Sage News and Discussion

Sage Mobile Solutions Webinar starting 1:30pm ET

Here is the registration link: https://sagena.webex.com/mw0401l/mywebex/default.do?nomenu=true&siteurl=sagena&service=6&rnd=0.6345251985036674&main_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsagena.webex.com%2Fec0701l%2Feventcenter%2Fprogram%2FprogramDetail.do%3FtheAction%3Ddetail%26cProgViewID%3D5hSsgTbqkpwApcXkeKVWe4Og4EA148CUisipExwOJDODvF3obip%26siteurl%3Dsagena

the launch is tied to the launch of a new Sage website?

He truly sounds excited...or asleep.

I can't help but keep thinking that boy are we late to the online billing market. This doesn't seem that technically difficult. I know I'm doing it through Freshbooks and have been for the past three years.

Does anyone pay electronic invoices as soon as they receive them or do they go in and set it up to get paid on or just before the due date electronically?

I was thinking Freshbooks too.

100% take 30 days. Actually I shouldn't say that -- maybe 10% pay much faster.

I wonder if that open tracking works with the new changes in Gmail.

So, I have to give Sage my bank info? Hmmmm.... They can't even get my maintenance invoice right the first time.

They are really getting their money's worth out of that footage from Summit.

My fear on mobile sales is that it's going to be a one size fits all -- if you want customization too bad. It's potentially going to be similar to selling BIE.

Of course it is. I wonder if @PaulZiliak has given thought to creating an iPad based POS system.

<snicker/>

I bet the password is '1234'.

How do you search items?

Doesn't look like you can do a price lookup

And of course it doesn't include the correct pricing initially. Sheesh! #RecurringTheme

Even the calculated Sales Tax that comes back from the ERP could still be wrong.

I wonder how notes come into play - most of my very large customers have all sorts of pop-up notes to flag payment problems and ""need a check

That's a great question.

I wonder if you can scan the items if you have them setup as bar coded items.

I think he got that credit card number from Target.

This looks like it would work so long as you have a very limited requirements. Once you go outside the lines the product won't fit.

The upside of sending the order into the ERP before finalizing the pricing is that any BOI scripts and custom office routines should run before you get the confirmed pricing back.

So when the Highway Patrol pulls me over, I can pay on the spot? #mobileticketing

So Sage have completely ignored Job Cost - and they think there's any end user who is going to expand use of Sage Mobile Service? This product is not going anywhere on Sage 100.

Only service or AR items - no inventory

'Drain snaking' is that a euphemism?

How does the plumber charge for parts?

All this work on mobile, and she doesn't have a phone emulator to run demos on?

Oh so I use a different app fro my work orders which doesn't look like Sage 100 -- maybe that'll sell be I'm thinking not.

I think there is a lot of potential sell xkzero mobile and JobOps remote Service apps, using Sage's offerings as the hook.

Did I miss anything? I dozed off.

5 years ago this would have been really cool ...

That password was almost as good as '1234'.

Sort of like eBusiness in 1999.

will they publicize their list of top enhancements to add to this over the next 6-12 months? Be nice/essential to understand where they think the weaknesses are.

really. where is her emulator?

I presume those flow to AR

I've found the answer to the question of ""Where is the Sage 100 R&D money going?"" ...

I assume you don't need exclusive access during the import

Hijacked! Never allow live questions!

These will be set it and forget it development projects. The only one I see getting love is the Sage Payments/Billing and Payments. Everything else will ship and what you see is what you get. #prediction

The Sage Payment/Billing product is free to partners who signup before the end of the month. I also just learned that they no longer ask us for a credit card to set it up! So, that completely ""huh?!"" requirement succumbed to reason.

Of course Sage is giving you the payment/billing product. It only runs on Sage Payments and they take a cut of all transactions. The only way this doesn't make Sage money is if you are already taking SPS for most of your customer invoices. I know we discourage CC payments from existing customers because it's just another x % expense when we could just as well take a check.

Yes, you're right. But we're doing this for two reasons: - SPS will also accept ACH pulls from customers. We have a couple who want to pay our annual agreement monthly. For that feature, they pay a 20% premium AND must use either automated cc or ACH pulls. (The premium is partly to cover the extra cost of this.), It's less hassle to use SPS ACH feature than doing it through out bank. - SB&P will be of interest to some customers, and we want to get a better feel for how it works. We don't expect many customers to use it. If we had lots of customers and many of them used CC, I'd have a different opinion. But as we've progressed with our annual agreements, and value priced elements, I am quite comfortable that any added costs will be recovered through higher prices. Your mileage might vary.

It may be that Sage's real target market for this is Sage One and Sage 50. Small businesses will accept living ""in-the-box"", but Sage 100 and Sage 300 customers are going to expect configurable options. I haven't seen evidence that they will find that, but maybe that comes down the line. However, I don't see how a one-app-for-all-ERPs approach with lend itself to satisfying unique business requirements.

I thought when we launched iSales 100 there would be a real market for companies who wished to have customer, inventory, order info, etc. in their pockets at any time. Maybe that market will emerge - maybe Sage will tap into it now. What we have experienced is this: ""make it do exactly this and we'll buy it"". In those situations the customers have been willing to pay real money - $20k, $30k, $50k mobile deals that suit all of their needs. 90% of our deals have required us to make the app do something special for the customer. That has not exactly been Sage's historical model.

@RobertWood ""I wonder if @PaulZiliak has given thought to creating an iPad based POS system."" We're evaluating the market, for sure.

@PaulZiliak - I think you are right on the mark with your thought that these apps being aimed primarily at Sage 50 and Sage One customers. With the exception of Billing/Payment I do not see the other two getting any traction. As you also pointed out - most of the Sage 100/300 have very specific requirements. By now if they've held onto Sage 100/300 for this long they are usually 10+ users (min) and wholesale distribution. I think Sage will also lose interest in these apps just like they've lost interest in others before (namely Sage Timesheets, Sage Estimating integration to JC). Sage has a lot of book smart folk - barely anyone channel or real world smart.

Sorry I missed this today - traveling. But then I read that @RobertWood dozed off, so . . .

There were OK parts but overall it was not well paced and they kept passing control of the screen around.

The only real takeaway from yesterday for me was to change my support plan so any customer using ""click to buy"" from Sage knows that we don't cover that as support and it's a separate project. Most of my customers are amazingly ok with that type of thing but there's always that one company trying to work the system ...

Good point. We have our written to specify that we cover the system as configured at signing (defined in an Appendix), and explaining implementation of new features (even if in the existing license) is generally extra fee project.