She describes it as:

JUST found a BIG error in PO/IM for 4.50. If you have more than one item on a purchase order, do a receipt of goods and say “no” to strongreceive all/strong and only receive one item – the strongbackordered item qty disappears from the Qty On PO in the IM_ItemWarehouse file after updating the ROG.

Have a new client on 4.50 and was having to rebuild the sort files in PO a LOT. Now I know why and can recreate on my 4.50. Just reported to Sage and they verified the issue.

http://www.bethbowers.com/

© 2011, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

Sage’s new Business Intelligence product, MAS Intelligence, will begin shipping to partners later this month (July) and to end users next month.  “Shipping” actually consists of a download.

The product is made up of several modules, including the Report Manager, Report Designer, Security Manager, Report Viewer, and Connector modules.  Each end user will receive the Report Manager free of charge.

The Report Manager allows users to run the standard reports that ship with it, copy these reports and modify the copies, and create new reports, as long as these reports use the “Containers” that are already setup.  Containers are similar to the Views that come with Business Insights Reports – pre-defined links to certain MAS90/MAS200 files.  Shipping with the standard version are containers for financial statements, multi-company financial statements, GL transactions,  sales history, PO information, and inventory information.  To access any container but the multi-company consolidation container, you login to the ODBC connection, much like logging into FRx or Crystal Reports (if run outside of MAS90/MAS200) and the company you have logged into will be the company used for any reporting during that session.

Resellers will also receive the Report Designer and the Connector modules.  The Report Designer allows users to create financial reports using a “drag and drop” feature.  The Connector module allows users to create connections to new files in MAS90/MAS200, or to other software packages, such as Sage CRM, etc.

As a reseller, you may create a report using a new container and export it for a client, who can then import it.  HOWEVER, the client must either own the Connector module OR a second license of the Report Manager module.  You may also create reports using the standard containers and export those, as well, but again, the end user must own a second license of the Report Manager module.

The Security Manager allows for an extra level of security by report.  A more likely route for security, though, will be the use of ODBC Security in Role Maintenance (which the end user will not have to purchase additionally).

The Report Viewer is much like the FRx Viewer, allowing users to run reports but not modify them.

All reports in Sage MAS Intelligence are actually created in Excel (not EXPORTED to Excel, actually CREATED in Excel).  Several Add-Ins allow users to more easily make changes to reports, including a Quick Pivot Table option, etc.  Reports can be emailed and scheduled, as well.

Sage hopes to have training classes for Sage Certified Trainers available in September, with classes for end users starting after that.

via: Beth Bowers – Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 Consultant – Michigan

© 2010, Beth Bowers. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

This does not necessarily mean that someone is currently logged into the system and entering data into that module.  It can also mean that they have previously entered data and have not yet updated (i.e. run the Daily Sales Reports/Updates and updated, etc).

This will NOT prevent you from closing the period you are attempting to close.  It is merely a warning that an associated module has some data that may affect the balances in the module you are closing, indicating that you should verify that the unposted data is not for the period being closed.

via: Beth Bowers – Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 Consultant – Michigan

© 2009, Beth Bowers. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

Support for the latest Microsoft operating system was only added to version 4.1 and higher of Sage MAS 90 and 200 (review the official MAS90 and MAS200 supported platforms here).

However if you use a workaround you may be able to setup a workstation running Vista or 7.

Warning: Proceed at your own risk. We recommend only using hardware and operating systems certified by Sage and following the recommendations of Sage or your Sage Business Partner.

If you attempt to setup a workstation running Windows Vista or 7 then you may get the error:

Setup cannot extract the disk drive letter from the MAS 90 directory path \\drivesharename\mas90apps\MAS90\ – please make sure you are running workstation setup from a mapped network drive or a local drive and not a UNC path, and run workstation setup again — and then shows an UNC instead of drive letter.

The workaround?

Install workstation setup from your main MAS90 or MAS200 CD.

Insert the CD into your computer and instead of doing a full re-install of the programs click on the workstation setup icon.

Thanks to these 90Minds Members for providing this workaround:

Alnoor Cassim – alnoor@callforhelp.biz – http://www.callforhelp.biz

Kelly Sappington – katsix@katsixllc.net – http://www.katsixllc.net

Bill Pfahnl – bill@pfahnl.net

© 2009, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

I won’t discuss the actual scan/save portion of this equation, as that varies depending on the software/hardware you are using.  We’ll start once you have a scanned copy of an invoice somewhere on your system.

While in AP Invoice Data Entry, you are allowed to attach memos to invoices.  (See memo icon right after the invoice number field.)

