Sage 100

What am I missing .... After installing what seems like my millionth set of payroll tax table, IRD and PU to a Sage 100 system, I was struck by a brainstorm or sorts... What if Sage made available for payroll users a single consolidated bundle of self-installing year-end updates. They could still make the individual downloads available however I bet 95% of Payroll users would love to download one year-end update instead of 3. Instead of making payroll users individually find and download: Latest product update for our version Latest IRD (or even know that an IRD is needed) Latest TTU Why can't we have a single year-end download: Sage 100 2016 - Payroll Year End Bundle (PU, TTU, IRD) - mm/dd/yy Sage 100 2015 - Payroll Year End Bundle (PU, TTU, IRD) - mm/dd/yy Sage 100 2014 - Payroll Year End Bundle (PU, TTU, IRD) - mm/dd/yy Sage 100 2013 - Payroll Year End Bundle (PU, TTU, IRD) - mm/dd/yy Please eliminate the need to search for multiple individual program updates. Eliminate the need to create a folder to keep each of these patches while you install them. Eliminate the need to specify where each patch should ""unzip"" to. Heck, eliminate the need to even know there are 3 updates required for year-end - just bundle them all into one ""year end bundle"" which can be readily distributed and easily understood. Once the individual patch is downloaded, it should automatically detect the installation folder \MAS90 (other developers do this so I'm confident Sage can too) when you run it. After the patches are installed, notify me right away of any data conversion. Then please notify me when an updated payroll tax table is available (somehow QuickBooks has figured out how to do this) . Happy New Year!

I have used the Sage Advisor Update a few times to get the latest spu on client systems due to speed. It would be nice if the IRD and TTU would load there also.

Wayne, Wayne, Wayne..... You are thinking too much about this! Are you trying to make the end user even MORE self sufficient and put us out of a job???? This method has worked wonderfully for 30 years or so. WHY change it now? I for one would love to have the PU and the IRD combined. How many times have you been left wondering ""did they install last year's IRD""? The PU's do detect the installed program path. The TTU and the IRD are still stuck in the 90's. Several of my clients do self install the PU's when they are notified by the Sage Advisor program. This doesn't apply to TTU and IRD because they remain stuck in 80's code. Great thoughts but IMHO just wishful thinking... But MAYBE this will be the year for PR enhancements. Sage will be able to fund development after they ""put it to the PR users"" in the next month or so.

This would definitely be a revenue hit for consultants though I suspect most customers would continue to want us to do these updates. I haven't had any PU pick up the proper path yet but then again I often am not directly on the server to do the PU because it's more of a hassle to find Charlie Brown the outsourced IT Guy who requires we file a trouble ticket then they call us in three hours --- than it is to just install from the workstation. PS - DSD pick up the path no matter where you install the enhancement from. I think other developers do as well. And it's been that way for ages. Sage seems to permanently walk around like a walker/biter/skin eater out of TWD....

I personally would like to know about the hot fixes when they are released instead of having to hunt around hoping there is a cure....

I love @KellySappington 's idea. It would be the innovation of the century if Sage (sarcasm intended) would store the payroll tax data in separate records by year and/or period. PR tax updates could then be auto installed using Sage Advisor.

I realize Sage Advisor was supposed to do this but unless I'm mistaken there are a couple issues - first being that SA only installs to the server which makes the process a little more difficult because not all bookkeepers / accountants have immediate access to get you to the server. Then when SA does fire up - it doesn't pull TTU and/or IRD so you have to know that there are other requirements. Essentially Sage took SA and said ""done"". It's an alpha version of what their auto update should do. Also, pardon my French but I'm not a big fan these days of installing more bolt-on shit to a server that runs in the background and has the potential to interfere with daily operations.

Only the Shadow knows what new innovations will happen in PR over the next 18 months. I believe Diane Coffman hinted at Summit that PR would be given a year end processing enhancement so you could close the year, move on to the next and continue to process YE reports in the same company without jumping through hoops. Or will history repeat itself with Sage using the extra PR subscription revenue to fund non Sage 100 projects. I know where my Powerball money is being placed....

@DougHiggs - I was just thinking the same thing about the tax tables being by year/period. However Sage is much more likely to win a corporate Darwin Award than invest in intelligent design...

LOL. That is for sure @PhilMcIntosh .

This is where Sage 300 payroll is vastly different. Year end can be processed at any time and you just have to install the January tax table updates. According to a client who migrated from 100 to 300, the year end processing was 1 of 2 items they liked better in 300 than 100.

What was the other item they liked better @LloydSmith ? What don't they like better??

@ThereseLogeais they really like that the transaction date drives the financial year/period instead of continually changing the business date. They don't like all of the set up in payroll and overall find processing payroll is too many steps. They also don't like having to switch screens to see vendor/customer detailed transactions.

Alot of this will be going away with Payroll 2.0 - tax tables will work like Avalara. They are calculated in realtime.

@JohnnyPabian - You are speaking like an insider? Do you have the top secret road map or just been drinking the Sage Plan for the Future Kool Aid?

As far as the SA I usually shut it down. Though had a couple instances where my downloaded version from dropbox or direct from Partner Portal would not run, said file format wrong. So only option was to try SA and it worked. Something I just found out today, was a client was on a monthly 2 yr ACH renewal process and guess it ended 12/23. SA would not allow download, said maintenance had expired. Client was never notified to renew.

Sage is going to force the subscription down on the clients with some new payroll services ploy. Perhaps it will go the way of Sage Data Cloud and mobile leaving the customers more ""focused"" than ever before.

The subscription model is coming and no stopping it. But it's not just Sage doing this. They are following the market place. The biggest issue we have encountered with Sage so far is almost every Sage 300 Payroll installation, with the new ""expiry date"" license is causing problems. So no testing, but they aren't backing down. I was told that we need to boost our subscription sales and stop relying on the old revenue model. That's enough for me. We all know that payroll pricing is changing, so the rest of the model can't be far behind. Time to embrace it and let clients know what to expect from Sage. We don't have a client who pays more for direct deposit with their banks for payroll, yet Sage believes they do. What are you going to do? If stay Sage, just know that it's going to cost the client more.