Sage 100

Sage 100 Premium 2018.2 - recently began using Avalara. They contacted me to say that their SO_SalesOrderHistoryHeader totals were $ 0 while there were lines associated with the order. I can look at an order in history and see that the total is zero while there appear to be lines with valid amounts ( most of which have shipped and been invoiced as well )

Has anyone experienced this issue? 
I know there was a problem several versions back and don't think that is at play here.

Just curious if anyone else has run up against this?

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

For your entertainment…
Yup, I reported this issue to Avalara back in Sep '18. Basically if the ship-to address on the sales order is invalid, it does not properly write to the S/O History file (e.g. nontaxable and taxable are $0, although freight for example does show) – and the S/O Entry file is fine.

Now here's the fun part. They completely mishandled this Ticket so it fell off their radar, and still as of today (9 months later) they haven't done a damn thing. And I know nothing further, nor do they apparently. In fact, at one point (if not still) I found out they had considered this to be an enhancement request (and not a program defect as I clearly demoed for them in Sep) when I checked back in for a status/update late December. I was told they'll get this Ticket to the appropriate person. I had to check back again early May. Still nothing but I was assured it would be addressed. Then the following transpired:

• Fri 5/17 e-mail to Avalara:  Hi, may I have a status/update, please. 
• Wed 5/22 e-mail to Avalara:  Can I please get a status/update.  I had asked on Friday but haven't received a response. 
• Wed 5/22:  One of our Practice Directors sent an e-mail to Dan Petry at Avalara.
• Over a week later - Fri 5/31 e-mail to Avalara:  Avalara/Support/Dan/anyone, it's been 2 weeks/3 requests and I still haven't heard back from anyone.  What's the problem?
  • I finally got a response (from Dan) with forwarding to two other gentlemen at Avalara: "Our partner, {client}, and I have not received any updates related to this case; or it's escalation/resolution.  I want an immediate update and call made to Brett Zimmerman.  Copy me on ALL emails related to this issue."

A week later - Fri 6/7 e-mail to Avalara:  Wow, just wow.  I'm flabbergasted.  3 weeks and still nothing, even after Dan's e-mail from a week ago.

• Received voicemail from Dan, and he e-mailed: "This has been escalated to the Senior VP level.  I have demanded an immediate call back to you today as well as an update.   Brett,  please let me know the minute tech support has responded to you.  Thank you."

And guess what?! Another week later and not a single peep from anyone. Unfortunately this is right in line with my overall experience with Avalara. Every time I need to contact them it's like pulling teeth, even something as simple as whether a Sage 100 Product Update is compatible with AvaTax. Often I'll receive no response or get the run-around, and it seems like I have to keep following up with them. Very frustrating. This company is public?!

------------------------------
- Brett
------------------------------

@Brett Zimmerman what do you mean by an invalid ship-to? I'm not receiving any Avalara error messages. 

I'm thinking Avalara is ​moving upmarket so the Sage world is perhaps less strategic to them

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-14-2019 13:41
From: Brett Zimmerman
Subject: SO History not saving totals for SO where AVATAX is sales tax code

For your entertainment…
Yup, I reported this issue to Avalara back in Sep '18. Basically if the ship-to address on the sales order is invalid, it does not properly write to the S/O History file (e.g. nontaxable and taxable are $0, although freight for example does show) – and the S/O Entry file is fine.

Now here's the fun part. They completely mishandled this Ticket so it fell off their radar, and still as of today (9 months later) they haven't done a damn thing. And I know nothing further, nor do they apparently. In fact, at one point (if not still) I found out they had considered this to be an enhancement request (and not a program defect as I clearly demoed for them in Sep) when I checked back in for a status/update late December. I was told they'll get this Ticket to the appropriate person. I had to check back again early May. Still nothing but I was assured it would be addressed. Then the following transpired:

• Fri 5/17 e-mail to Avalara:  Hi, may I have a status/update, please. 
• Wed 5/22 e-mail to Avalara:  Can I please get a status/update.  I had asked on Friday but haven't received a response. 
• Wed 5/22:  One of our Practice Directors sent an e-mail to Dan Petry at Avalara.
• Over a week later - Fri 5/31 e-mail to Avalara:  Avalara/Support/Dan/anyone, it's been 2 weeks/3 requests and I still haven't heard back from anyone.  What's the problem?
  • I finally got a response (from Dan) with forwarding to two other gentlemen at Avalara: "Our partner, {client}, and I have not received any updates related to this case; or it's escalation/resolution.  I want an immediate update and call made to Brett Zimmerman.  Copy me on ALL emails related to this issue."

A week later - Fri 6/7 e-mail to Avalara:  Wow, just wow.  I'm flabbergasted.  3 weeks and still nothing, even after Dan's e-mail from a week ago.

