a way of work also makes sure that they are involved in the process of making decisions. It is always better that way as people then think the decisions to be a collective one rather than an individual one if only your ideas were behind it. If you can rally the executive leaders the middle management understands what a waste of time sensationalism can be. They will try and make a meaningful contribution to the efforts of ERP implementation. This will also be better for you.

Do contact us for more ERP-related questions.

As any experienced person would say one of the most integral factors in successful ERP implementation is data cleansing. The funny thing is that this also happens to be one of the most often-underestimated tasks as far as ERP implementation is concerned. This is especially applicable with regards to factors such as complexity as well as scope. What does this tell you about data cleansing with regards to EPR implementation – it is one of the most important components, yet it is also highly simple as well. There are several reasons as to why this process is so important and there are some tips, which if followed, will guarantee success.

The main reason behind the importance of data cleansing in the context of ERP is the fact that it is used in every part of ERP implementation. If the ERP implementation is successful in the stage of testing then it is well nigh guaranteed to succeed finally as well. The only issues in the testing execution stage are accuracy and completeness of master data. These factors also come in handy during the training stage, which needs to be successful as well if you want to implement ERP successfully. If business data is properly synchronized at the go-live stage then it means that ERP will be implemented successfully.

Data cleansing is important in this stage as well because without accurate and complete master data, business data cannot be synchronized at the stage being talked about. Thus, one thing should be clear by now – for ERP to be implemented well at every stage, it is important to have master data, which is accurate and complete as well. There are also several reasons for underestimating data cleansing. If one can avoid falling into this trap, it can make for an improved ERP implementation.

Master data is normally distributed among various systems that are part of a legacy system. People do not really understand how much master data may be there in their disposal. At times, parts of data cleansing can become processes that keep on iterating. This can be a bit of Catch-22 situation. You will definitely not be able to test if you do not have the master data with you. The reason why you are testing is that you wish to evaluate the master data that you have. When we judge the situation in the context of the second situation it becomes a bit hard to measure how much progress you may have achieved with your data cleansing in an objective manner.

In such situations you might find that the data, which you thought had been cleansed and, thus, complete is not responding well to tests. Now, all of a sudden it is uncleansed data. However, there are a few steps that you need to take in order to avoid these situations and make your data cleansing process successful. You should start by making progress in any and every area where it is possible to do so. For example, you can fix the different variations of your address.

You can also look at areas such as mismatches in zip code and city. Always arrange meetings where you review the data cleansing that you perform on a routine basis. In these meetings, find out the areas where there are problems and ones where bottlenecks have been created. Your completion plan should also be as aggressive as possible. There is every possibility that you may not achieve the same. At least, put some time in that and find out why you may not be achieving the same. Always get the appropriate people to do your job. They should be hardworking, smart and attentive to detail. It is important to get the right match of skills and job profile.

The lessons that you learn and the processes for data cleansing that you create thereby will always be important parts of your company’s operations. This is where it is different from other processes related to ERP implementation. Master data, which is accurate and complete, is very important for a company – you would realize it the most after a couple of years.

Do contact us for more ERP related questions.