By upgrading to the Sage 100 2016 release, you can leverage upgraded features and enhancements that make running your business easier.
The 2016 release of Sage 100 includes over 20 enhancements to help you stay compliant, more easily enter data, set preferences, print or customize reports, and automate sales order expiration dates.
You may have also heard about the newly released Sage 100c, which offers all of the features outlined in this blog post, plus a few user interface and design enhancements. For the purpose of this blog post, we’ll be sticking strictly to Sage 100 2016. You can learn more about Sage 100c here.
Be compliant with new Affordable Care Act requirements
With Sage 100 2016, you can ensure your company is meeting new requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Learn more about the Affordable Care Act. There are several new security tasks for role maintenance and ACA reports. However, you’ll need to remember to check box in your Sage 100 payroll options to retain perpetual payroll history. Otherwise some info for applicable large employers may be inaccurate.
Sage 100 2016 also has a new tool to help you calculate various requirements and takes into account seasonal employees. It creates a report to determine what category you belong to as an ACA employer. You also have an option to choose which ACA forms you need to use, policy origin codes, and certificates of eligibility. ACA records are retained for current and terminated employees until purge of perpetual data is permitted. Sage 100 is also integrated with ATRIX so you can send 1094 and 1095 B and C requirements. ATRIX can update new records and the sort field is now in the file so that you can sort W2s according to specific criteria.
New enhancements for ACA compliance include:
- Change Period End processing to retain ACA records and terminated employees until the purging of Perpetual Payroll History.
- Store Employee/Employer data for 1094 and 1099B/C forms.
- Transmit ACA data to Aatrix via .AUF for 1094/1095-B/C compliance.
- Apply Employee Maintenance Sort field data to .AUF file to allow for sorting of W-2s with Aatrix.
- Select whether to use the 1094 or 1095 forms when printing forms in Federal eFiling and Reporting.
- Enter values in the new Policy Origin Code field to print on Form 1095-B in part I, field 8 when printing forms in Federal eFiling and Reporting.
- Select the following check boxes on Form 1094-C in Part II, section 22 when printing forms in Federal eFiling and Reporting:
- Qualifying Offer Method
- Qualifying Offer Method Transition Relief
- Section 4980H Transition Relief
- 98% Offer Method
Save time with easy-to-use data entry, and preference settings
There were a number of changes made to data entry fields and preference settings in Sage 100 2016, such has increasing character limits on Purchase Orders to support government contracts. It’s much easier to delete reason codes or mark them inactive. You also have a number of new options for user-defined reasons.
Changes to the quote-to-order process have been added for increased functionality. A checkbox has been added to set the default days until a quote expires so you can have better control over the duration and life of the quote. There are also now additional order types. You can create a quote to standard and master orders if you want to give discounts over a longer period of time. You can also look up back orders to get prices but still delay delivery dates.
At the end of the day you may have a batch of entries you want to close, but there’s always one line you can’t close just yet. Now you can transfer those transactions to another batch until you’re ready to process them. No more need to delete and re-enter duplicate batches.
A number of other workflow changes have been made to make Sage 100 2016 easier to use. Changes to the task scheduler has been a long overlooked feature. Now in addition to scheduling journal or register updates, you can schedule the processing of reports or import VI data that takes a long time while no one is in the system.
It’s also easier for users to change personalization settings without going into Library Master where you don’t want everyone to have access. Users can easily change how they interact with Sage 100. For example, if a user is prompted for a company code they can change how they use the Enter or Tab key. Don’t want people changing settings? There is a simple security event so that you can lock down these features according to your internal policies.
Sage 100 2016 includes enhancements that will simplify everyday tasks:
- Add and print extended item descriptions for miscellaneous items.
- Add extended item description for lines in the Accounts Receivable data entry and invoice entry tasks.
- Set preferences using the new user settings window such as the default zoom level for previewing reports.
- Choose whether or not to automatically insert decimal points when entering quantities.
- Select whether you want to use the standard or classic desktop and—if you have the appropriate security setup—a theme for task windows.
- Change desktop theme and options without the need for rights to library master tasks.
- Allow for purchase order numbers of up to 30 characters with windows and tabs that expand accordingly.
- Gain an easier way to correct documents that have been entered to the wrong batch or need to be moved.
- Allow for greater security with an expanded 128-character password field in the SMTP email server.