• Received voicemail from Dan, and he e-mailed: "This has been escalated to the Senior VP level.  I have demanded an immediate call back to you today as well as an update.   Brett,  please let me know the minute tech support has responded to you.  Thank you."

And guess what?! Another week later and not a single peep from anyone. Unfortunately this is right in line with my overall experience with Avalara. Every time I need to contact them it's like pulling teeth, even something as simple as whether a Sage 100 Product Update is compatible with AvaTax. Often I'll receive no response or get the run-around, and it seems like I have to keep following up with them. Very frustrating. This company is public?!

------------------------------
- Brett
------------------------------

------------------------------
- Brett
------------------------------

Thanks, Brett.
I tested on this customer by adding a ship-to and validating it through Avalara. I'm still getting the $0 totals in SO History Inquiry.

This customer delayed their Avalara implementation a few times. I'm wondering if Avalara has something disabled on their end.

I do not get the warm fuzzies with Avalara at any point. Their sales side is slow and the tech support had never seen Sage 100 before and tried to launch into "it's not us, I think it's your workflow"  until I told them I had a Sage case # and Sage lobbed the case over to Avalara.

Unfortunately, I find it is increasingly common with bugs that unless the problem is documented in the ISV knowledgebase and they can say "oh we have the fix already" that getting ISV attention on bugs is very problematic. ​ And 100% of the time you can't call Sage or the ISV until you can replicate the problem and also give them 75% of what you think is going wrong.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-14-2019 14:57
From: Brett Zimmerman
Subject: SO History not saving totals for SO where AVATAX is sales tax code

'Invalid' meaning if the ship-to address is invalid/incomplete for AvaTax purposes. And that's part of the problem that it doesn't inform the user at all, unless you 'touch' the ship-to address. 

------------------------------
- Brett
------------------------------

https://development.dsdinc.com/enh/downloads/Avatax600.exeAvalara sent an updated connector which appears to resolve the issue

I downloaded and installed to Sage 100 2018 Premium 

http://www.dsdinc.com/enh/downloads/Avatax600.exe

https://www.dsdinc.com/instal-configure-sage-100-erp-sales-tax-avalara/


------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-17-2019 08:11
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: SO History not saving totals for SO where AVATAX is sales tax code

Thanks, Brett.
I tested on this customer by adding a ship-to and validating it through Avalara. I'm still getting the $0 totals in SO History Inquiry.

This customer delayed their Avalara implementation a few times. I'm wondering if Avalara has something disabled on their end.

I do not get the warm fuzzies with Avalara at any point. Their sales side is slow and the tech support had never seen Sage 100 before and tried to launch into "it's not us, I think it's your workflow"  until I told them I had a Sage case # and Sage lobbed the case over to Avalara.

Unfortunately, I find it is increasingly common with bugs that unless the problem is documented in the ISV knowledgebase and they can say "oh we have the fix already" that getting ISV attention on bugs is very problematic. ​ And 100% of the time you can't call Sage or the ISV until you can replicate the problem and also give them 75% of what you think is going wrong.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 06-14-2019 14:57
From: Brett Zimmerman
Subject: SO History not saving totals for SO where AVATAX is sales tax code

'Invalid' meaning if the ship-to address is invalid/incomplete for AvaTax purposes. And that's part of the problem that it doesn't inform the user at all, unless you 'touch' the ship-to address. 

------------------------------
- Brett

This issue is bubbling to the top again. I think partly because there may be another issue involved and partly because suddenly the customer is feeling pain from not being able to use the SO Sales Order Header totals in a report that they deem critical.

In summary, 

1. There was a bug in the AVATAX Connector which would write out ZERO to both Taxable and Non-Taxable totals in SO Sales Order History Header IF the user saved an order without visiting the TOTALS tab. This seems to have been fixed in a later AVATAX update.

2. Brett indicates that he has seen an issue when the ship-to address is not valid and a user saves the order. Without warning, the totals on the Sale Order History Header are saved as zero. I believe a fix is in the works for this.

My customer ( 2018.2 Premium ) continues to see totals in Sales Order History Header which are zero. The problem is that we haven't been able to track down exactly what's causing the issue and while we suspect AVATAX may have some role in it -- we are stuck because when manually entering a sales order the totals are carrying over to history ok.

We can see some cases where ScanForce updates the record and suddenly the SO History Header totals go to zero. But are having significant problems pinning down exactly what's causing the problem.

The customer has: 

ScanForce
Website Pipeline
Avalara
Starship
xkzero sales
a VI import from a niche sales product


We haven't been able to duplicate the problem and the customer believes the solution is to call Avalara and have them fix the issue. I've advised them that until we can duplicate this that it's highly likely all those integrations listed above will deny that it's their problem

So - anyone have any similar experiences with this or any words of wisdom?

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------