Version 2017 of Sage 100 was released by Sage at the end of October. The new version includes enhancements such as the ability to allow your customers to pay their invoices via ACH transactions, extra security for credit card transactions, and improvements to reporting and search capabilities.

On October 6^th, Sage announced the release of Sage Fixed Assets version 2017. While clients do need to have version 2016 installed for accurate reporting of asset depreciation for 2016 taxes, it is not essential to install version 2017 until sometime next year – unless you need any of the features, enhancements, or fixes (listed below) that are included in the new release. We expect that Sage will release Product Update 1 for version 2017 sometime during the first quarter – should new tax requirements be established – and that may be a better time to install the 2017 upgrade. 

Version 2013 of Sage 100 (MAS 90/200) will be retired by Sage on September 30^th (see the chart below for full details on this and other versions). Although Sage will no longer support version 2013, Bennett/Porter will continue to do so. However, we do recommend that our clients using Sage 100 2013 (or lower) upgrade to a current version of the software.

We started selling MAS 90 software in 1988 – when the manufacturer was State of The Art Software and before Sage Software acquired it. There was a DOS version and a Unix version, and you either purchased a single user license or a network license. We didn’t have "user licensing" in those days; you either had a network license or you didn’t. MAS 200 (which was a client/server version of MAS 90) was released in the mid-90’s, and that’s when the thought of licensing the software "by user" was introduced. And there were no annual maintenance agreements! If State of The Art came out with new features you were interested in using, you simply paid an upgrade fee to get that version.

Some of our Sage clients are now upgrading their Microsoft Office software to version 2016. Something to be aware of before making this change is that only Sage 100 version 2016 is compatible with Excel 2016. To see which versions of MS Office – as well as other products that integrate with Sage – are compatible with your Sage system, click on the link below that corresponds to your version.

Over the next several quarters, Sage plans to release a host of new features in their Sage 100 and Sage 100c product lines. Here's a preview of the components that are coming and when each is slated to arrive. Don't hesitate to get in touch with us if you have questions about how you might use these features to enhance Sage for your business.

By now, many Sage ERP users know that Sage 100 is only compatible with Windows 10 on versions 2016 and 2015, Product Update 4. Unfortunately, some of those users have learned the hard way about the incompatibility issues presented by running earlier versions of Sage 100, or MAS90, with Microsoft's latest operating system. To complicate matters, Microsoft has now released a program through Windows Automatic Updates that magically installs Windows 10 on workstations. The GWX.exe (i.e. "Get Windows 10") program is that unwelcome magician for users of earlier Sage ERP versions.