Sage News and Discussion

Excuse me if I don't get too excited over paying $1,000 annually to Sage for the privilege of reselling a product that looks like it never left the 1980s.

I would have subtitled this ""Sage announces new business line - the business of certifying consultants to be certified to sell

My thoughts exactly....

Exactly what I thought when I saw it.

What? And actually admit that they have one currently? It is probably their most profitably division......... FUCUS!

Couldn't have mentioned it at Summit?

F*cus - can't believe Sage is announcing this right AFTER summit. Probably more announcements to come at their year-end.

I'm sure that there are consultants who do serious work with FAS however I'm not one of them and as soon as I saw that FAS needed to ship a special single user network version for the program to work on a network (yeah it's that old) -- I just tuned out. I have one or two customers using this. What's the harm in sending them to Sage to ask how to make it work? I don't see a big business opportunity here. I'm more than happy to let Sage sell and support it.

I have at least one non-profit client that uses FAS and received it for FREE from their large regional CPA firm. No profit for me with this product line.

Yep. I agree with everyone. When I saw this my first thought was ""Good riddance FAS"".

Not so sure why Sage have always treated FAS like the ""crown jewel

I wonder if anyone WILL pay and become certified?

There are a few consultants where fixed assets are all they do.

This might be a stupid question but I am confused -wasn't FAS part of our 4.50 certification????

Raise your hand if you've erased those certifcation requirements from your mind.

I have just one customer that uses it. She already knows more about it than I do and has a gold plan.

Wayne, I have about installs of FAS in my base and only one of them has a network version. Everyone else has a single user license that is installed locally but the database files are stored on a network drive. This allows the database to be part of the nightly backup but solves the licensing issue. On the bright side, the one license is a concurrent license so we are able to install FAS on multiple workstations each accessing the network database. The license manager resides on the network so you will get a no available license message if you large FAS a second time. Only once has tech support gotten snarky over this type of install. If FAS really was that picky about local vs network license, they should allow access to the network drives. Regarding FAS support, end user gets unlimited support from Sage. I rarely have ever gotten involved post installation. I have migrated data once for a client. It really is a package that could be sold directly.

I have had the opposite experience. When attempting to run FAS single user on a network support has gotten up in arms and just about refused to diagnose. Since the leap from single to single network is material $ - I tend to disclose this issue right away and the customer can decide. For some reason the FAS division seems to operate somewhat autonomous from Sage. Plus FAS is wildly overpriced. It's like the 80s all over again.

Based on reading the last part of this notice - I think the initial certification would cost $650 x 2 roles. Sage argues that it's not really $1,300 because you can choose to certify for only one competency. While that's technically true -- I believe that the competencies either qualify you to resell or install/consult. How many people only sell or only install/consult?

Wayne, that is exactly what happened to me. At the time, I was the end user so I told them that the IT department insisted on keep the datafiles on the server. They helped me it was touch for a while. I always let the client know that this may occur before they decide to purchase the single user version. I wonder if there are any technical differences between the two....

One of our customers has FAS and had not upgraded in years, although they kept up maint. W7 forced an upgrade. A real PITA. Had to apply each yr's update to the packag in progression. Tech supp was quite helpful. We have no interest in certifying on this.

I forgot (thanks Jerry) - another thing I dislike about FAS is you have to sequentially apply upgrades.

Excellent point. How many times have members posted requests for old FAS install cd's? I believe we have most (if not all) in the group's dropbox.

If you can't make money from the customers, bill the partners.....

I'm as unhappy with this as anyone, but no one has mentioned the timing as it relates to the special significance of September - the final month of Sage's year, a big push for sales, and the opportunity to maintain tier (or move up/down). Sage wants the channel to concentrate on these objectives, yet they throw this at us. (Actually the FAS group threw this at us, not the group in Irvine, who probably is not fully aware of this and its implications.) I've been very vocal to Sage that the left doesn't know what the right is doing, and this is a perfect example. I don't get adequate responses, because there really is no one looking at the big picture. They just forward the e-mails on to an apparent black hole. As for the FAS product itself, it's a mess, for the reasons already mentioned. As a depreciation function, there are very few Sage 100 clients, if any, that have large quantities of assets, so there are many alternatives that work well. As an asset management function this could be valuable, but it is inflexible and difficult to use. We have 8-10 client using the full version and I thought I had 2 consultants that were certified, but Sage apparently has no record of that. I will have no issue with dropping the product.

FAS has always danced to a different drum. Their maintenance was always handled differently and was a pain

Yet every year we sit in the audience at Summit and eat up the ""we will do better"" and ""unified single Sage point of contact"" speeches. I've been hearing this since the invincible Dave Butler days

Yes,but did you hear it from the same CEO TWICE?????

I think so. Do two languages count?

And this is up from $195!!