Sage 100

Had calls today from 2 different customers inquiring about financials specifically SMI and asking for my opinion. In both cases they were looking for an Excel report designer for Financials. I directed them both to Biznet stating that at this time SMI isn't the best package for creating financials. My guess is that this is going to continue to be a HOT topic for all of us. Anyone else have an opinion or thoughts on this? #biznet #smi

There were LinkedIn discussions about this, one in the Sage Partners group and the other in the MAS 90 and MAS 200 Users and Consultants group. I was fairly (OK, maybe extremely) vocal about making SMI work since it is the standard offering, and with 4.4/4.5 newer releases had many improvements. I wouldn't say that SMI isn't the best package for creating financials. I recommend they have the optional Designer module for the drag and drop utility making it much easier to create new reports. If there are multiple companies for consolidation or any complexities with file connections, they also need the optional Connector module. I always include the Designer module in new sales. For financial report writing only where there is no need for BI in other modules, I also in some situations recommend F9, because it is so simple, and that type of client seems to love it. Overall, though, I would rather see clients stick with SMI. Biznet is something that filled a void when resellers didn't adopt SMI when it's design was not ideal. I did not buy into that, because there was no need at that point (FRx was was still supported.) I have many other partners ask me if I have looked at Biznet. I still see no reason to, and especially now when SMI has been improved and is part of Sage, why deal with another 3rd party solution.

I've been recommending Biznet too - I'm having a lot of trouble finding anyone to give a recommendation for SMI - speed (very slow) , complexity and capabilities are the three repeated issues that I've heard. I think the over-riding problem is that customers have been to demos and walk away horrified.

Perhaps this is now a ""that was then, this is now"" situation. Yes, the original roll out of SMI was a disaster, both from the way it was presented to the channel (who then promptly ignored it) and the design and performance, which were substandard. I think now the issues that were creating the horror have been dealt with and the system performs well. We have clients using it (primarily in 4.5) and they seem happy with it. Of course, they are new clients, so they don't have any knowledge of FRx, which is a big factor. I have also met with Gary Boddington, Alchemex co-founder and now VP and GM at Sage, who is very committed to providing the resources required for training and support for the product. I am in process of arranging a set of group sessions with my staff, so all of us are up to speed with SMI, including the optional modules.

We are recommending Biznet to our client base. We do have a few clients using SMI, but in one particular case we have a client with a HUGE COA and running the reports is taking hours. We have tried working with Sage and forwarded directly to Alchemex and they had us working with a support person in South Africa, so with the time difference, there numerous holidays (completely shutting down at year end), and spending numerous unbillable hours trying to get this resolved for our client, we determined that an acceptable solution was just not going to happen. We are working now with the client to see about getting them moved to Biznet. Biznet is our product of choice and the customers that we have on the product are very satisfied.