Sage 100

PO data entry - any version. Does anyone know of a good business reason why, when an item with average cost valuation in entered, the average cost is populated in the cost field? Vendors don't charge the average cost of all of the prior purchases. A better cost value would be last cost. Second best may be $0 cost or standard cost. Average cost would be last. How difficult would it be to add the default cost option to the PO Options? I am asked this question may times a year and I never have a good answer. It is tough to defend this seemingly obvious feature omission.

@DougHiggs - I believe you get the award for the first 90Minds post of the year... We will mention your name during our winter conference in February. We may give you some vendor bling if you are there......... Prior posts have alluded to a Sage Idea Web Site designed specifically for these types of great idea enhancements. It is my understanding that Sage monitors the site on a regular basis for great ideas such as these. Rumor has it an e-mail is sent to Pascal every time a poster ""earns his wings"". What a wonderful life..... Seriously, this is purchase order you are inquiring about. The module with the purchases clearing report designed in hell. The module that doesn't have a history table for PO's. The module that doesn't allow you to copy from a previous PO. Need I say more. Excellent question, sadly Sage doesn't have anything close to a reasonably acceptable answer. Sounds like a great idea for a script though.

Actually, @MarkChinsky and @MoiraGoggin edged you out, but we will give you an award for third place.

Oh yay, I think, it depends on the vendor bling...

BTW how do I register for the Feb conference? Can I still go?

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/90-minds-meeting-of-the-minds-2014-registration-9302501031 PW is motm2014 Yes, you can still attend but you missed out on the early bird registration rate.

@JeffSchwenk... I believe there is a Sage site where users and partners can post suggested enhancements. I have heard that Sage takes the most popular of these requests and considers them for inclusion in future product releases. I have always been a Microsoft guy... never touched a Mac, iPod, iPad, iPhone.... It's not that I don't like Apple, it is just that I have always worked in the MS world and haven't ventured into the ""other"" world. The success of Apple is undeniable, so I recently picked up the Steve Jobs (by Walter Isaacson) biography. The following quote from Steve Jobs blew my mind, so I thought I would share it here: ""My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary. Sure, it was great to make a profit, because that was what allowed you to make great products. But the products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything: the people you hire, who gets promoted, what you discuss in meetings. Some people say, ""Give the customers what they want."" But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, ""If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'"" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. that's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page."" Sage should stop chasing profits and focus on the product. Instead of taking a user poll on what features are popular, figure out what the customer needs before they do. Profits will follow a great product.

@DougHiggs Now that I understand it and have customers using it, Sage Inventory Advisor is a product where customers didn't know they needed it. They needed something, but it has been a combination of the lack of proper controls and procedures at many companies, along with the lack of tools within the standard product to help them. So instead of fixing the standard module, Sage found something that takes the focus away from it. No matter, it works, and the customers we present this to embrace it.

@JohnHoyt That's great John. Customers should expect features like inventory advisor.... they pay a lot of money each year to stay current. The basic features should be a given, and they should get some features that surprise them... blow them away and set Sage apart from the competition. My perception is Sage is barely keeping up, copying competitor features and rarely is the innovator.

I agree Innovation has never been one of Sage's pillars.

Nope! I have a screen shot of that PowerPoint slide from a couple of years ago. It wasn't one of them.

I can imagine the brainstorming session: OK, so far we have 3 pillars. Can we come up with 3 ways to say profit?

Seriously, when profit is the focus, the salespeople end up running the company. When the salespeople run the company, product quality declines. The companies that focus on product innovation, quality, and user experience have a long-term focus, and their offerings will always be in demand.

With Sage it may be the finance group and whoever is obsessed with their stock price.

Sage focsus is on sales.... partners that sell the most get all of the recognition (President's circle, etc.), and all or most of the leads. Sage doesn't recognize the quality of work performed by partners, or the retention rate of end users. Sage has indicated that the development budget is used on modules that have the most sales revenue..... that is the reason MRP, Job Cost, and other modules were not invested in. Is there any clearer indication that sales revenue is driving the business decision, and not quality, customer experience and innovation??!!

Even worse than fucusing on sales, Sage's fucus is on share price and dividend amount. Sales is one cog in the process.

We added a UDF to CI_Item to allow the customer to manually manage a PO Cost and pushed this cost into a new PO line item. This wouldn't work for everyone and it was at the customer's request to control the number manually. Not that hard to do with the Business Object.

Perhaps if they would invest in bringing the legacy stuff up to the BF, we COULD sell more.........

@DougJenkins Can you provide more specifics? Does the UDF update the item cost field in PO data entry lines? Specifically, how did you accomplish this?

@JeffSchwenk Exactly. We wouldn't have to sell. Prospects would be calling us wanting to buy... just like they line up outside Apple stores at 4am before the new iPhones go on sale.

My new year's wish would be a new payroll system. Sage was talking about a hybrid implementation (cloud/local) that fits the model they are using for some of their other product rollouts. Has anyone heard about that lately?

@JeffSchwenk Jeff, you are such a dreamer. Only 2 days into 2014, so I understand you still have all that hope. 7 months until Summit, so they can think up smoke screens to take our minds off that.

The closest I have heard is using the HRMS Payroll, but after looking at that in detail and trying to sell it, it is not well-designed or intuitive. The one prospect decided to stay with their Intuit Payroll service without integration to Sage 100. That shows how bad the HRMS is.

Here you go Doug H: You must add the script to the PO_PurchaseOrderDetail Table. Select the ""Column Post-Validate"" Event for the QuantityOrdered Column

Thanks a million Doug!

@JohnHoyt We've tried HRMS with a few customers and would prefer a more modern look and feel. Also, the price tag was out of reach for most of them. Has anyone looked at InfiniSource? They have the Time and Attendance along with the Payroll / HR.

@JohnHoyt In addition, sage makes you get certified on the HRMS payroll and pay another $1000 a year for the privilege to sell it.

I work closely with a consultant that is certified on HRMS and has been Abra certified for years. He hates the package.

We lose a few Payroll customers every year. The reseller certification and annual cost would be welcomed if I had a decent product to sell.

Shameless plug: For those of you who either don't want to work with HRMS or don't know where to get started, we can help. With over 350 Abra clients throughout the US, we know a thing or two about the tools. Regarding price point, no, it is not Sage 100 payroll. If you have simple payroll rules and no need for HR, Sage 100 payroll is a good solution. If your client really needs to manage their Human Capital, HRMS is a rock solid solution. If you look at HRMS as another accounting module, you will miss the point. It's like comparing Sales Order with CRM. They have a little cross over but they aren't the same things. Not by a long shot.

@ShawnSlavin I agree that if a customer needs HR needs, then HRMS is the solution. Our customer only needed payroll, because they are on the Premium version of Sage 100, where we cannot use that payroll. When looking at only the Payroll functions of HRMS, it is not a comparable, intuitive solution, and this was obvious to the customer. The integration with GL also appears not to be seamless. The original point was that Sage 100 does not have a BF payroll module and therefore not one for Premium. Sage has said HRMS is the answer, but at one time they also implied they were going to roll out a new payroll system that would be used by all packages. This probably will never happen.