Simply setup a memo for the invoice (to be consistent, you may want to always use the same memo code, like “INVOICE”) and browse for the “Attachment” to the saved invoice copy.  One note – make sure that the scanned invoices are stored on the server and that they are backed up.  You are not going to want to move this location, either, unless you want to go back through a whole lot of memos and re-find the files.

Once you’ve updated the invoice, go to Invoice History Inquiry (or access the invoice from the Vendor Maintenance/Inquiry screen).  Note the memo button (which will be highlighted if a memo exists).

Note that you still have the drill-down button and can view the scanned invoice (forever and ever, or until you purge Invoice History).

Note that this can also be done on the sales side – you can attach a copy of the customer’s PO to your Sales Order.  The memo attachment will “ride through” to both the Sales Order History file AND the Invoice History file.

Unfortunately, nothing similar exists for check copies during Cash Receipts – although you CAN create CUSTOMER memos for the check copies (which actually does make sense, since a particular check can apply to many invoices).  In that case, I’d suggest using the check number as the memo code.  The only place you will be able to view those will be in Customer Maintenance/Inquiry (any place you can access Customer Maintenance/Inquiry – does not have to be in Accounts Receivable).

via: Beth Bowers – Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 Consultant – Michigan

© 2009, Beth Bowers. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

·         Right click in any 4.x screen and choose System Info to see who created and last updated the record displayed.

·         To more easily find “old” invoices for a customer, use “Invoices Inquiry” from Customer Maintenance/ Inquiry.  (Drop down upper right hand corner.)

·         Do not use “EACH” as your standard unit of measure for any components that will be used in fractional quantities on a bill.  The system will round to a whole number.

·         Don’t forget to check the Back Orders Allowed and Retain Sales/Receipt History boxes when setting up a new product line.  If you’ve forgotten, you can apply the changes to all items setup with that product line by using the APPLY button and rechecking which items you wish to apply.

·         You can setup date-sensitive roles in Role Maintenance – useful for sick leaves, temp employees, etc.

·         Do NOT put anything in the Start/End date fields in Main Account Maintenance, Sub Account Maintenance, or Account Maintenance in GL (unless you really mean it).

·         You can add attachments (Word docs, spreadsheets, JPGs, etc) to memos.

·         You can save report settings, i.e. a particular customer on an aging, a single account for a GL Detail report, etc – click on the Save As in the upper right corner and give it a new name.  You can then run that version or the Standard version.  When running your custom version, you then only have to make the changes needed – i.e. if you have saved the account number, you only need to change the period.

·         Feel free to resize any 4.x screen – heck, fill your screen with Sales Order Entry, if you want.  Definitely make the Customer screen WIDER.

·         In 4.30, don’t forget you can choose to hold the report open after Preview/Print.  Makes it work similar to the Save Report Settings mentioned earlier.

·         Click on View/Skip Information Center Page to skip the nice looking folks in the right pane upon startup.  Instead, you will see your modules there.

·         The Aging shows an invoice as open.  When you attempt to pay it in Cash Receipts, it shows as already paid.  To fix, do File/Run/ARWAR4.  (Clear all open cash receipts first, either by deleting or updating.)

·         If you’re trying to print checks and you are told “Check printing is already in progress” or the bank code is in use by check printing, etc, do File/Run/GLWSKA (on 4.00 or higher).

·         To create a new company based on a current company (customers, vendors, etc, but NO BALANCES OR ACTIVITY), do File/Run/ SVTRNA.  The GL module can be copied over during the module setup.

·         In 90% of cases of an error 65 on a data entry screen, you can fix it by right clicking and choosing Panel Settings/Reset Panel/Reset ALL Grids if available.

via: Beth Bowers – Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 Consultant – Michigan

© 2009, Beth Bowers. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

There are several tricks to setting up Paperless Office for MAS 90. Here are a few of the suggestions from members of the 90 Minds consulting group:

Via Brett Zimmerman – The Fitzgerald Group – Sharon, MA

I’ve always been in the habit of obtaining the Paperless Electronic Delivery setup info ahead of time to avoid having to scramble while onsite.

• SMTP (MAIL) SERVER: Enter the DNS Address (e.g., mail.example.com) or IP Address (e.g., 128.0.0.102) of the SMTP server you are using to send e-mail. This address is needed to generate e-mail messages.
• PORT: Enter the port number the SMTP sever is using if it is not configured to use the default port. (25 ?)
• USER ID: Enter the USER ID and password to use for authentication at your e-mail server. While not always required, it is a good idea to only send ‘authenticated’ mail. This user does not have to be the one the mail is from; it is only used to log onto the e-mail server when sending mail. It’s recommended a separate e-mail account be used specifically for Paperless, to prevent the password from being changed and therefore causing Paperless to stop working.
• PASSWORD: Enter a password for this user. The characters that you type are masked with the ‘$’ symbol.
• “FROM” E-MAIL ADDRESS: What is the e-mail address you want these MAS 90/200 e-mails to be sent from? And this will obviously be the e-mail address used if the recipients reply to your e-mails.

