Sage 100

Having a bit of an internal debate and I am looking for opinions from some experiened MAS 90 folks. If you were adding full DSD MultiCurrency (GL, AP, AR, SO, PO, IM) to an existing 5 user MAS 90 installation, how much consulting time would you budget in. They will only need one extra currency other than USD, only have one company and do not need FASB52 reporting (which I have always found to be a bit of struggle). I know there may be other variables, but I would appreciate a guess, given the facts presented. Thanks in advance.

I'll be interested in this as well. Naturally I'd think in terms of options : A - Install and configure only B - All of A plus we assist with setup of companies and initial checking the first week C - All of B plus we assist through the first reporting cycle not to extend past mm/dd/yy

Ok, I will give my guess against Wayne's options A - 1 day B - 2 days C - 3 days

Monetizing - A - Load, install, configure - no training or setup of options $ 1,500 B - All of a plus assist with setup and up to initial 5 day support $ 2,500 C - All of b plus up to initial 30 day support $ 3,500 Services to be rendered remotely except where agreed upon in advance

I think given the facts (5 users, one company, one other currency) that Wayne is right on the money.

thanks, you are supporting my case.

We just installed DSD Multi Currency at a local client, ""JUST"" for a simple application. By the time you customize all the PO & SO forms, etc, we ate up about 2 days total. Then there is the issue if they have any other companies, Multi Currency MUST be set up in all companies, regardless if it's being used or not. I think Wayne's estimate is a good measure. There is no such thing as just a simple project... Clark

Scope guys, scope. And get paid for it.

John, good point, but Clark also brings up the point that if this is the first time you are doing DSD Multicurrency, one might not even think about the forms until you implement and than realize that. So for those who have actually fully implemented the thing, besides needing to customize all forms, what other 'stuff' might you think needs to be addressed that might not be so obvious when quoting the time?

@ClarkWalliser can you expand on the steps you had to go through - what types of changes to forms? Is there training? If they have other companies - do you have to also toy with those forms or just setup? I can see where this could be a ""gotcha"" for any site with multiple companies.

Great - and timely - comments. I am inthe process of quoting the DSD Multi-Currency for the fist time, too. Didn't even think about possible form modifications. Good thing my quote isn't finalized!

The actual training was actaully not the difficult part. Once it is configured, the user does regular operations with the default currrency chosen. The setup is the critical thing. I did not find a clear path in the documentation on all the places to check in setup screens. Maybe it is there and I just didn't see it. i.e. Division Maintenance has a currency button that I had not previously noticed. There is a currency field on vendor and customer master screens to enter the default currency. The end user added new customer/vendors and did not fill it in. The standard A/P & A/R aging reports now options about which currency to use. Forms: The end user wanted to see which currency was printing on the S/O forms, so formatted the currency symbol to show the multi currency unit (USD, CAD, EUR). For some reason, that modification appeared to disappear twice. I couldn't find a user that acknowledged changing the form, so not sure what exactly happened. The check form was modified to show the currency symbol. The big surprise was that all MAS companies MUST have the multi currency configured, whether they use it or not. This client had a US company that did not use it, and a Canada company that used it. As soon as Multi Currency was installed, the US company had MAS problems, even the the multi currency was not active on their company code. This detail is in the documentation, if you read it all. Then come the questions on how often they update the exchange rate, and what that does to accounting. You print an aging report one day for a certain foreign currency amount, then the next day it is different, if the exchange rate was updated. Our client first chose to update the exchange rate once per month to keep everything stable. Then another controller decided to update it daily. I'm not yet sure what impact that has had on the accounting department. This might be a good opportunity for DSD to put on a webinar for Multi Currency. I think it is an invaluable tool to add value to MAS90 for our clients in Silicon Valley who often deal with iinternational links to their businesses. But I sure looked like a fool implementing it for the first time.

One other ""gotcha"" - you must use the official currency designations when setting up. i.e. Nobody was sure of the desgnation for Canadian Dollar, so I used CAN as the base currency in the options. That caused problems, because the official designation is CAD. I had to use DFDM to change it in the options, and had to go through a period of time where it ""flushed out"" the references to the CAN designation.

Isn't a UDT provided with the default currency designations? Wouldn't that be the simplest way of ensuring the defaults are used?

John - I agree it is all about Scope and that is where my problem came up. I defined the scope and figured a price of $3k. For kicks, before going to the customer, I asked the consultant who would be doing the job for a rough idea of how much time they would be allocating to cover the scope, and the responded with at least 3x my estimate. Kind of like asking two different contractors for a price and getting vastly different answers, I posed the question here to get a 3rd opinion.

If I were quoting, I'd include 2 options: Option 1 (on the cheap) for $3500 to include install, training and setup (no forms customization). Option 2 $8500 - Full implementation including forms customization. Option 2 would encompass ability to use any currency. I'd never implement with ability to only use one other currency, as the next controller/CEO would view the implementation as a joke if they could not utilize multiple currencies.