- Schedule the generation and printing of reports—and export and import data in Visual Integrator—using Task Scheduler.
Improved Accounts Payable reporting and printing
New dialogues to AP invoices have been added for memo reference. Any update to a customer associated with an entry will flow over into the associated invoice entry fields so that you can update once in Customer Maintenance without going into every entry to update those fields. More options around AP aged invoice reports have been added to Sage 100 2016. E-Transfers are popular and preferred by mortgage and insurance companies, utility providers, and government agencies. You can now separate these from those you need to send a physical check to. You can also include or exclude vendors in this report making it easier to control cash management tasks.
In Sage 100 2016, the Accounts Payable Aged Invoice Report window now includes an Electronic Payment Vendors field so you can specify whether vendors with the Electronic Payment check box selected in Vendor Maintenance are:
- Included on the aged invoice report.
- Excluded from the report.
- The only invoices printed on the report.
You can now specify whether the Accounts Payable Aged Invoice Report will be printed in landscape view with an 8-point font size or in portrait view with a 6-point font size, using a new Print Condensed check box. This is also true for AP and AR Aged Invoice Reports.
Automate sales order expiration dates and simplify data entry
With Sage 100 2016, you can now choose a default period for expiration of sales orders that will automatically be set or overridden and replaced when needed.
The check number field in Sales Order Entry and Invoice Data Entry has been expanded from 6 to 10 characters to allow for longer check numbers when recording prepayments or deposits against pending orders.
Integration with the latest version of Sage CRM
Get the real-time information you need to make more informed business decisions. Sage 100 now integrates seamlessly with Sage CRM 7.3, driving productivity, efficiency, growth, and profitability.
New enhancements include:
- A fresh new look for managing important customer information in fewer clicks.
- Email marketing with MailChimp for sending campaigns to up to 2,000 customers a month for free.
- A new optimized experience and user interface for mobile devices.
- Added business insight with business accelerators for sales.
Changes and enhancements to Payroll
Payroll is now the hub of record for all things related to staff hours. Whether you do-it-yourself online, through the Payroll module, or outsource payroll through ADP or Sage Payroll Services, staff hours are retained for reporting purposes and are tied into the various other modules. Traditionally you would need to create a notch file and then figure out how to get it to the employee. With the improved integration to Sage Payroll Services you simply enter the synchronization and posting info so the services have the information to post back to your ledger. They’ll come back to the GL and Bank Rec making all posting much more straight forward.
Whether you’re looking for a full-service payroll solution or you want a better experience than you have with your current provider, Sage 100 2016 offers enhanced integration with Sage Payroll Services so you can upload general ledger account numbers and bank codes to Sage Payroll Services and easily download payroll transactions back into Transaction Journal Entry. This new direct deposit service was designed for customers using the Payroll module.
Note to Payroll customers
All Payroll customers will receive a product key to turn on the new infrastructure with the release of Sage 100 2016. When you get the notice, it is important that you enter the key provided when you install version 2016. If you do not enter the new product key after the November product update, even if you’re on the 2015 release, you won’t be able to access the payroll tasks. If you have lost this email it should be available on the customer portal or contact your account manager at BCS ProSoft.
Final Thoughts on the Sage 100 Roadmap from BCS ProSoft
Something we definitely noticed during the partner meetings at Sage Summit was that there are plans to continue innovating the Sage 100 product. While some big announcements like the introduction of a subscription-based Sage 100c don’t mean much for existing customers, it could set a precedent for future customers and ultimately lead to a completely cloud-based product, though that’s probably still a long ways off. We even finally started seeing more information and timelines for getting legacy modules like Manufacturing, Job Cost, Fixed-Assets, and Payroll rewritten in the new Sage 100 framework. We’re even seeing some of those infrastructure changes added into Payroll with this release, but they aren’t quire finished.
There seems to be a renewed sense of purpose and direction in the Sage 100 product line that we’re excited to see evolve over time. We still believe Sage 100 is one of the best solutions for small and medium-sized businesses and one we will continue to recommend and sell to prospects as well as support for existing customers. Naturally we’re skeptical and have our doubts about some things, but overall we’re bullish in Sage 100.
Talk to a Sage 100 Expert
As always, feel free to contact your Sage 100 Account Manager at BCS ProSoft if you have any questions. We can help you with your upgrade, scheduling resources, training, support, and much more. Send us an email or give us a call at 800-882-6705.
