Dear Sage Payments customer, you need to renew your annual agreement

with Sage. Failure to do so will result with your account status set to

-INACTIVE-, only test transactions will be possible. Download your

personal login page from this email and continue.

Sage VT Team 2012.

Please disregard and do NOT follow any links or download any software.

If you followed any of the links or supplied any password or account information please change your Virtual Terminal password immediately and contact Sage Payments for further advice.

As 90 Minds Consulting Group member Mark Kotyla of Giving Tree Consulting in West Hartford CT  smartly points out:

The best approach to these e-mails is to use common sense. While it’s nice to be notified by vendors that such threats exist, the notification is almost always too late. Variations of these scams occur daily, so NEVER take action based upon instructions from e-mail, especially when asked to log in and verify information. No legitimate business will cancel or deactivate a financial account based solely upon e-mail notification. Moreover, customers should never be asked to "download" anything in order to complete a request… that’s a dead giveaway. If in doubt, access your account directly through your browser, using the URL originally provided by the vendor (never through an e-mail link). Relevant notices are usually displayed once you access your account.

Update 1-21-2012: Sage Payments website contains an update about this situation. It appears there were at least two phishing attempts – occurring  on 1/12/2012 and 1/20/12.

© 2012, 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.

If you prefer not to transmit this information (which Sage say’s may happen as often as once per day and include software serial numbers, usage of key features, etc) then you can turn it off in three easy steps.

Step One

Login as the administrator to Sage ERP MAS 90 or 200. This happens directly from the initial login. Instead of using your user login code – use the login Administrator.

Enter in the administrator password.

If you do not have the administrator password – locate the person in your company who does or contact your Sage business partner – or Sage.

Step Two

Once logged into the administrative control panel – select the very last option at the bottom of the screen:

Sage Product Enhancement Program

Change your participation in the program

Step Three

Remove the check mark from the following screen where it indicates “Participate in Program”.

If you change your mind in the future you can always reverse these changes by following the above steps and checking the “Participate in Program”.

More screenshots/instructions on opting-out of MAS90 PEP

© 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.

I find this useful for identifying the path that a shortcut is pointing too.
You can also re-organize the order in which links display on the menu by changing their order in the .ini file.

This is how it was done when MAS90 3.00 first came out. I never realized it was still managed the same way until today

via: Quantera Systems

http://infosource.sagesoftwareonline.com/sw_attach/kdb.asp?isresolutionconceptid=493260

© 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.

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 have just released a guide to year end 2011 payroll and accounts payable processing. Users of version 4.2+ of MAS90/200 can view a chart outlining when 1099 printing, W-2 printing, Electronic Reporting and tax table updates (TTU) will be made available.

via: MAS90 and MAS200 2011 Year End Frequently Asked Payroll Questions

© 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.

In previous versions of Sage MAS 90/200, you couldn’t simply search Item Extended Descriptions (1 option was to create a User-Defined field to additionally hold this data for being able to search via an Item lookup).  Well now it’s a snap.  At your Item lookup, click the Custom button to personalize your lookup.  In the Available Fields list, scroll down to the CI_ExtendedDescription file and add the ExtendedDescriptionText field.  That’s it!

© 2011, Brett Zimmerman. 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.

Here’s why.

Sage no longer sells Extended Solutions. This has been the case since they announced their discontinuation in late 2009.

However in some cases customers on supported versions of MAS90 and MAS200 may still be using Extended Solutions if they have not yet upgraded to version 4.4.

This can cause problems if users on an older (yet still supported) version of MAS90 or MAS200 need to install a service update that breaks an older Extended Solution.

Up until April 30, 2011 Sage was providing updated versions of Extended Solutions which would be compatible with those newer service updates.

After April 30, 2011 Sage no longer provides those updates except with a Sage sales supervisor approval. In most cases that approval is granted provided the service update was required to fix a critical system issue.

Now we are hearing that Sage is about to discontinue providing any further updates to their Extended Solutions – even to customers on still supported versions of MAS 90 and MAS 200.

If you’ve been holding off upgrade – and you are using Extended Solutions – we recommend that you begin proactively planning for an upgrade to version 4.4 so as not to be caught short with an Extended Solution that might not work after you load a service update.

via: Sage Extended Solutions Updates Discontinued Soon

© 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.

Free Video Overview

Myron Stevenson, member of the 90minds.com consulting group had recently hosted a great overview demonstration of the MAS90 and MAS200 BOI Scripting functionality which was substantially enhanced in version 4.4.

Customize Sage MAS90 and MAS200

Why is this so important?  Because for the first time, you can replace a large portion of what previously required source code modifications in MAS 90 and MAS 200 with ‘above the source code’ functionality that a training consultant or end user can use.  These functions can’t break the underlying logic of the program and can easily be upgraded.

Free Training

Also don’t forget to check out Ask90minds.com to participate in our free Question and Answer (Q&A) site.
Watch below for this free overview training to see how easy it is to taylor MAS 90 and MAS200 to your business needs

© 2011, Mark Chinsky. 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.

Looking for a phone number to call Sage for technical support on one of their products? I’ve just stumbled across a great list of every product offered by Sage(well technically not every since Sage’s flagship ERP X3 is not on their) along with the phone number, direct link to the knowledgebase and a link to the Sage Community (when it exists) for the respective product.

We think your best resource continues to be your local Sage Business Partner. However for those users without a partner or who prefer to self-support the link below can be very helpful.

Sage Support Phone Numbers via Schulz Consulting

© 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.

Expect to see version 4.5 ship in August 2011. This release concludes Sage’s efforts to roll in the last of their Extended Solutions and will included the following solutions (which may not exactly duplicate the functionality of the original enhancement).

PR-1067 – Additional Deduction Calculation Methods
PR-1116 – Deduction Recalculation in Payroll Entry
PR-1015 – Deduction Calculation Based On Earnings Type
PR-1031 – Payroll Data Entry Import Utility
PR-1091 – Enhanced Benefit Accrual
SO-1005 – Price Level By Customer/Product Line
SO-1173 – Item Pricing By Total Quantity
SO-1530 – Enhanced Sales Order Integration with Job Cost
SO-1175 – Lot Serial/Distribution Entry from Sales Order
SO-1417 – Maintain Split Commissions by Customer
SO-1354 – Commission Rate Table by Salesperson/Customer/Item
AR-1068 – Customers With National Accounts
PO-1020 – Purchase Orders Created from Sales Orders
SO-1489 – Auto Generate Purchase Orders from S/O Entry

Some other highlights include the retirement of Act! Link. This integration with ACT! had not been updated since before MAS90 version 4.4. Sage is focussing all their efforts on SageCRM integration to the Sage ERP MAS90 and 200 product line.

If you’re not yet using CRM with MAS90 — there’s good news. With the version 4.5 upgrade you’ll receive one user license of SageCRM v7.1 (both server and client).

If you are using Report Master, which is Sage’s old custom report writer, you’ll need to full adopt Crystal Reports (included with your upgrade) as of this 4.5 release. Report Master previously was kept around but only worked for legacy modules that had not been updated to version 4.x standards (ie – Payroll, Work Order). As of release 4.5 Report Master will be going away so be sure to make plans to update any legacy reports.

More information on What’s New In Sage ERP MAS90 v4.5

© 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.