Why Are End of the Year Sage 100 Upgrades So Important?

There are two important aspects to what are commonly referred to as “end of the year” upgrades when it comes to Sage 100: 

• Continued phone support - In many cases, phone support ends on September 30th of a given year so it’s important that we keep that support in place for the end of the year. 

• Tax table compliance - Tax table updates, changes of employer forms, and other aspects of tax compliance are all included when you upgrade Sage 100.

Why is phone support important?

“In summary, most of the upgrades our customers need are related to payroll matters or software features that are included with the new version.”

We make a point of making sure our customers know their phone support is expiring. That’s why we actively contact our customers and let them know before the support contract ends. The benefit to staying upgraded when it comes to phone support is that Sage fixes bugs in their software throughout the course of the year. With proper phone support and a current version of Sage 100, your version of the software will simply run better.

With respect to timing, we let our customers know long before their support ends by proactively contacting them throughout the course of the year. Sage notifications about the end of a support contract tend to come in 30 days before the expiration which can be a tight timeframe for some, especially during a busier part of the year. We take responsibility for earlier notification to Ardent Consulting customers to help them get ahead of the upgrade cycle. 

Let’s talk about payroll and tax tables

Any tax form that you are required to get out before the end of the year or any business tax process that requires compliance by the first of the year can be affected by your version of Sage 100. Oftentimes with payroll, there are so many changes throughout the entire year that being on a more current version many of these issues will be taken care of for you automatically. 

“In newer Sage 100 versions the payroll module allows you to send notifications directly to employees.”

Newer features in the most recent releases of Sage 100 keep our customers compliant and also make it easier on your software partner (that’s us!) when we need to help you. The most important thing to remember is that as Sage 100 releases new versions many of the headaches you experience today will likely go away because they will be done for you in an automated fashion. For example, in newer Sage 100 versions the payroll module allows you to send notifications directly to employees as opposed to waiting on a single person who is responsible for payroll in the organization. 

Tax rules will come into play significantly this year. With your earnings and deduction codes, you need to determine what kind of taxes to take out based upon the rules that are being used. Some of the new features include:

• Being able to lock down the system a little bit more so that changes are not easily made. They can still be made - of course - but now they require a bit more effort which is a great thing. 

• You can now hide the last four digits of a social security number on checks and directly deposit stubs. The security settings of Sage 100 now let you control this much more granularly than in the past. 

What are the risks associated with using an unsupported version of Sage 100?

Over the last few years Sage has become more strict about unsupported versions. For example, if a problem in an unsupported version has been fixed in a more current version then the expectation is that you should run the current version to fix this issue. That’s fair and we can understand how complicated it can be for Sage to troubleshoot problems that were fixed in newer versions. 

As a secondary risk which is not often noticed by everyone, you want your Sage 100 system to run as efficiently as possible. After all, it is likely at the heart of your manufacturing and distribution operations. Newer software just runs better. There is no way around that fact. By using a newer version of Sage 100 you avoid a lot of these soft issues related to an older version. This is also true of hardware, especially as Windows 7 moves quickly to end of life.

So the big question becomes, “Is your version of Sage 100 still supported?” We can help you with a quick answer to this. Click here for a detailed breakdown of the supported Sage 100 versions.