Via Beth Bowers – MAS90 Consulting in Michigan

• This wasn’t mentioned, but it’s a bug (Sage knows) – if you print the AP Invoice Payment Selection Register from CHECK MAINTENANCE, it will not prompt for Paperless (or go to Paperless automatically if you have it setup as Yes). It won’t do Paperless at ALL, no how, no way.
• The Payroll reports on the Main Menu are considered REGISTERS, not Reports, and you can’t check the box re only keeping the last register or you will overwrite week after week. I consider this another bug – but since there are no journal/register NUMBERS associated with these reports, I guess that’s why they can’t verify and think they’re all the same week’s report. ANYWAY, if you are doing Payroll Paperless, you can’t check that box.
• If you’re doing IM Period End, you also need to setup IM Reports, since Trial Balance is not on the Period End menu of reports.
• File/Run/PL_AdvancedOptions_UI comes in really handy.
• The most common problem in setting up Paperless is that CDINTF.DLL isn’t registered. (At least in my experience – have had this at at least 6 different sites – more common more recently.) (Actually, besides not being registered it usually isn’t even in the folder it’s supposed to be in (C:|Program Files\Common Files\Sage\Common Components)

Via Jeff Schwenk – Bottom Line Software – MAS 90 Consultants – Indiana

Here is a little tidbit that I picked up from last week’s install.

Working with an Master Developer, I mentioned to him that certain journal updates were not going to PDF even though it was supposed to be active.

And the only reason I brought it up to him was the fact that the update was one that may have been affected by his enhancements.

Below is a DFDM screen shot from the SY_task.m4t file.

Field 18 holds the flag that associates (at least partially) the report to the PDF. If the field is N, then nothing will generate via paperless. If the value is 1 (one), then a PDF is generated for journals and registers.

Each type of paperless update (period end, report, customer viewer, etc) will have a different value.

Here is a recap of the values.
1 – Journals/Registers
2 – Invoice Printing
3 – PO printing
4 – PR DD Stub and Governmental Forms
5 – Reports
6 – Period End
N – Nothing Assigned.

Chances are if you’re having trouble getting paperless to print, look into SY_Task.M4T and check field 18 and you may see that the flag is set to “N”. Be careful because some reports are not named as you would think. For example Check Maintenance is different from Invoice Payment Selection.

© 2009, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

Occasionally, even though there is zero stock in each warehouse detail, an item will list that it is not being deleted because of Quantity on Hand.  In this case, it is the Total Quantity On Hand field in the IM1 (Inventory Master File) that is causing the problem.

Normally, this field is the sum of the quantities on hand from all warehouses.  But it can get “out of whack” and be left with a quantity even though there are no quantities in any warehouse.  You must modify this field using Data File Display and Maintenance (field 12) to be zero, and then your item will delete normally.

via: Beth Bowers – Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 Consultant – Michigan

© 2009, Beth Bowers. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

Go to Library Master/Utilities and choose Reinitialize Data Files.  Enter through the warning.  Choose the Accounts Payable module and your company code.  Scroll down through the files and choose only AP_CheckHeader and AP_CheckDetail.  (Make sure no one is in the middle of printing checks when you do this.)  Proceed after verifying these are the only files selected.

The reinitialize process will clear the temporary fields used during the transfer process and make the invoices available again.

via: Beth Bowers – Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 Consultant – Michigan

© 2009, Beth Bowers. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.

The reports from the Main Menu in Payroll (from the Payroll Data Entry Audit Report through the Pre-Check Register) will overwrite the prior entries in Paperless Office with this selection checked.  Your Payroll Check Register, however, is safe.

To ensure that you get ALL of your payroll reports saved correctly in Paperless Office, uncheck that option in your Paperless Office Options (Paperless Office Setup Menu).  Doing so, however, will then keep multiple copies of other registers, if they are viewed repeatedly before updating.  (Note that there is an “Updated” flag in the viewer, so you can see which journals were merely viewed.

FOLLOW-UP:  Service Update 12 addresses and resolves this issue.

via: Beth Bowers – Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200 Consultant – Michigan

© 2009, Beth Bowers. All rights reserved. Formed in 2005. the 90 Minds Consulting Group is a collaboration of 100 Sage partners who independently join together online in a 24 x 7 private communication network to solve difficult issues for their customers. The group is not affiliated with Sage and our collaboration provides for unparalleled member access to early warnings of bugs and other issues which members in turn are encouraged to use to provide an exceptional customer experience.