Keeping in Touch
Getting the Most from Your Sage 100 Investment 
Apr 2015, Issue 72
Newsletter Contents
Quote to Ponder
Quarterly Webinar - Sage 100 ERP v2015
Backup Plan or Disaster Recovery Plan?
Purchases Clearing
Survey Says
Join Our Mailing List!
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Dear ,

 

Sage 100 ERP v2015 is just around the corner (Apr 7 is the target release date).  With this new release, it also means the v4.5 will soon be no longer supported by Sage.  Let us know if you need help with your upgrade.  We normally suggest waiting at least 2 to 3 months before upgrading, but some clients like to be on the leading edge. 

This newsletter, Keeping in Touch, is our way of keeping you up to date with relevant news about your Sage 100 ERP software and also what's happening at Munjal White. 

 

We're always looking for ways to improve, so if you have any suggestions for newsletter topics, tips, or other ways that we can improve our service level, click here to let us know. 

 

Quote to Ponder

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.
          Daniel J Boorstin
 

Quarterly Webinar - Sage 100 ERP v2015 

  

Sage 100 ERP v2015 is scheduled to be released on Apr 7.  Ready for a tour? 

 

Join us on Wednesday, May 20th, at 10am (Eastern) to walk through and demo the new features of this exciting release Click here to access the event registration page


Your support agreement with Munjal White entitles you to attend our quarterly webinar at no additional cost.  We encourage you to take advantage of these webinars. 
      

  

Backup Plan or Disaster Recovery Plan? 

 

 

How prepared are you?  Are you sure?  Have you tested it?

 

We're always hearing that you have to backup.  Don't forget to backup.  Yada Yada Yada.  No one is listening anymore.  Until you have that wake-up call!

 

Over the past few years, we have personal knowledge of our clients experiencing one or more of the following scenarios (descriptions slightly changed to protect the innocent):

  • There is a fire in your building/server room.  The server is damaged beyond repair.  The backup tapes are stored beside the server.  You've got nothing.  Now what?
  • You ran a utility within Sage 100 ERP to merge some customers together.  Instead of merging two customers together, you merged them all, so you only have 1 customer left instead of the 2000 that you started with.  When you ask IT to restore last night's backup, they tell you that your new MAS version hasn't been backed up -- but they've got a good copy of your previous version from before you did the upgrade last summer.  Now what?
  • You install a seemingly simple update to your Sage 100 ERP system and now all of Sage 100 Desktop options are gone.  When you find out what file needs to be restored, you tell IT and they tell you that that file hasn't been backed up.  They're only backing up your company data and not the system data.  They scream at you -- you didn't tell us what you want backed up.  Now what?
  • The user reports an error while posting a batch of invoices -- hard drive failure.  IT tells you that the new server that you are running hasn't been added to the backup routine.  Sorry for your luck.  Now what?
Even if your IT team or firm is telling you that they have everything under control and that your files are being backed up, ask them to prove it.  Pick a file (word document, PDF, MAS data file, SQL database) and ask them to restore that file for you.  Can they do it?  Don't take their word for it -- prove it!

You may be backing up selected files that are important, but have you backed up the entire server?  What if the server or hard drive crashes?  How long will it take you to get up and running again?  Will you have to re-install all the applications again (where are those original CDs?)?  Is there a server image that can be restored?

Slight variations of the above scenarios are true.  On the first example, though, the IT guy had offsite backups and was able to get new hardware in place quickly and get the system restored.  Yes, it took a few days, but at least the data was complete and recoverable.  What if there were no offsite backups.  Now what?   

  

Purchases Clearing 

 

Recently, we've done some additional research on balancing the Purchases Clearing Report with the GL account.  After checking all the usual suspects of direct GL postings, AP postings and IR postings (inventory transaction receipts), we still had a problem.

 

After detail investigation, we determined that if the per Unit Cost is changed on the Receipt of Goods or Receipt of Invoice screen, that cost is updated to the Purchase Order Entry screen and that new cost is used to calculate Purchases Clearing.  So, if you're in the habit of changing per unit costs in Receipt of Goods or Receipt of Invoice Entry, watch out.

 

If the quantity received and invoiced matches, there is no discrepancy.  However, we have seen that the Purchases Clearing Report will show incorrect results when these two quantities are different and the per unit cost was changed on one of receipt postings.

 

There is a quick way to check though -- if you run a query on the PO_PurchasesOrderDetail table, you'll see two amount fields -- ReceivedAmt and InvoicedAmt.  The difference between these two fields should balance to the GL if the Purchases Clearing Report does not balance.  Something to think about . . . 


The report has been like this forever, so the problem exists on all versions of Sage 100.  We've reported this problem to Sage business analysts and will consider this for future program changes.
      

Survey Says 

 

Sage randomly sends out surveys to clients (no more than once a year) which help them shape partner programs and provide feedback to us -- no names; just aggregated results.  We do appreciate your taking a few minutes to complete the survey should you receive one from Sage.  As always, any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. 

 




We look forward to your feedback and your ideas for future issues of our newsletter.  If you would like to contribute an article or suggest an article or support tip to a future newsletter, we'd love to have your contribution.  Please let us know how we can help you
Get the Most from Your Sage 100 Investment.

 

Sincerely,

 

    Shabnam and Robert