Sage 100

I have an existing Sage 100 user looking at either Coupa or Digiscribe for AP Automation. I can't say I've heard of either. Do you have any customers using either of these companies and if you do what has the experience been like?

Wayne, We have done one Coupa integration and here are some notes from the consultant about the project. ""Coupa typically serves larger implementations/applications than what we have in the Sage 100 world. Issues that are cumbersome for Sage 100 implementations: -They do not have integration tools for Sage but instead use an FPT site for staging files inbound/outbound. -They have a sign-off requirement that stipulates the client identifies fields (in Coupa's output file) by column name, not by column position. This safeguards their habit of periodically changing their output file format/layout -The Coupa output file format for approved invoices is challenging since they have three record-type designations: header, line, split line. Since this does not tie well with Sage, we had to do some inventive VI work to accommodate. The biggest issue we had was apparently, our client was assigned a Coupa project manager who was not well-equipped for the task. As a result, we had been discovering Coupa requirements at multiple points during the project, which has serious impact on solution design. The same client recently was assigned a new project manager who is serving us very well his experience and skill set make a notable difference to the progress of the project.

Thanks, Tim.

Everybody and their brothers are jumping into this area. Many, I think, are used to dealing with big companies. IMO any Sage 100 customer would be nuts to implement one of these off-brands without first understanding the offerings from Sage/Beanworks and probably AvidXchange. ""Solutions"" exist which will **not** make their lives better. Caveat Emptor. Or, offer them a simple, fixed-fee project to help them evaluate the pro's and con's against their needs.

Jerry - I totally agree that clients should first look at the Sage offerings because from experience with the non-Sage solutions they are more costly to install, implement, integrate and use on a regular basis then the Sage integrated version.

My customer is a large medical practice. I expect that they will buy and then learn that they are on their own to create a VI or have been told to ask their Sage reseller who should be able to create VI integration ""no problem""...

For the record, I did NOT say that ""no Sage 100 customers are nuts."" ;<)

I have a customer who purchased Coupa directly on their own. I would echo @TimEfinger comment regarding the interface challenges. We built the VI job but didn't take responsibility for the source files from Coupa. The customer had internal development resources so they built an intermediate program to read the source files and pull them together for easier processing in VI. They also to the Export VI's we built and pulled data to push back into Coupa. I suggest you talk with them about the new Sage solution or eRequester. They will be better served with a solution with a proven integration.

I sent an email to the partner relations channel contact listed on the Sage AP Automation - tiffany.voss@beanworks.com. First, her email bounced. Then I looked her up on LinkedIn and figured maybe her name changed (which it looked as if it did). Then I sent an email to Tiffany Campbell. That email didn't bounce but I also haven't heard anything. I'm thinking I might just skip Sage and go with Shawn's suggestion. Anytime I reach out to a salesperson and there's a delay in obtaining info it sets off a dozen flashing lights of trouble ahead.

@WayneSchulz here is the info for my primary contact. Do me a favor an tell him I sent you his way. It will help with another customer we are working with. I am trying to get them to connect with Acumatica but they want to charge an existing customer to build the interface. Scott Pape (e) scottp@erequester.com (p) 206- 256-0771 ext. 123 (tf) 877- 727-9528 ext. 123 (w) www.erequester.com

BTW, we have 8 or 10 eRequester installs and they have all gone fairly well. Just make sure you make them plan and test their upgrades. This is especially true if you have UDF's or other customizations involved.

Thanks, I just sent the info to the user. I have one end-user on eRequester and I think they are relatively happy though as you note they do require some testing during upgrades.