Sage 100

Has anyone interacted with Beanworks on the new AP Automation integration for Sage 100c? The MySageSell playbook is loaded with 404 (not found) links and an initial inquiry to the listed Beanworks contact was met with silence. Shortly after my initial inquiry, I received what seemed like a request for customers to make advance appointments to be sure they could go live when they wanted. I'm wondering if they are overloaded, unprepared or maybe I just had bad luck on my initial inquiry (I've since advised the customer that they couldn't use AP Automation due to 100c requirement).

Wednesday I had a decent, scheduled talk with their Channel Manager, Tiffany Campbell (tiffany.campbell@beanworks.com). She ended up bringing in the CEO about a product issue I was confused about, and our next 20 minutes was interesting, and generally encouraging. Still, I suspect they don't really know what they're in for.

She never returned my initial email.

I am not convinced the market is really after automation of the check processing side of the equation like what Payroll services offer. I do believe there is a significant interest in the automation of invoice approvals, three way matches and historical inquiry of the paperwork (think DocLink). Sage appears to think the outsourcing of both receipt of invoices and payment of same is the direction with the selection the Beanworks services and branding of AP Automation. I willing to be proven wrong.

One thing I got out of my conversation with Tiffany is that you can create a PO in Beanworks alone and receive an invoice on it and not have to own Purchase Order in Sage. Might be helpful for clients like dr offices, etc who normally only own the core modules but may occasionally want to track a PO.

While my meeting with them was good, and they adequately answered by functionality questions, they are clearly small. I talked with the CEO, Catherine Dahl, because no other ""technical"" resource was available when my confusion arose in my call with Tiffany. While I like that the CEO could clearly answer the question (to which Tiffany _should_ have known the answer), it does suggest a short-handed situation. The website shows 40 employees, matching what I heard elsewhere. Dahl said that they won a competition against AvidXchange for the Sage deal. I am pretty sure that the Sage 100 direct integration and PO management functionality was big part of that. AviXchange has neither (although apparently they now do PO's), so I suspect Sage didn't have a lot of great options if they wanted an AP Automation feature.

Alan, I think there's an 80-20 here in the market. These services (beanworks, avidx) hold the scanned invoice on their system for later queries. Removing the details of paying is a big deal to any firm, at least when all the costs and time are considered. The payment part can be fraught if the system isn't well thought out, though. I think that within 10 years, printing AP checks will be quaint, and only in unusual circumstances. Beanworks claims to have a different strategy and focus than AvidXchange. Avid makes no bones about being after the rollup on payments float, especially with visa/mc. The AP processing is a necessary part of achieving that. But Dahl said that Beanworks is only after delivering the service benefit to customers, and the credit card part (which enables cost reductions) is part of making it attractive to customers. I believe both of the company's statements. It does mean they will behave differently. I am pulling for Beanworks, but they are the underdog. Avid has a 9-figure VC investment behind it ...

This may be helpful, while not the playbook, it is the slides from the presentation to customers @WayneSchulz.https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B87YALUo4ReWRS1WU3E5WHhqUWc/view