Sage 100

While checking on the Sage Portal to make sure a customer's annual maintenance had been renewed, I discovered that their renewal end date was short by one month. That lead me to check all of our customers we had renewed after the Portal went live. Guess what?? ALL of our customer renewal dates are were calculated for one year from the date PAID, not by their plan dates. Just a heads up in case you want to check your customers as well.

When asked why this was happening, Sage's Tom Miller replied ""clearly out customers have told us this is the way that they'd like to have their maintenance renewed"".

What, so they lose a month or so of their maintenance?? And what planet is Tom Miller on?

Bazinga @ThereseLogeais - This was sarcasm...............

@ChristyPfleger thanks for the heads up on this. That may explain why when I called to get a quote (ha...another story) yesterday for a customer I was told that their maintenance had expired...except they are on the monthly auto deduct plan so it should not have expired...my CAM is 'looking into it'

Part of the new buy 12 get 11 promo.

Wayne is on a roll today.

I just got off the phone with our Cient Care Rep, Steve Dyer, who told me part of the problem was how he entered the quotes for the renewal. Whatever!! I am just sick of Sage. Pay more, get less. I have to spend more and more time fixing their screwups and for this I get to pay more and get less support! Sage should be awesome at supporting my clients! NOT REALLY!

Steve Dyer is also our client care rep but we've chosen to work with our CAM instead (where possible) because Steve is... well, let's just say, not very responsive.

Interesting, TJ my business care rep sends me an e-mail at the beginning of each month letting me know who is on the horizen. I send the client an renewal invoice and once they pay BLS, I send TJ a PO via paperless e-mail giving him instructions on when to renew. The system works well for us. He doesn't bother bugging my clients because he knows that I am collecting. It works well for me because my clients only deal with one contact - me. Their Sage experience is me. Simpler for them, simpler for me. If the client tells me they aren't renewing and I can't get them to change their mind, I tell TJ so he can start calling them. Yes, it would have been easier for me to let Sage do this type of work. But back in the day, Sage would only issue credits which HAD to be offset by purchases. I didn't do enough new business to off set these credits which expired after six months. So I was leaving money on the table. So now, this is just another way to make my face, the face of Sage to the client.

@JeffSchwenk I like that method. That is worth considering. Plus you are guaranteed to talk to that customer and tell them what is new in the latest software...encourages upgrades.

@JeffSchwenk are you saying your customers never see a renewal notice from Sage? I don't think all of us little guys have that option. We get (or used to get) renewal lists with those expiring within the next 90 days but the customers also get them. We often invoice them ourselves but many just pay Sage directly. How did you get Sage to NOT send your customers a notice??

I know that our customers are subject to calls by Sage but I'm not sure that Sage always calls them since we renew in the same way as Jeff.

Oh, they get the renewal notice via mail and e-mail!!!!! They just know to ignore them. Occasionaly, a ""newbie"" will call me about them. I can't stop Sage from doing that. What I am saying is that TJ (BC rep) doesn't doesn't waste his (and more importantly, my client's ) time with phone calls. There really isn't any reason (except maybe for anytime classes) that my client needs to have Sage in their vendor master.

And an added benefit for those of you that still pay your invoices directly to Sage, is that this method of having the client pay you can help your cash flow. I pay all of my Sage invoices once a month via AMEX. On the first or second day of the new credit card cycle (happens to be today), I send an e-mail to Barbie (my collections contact) asking for a statement. She is very prompt. From that I verify that all invoices are in my MAS system. I then send her a note to pay all invoices that are dated prior to the 15th using my AMEX. I get confirmation within an hour that my card has been charged. Since my AMEX acccount cycled yesterday, today's charges will appear on my account statement ending 4/22/12 and I will send my AMEX check on 5/13/12. What this means is that I get the client's money on 2/28/12. Process their renewal on 3/1 with Sage. Depending on the timing, I might have the money for 2 months for turning it over to AMEX. The final benefit is that I get points in the AMEX awards program to use as I see fit. Now I do have to be careful not to pull an HTI and spend that money on something else, but so far, I have resisted that urge.

Leave it to California to have a girl named ""Barbie"" LOL

Extremely weird, but that is how her e-mail signature is................. Have never met her, can't remember if I have ever had a phone conversation with her. Just several e-mail exchanges about this time every month. In fact, the collections department (for MAS, NOT Abra or FAS) is my favorite. Very responsive, never have had an issue.