New Reporting tool for Sage MAS 500 ERP. FRx Replacement
When Microsoft announced the retirement of the FRx financial reporting software, which has for many years been included with Sage ERP MAS 500, Sage began searching for a replacement. Sage ERP MAS Intelligence has been identified as the ideal FRx replacement solution. It provides powerful and easy-to-use financial reporting and it also can provide Business Intelligence from across your entire system, including Sage SalesLogix and Sage Abra.
Power And Familiarity Of Excel
Microsoft Excel has become the reporting and analysis tool of choice for accountants and executive management alike, so it made sense to choose a reporting tool for Sage ERP MAS 500 that is based on this familiar interface. Sage ERP MAS Intelligence comes with a selection of report templates that help you quickly and effortlessly produce pre-formatted reports. Then you simply can refine and expand your reports using all the flexibility and power of Excel. Sage ERP MAS Intelligence allows you to spend more time focusing on analysis and less time pulling data together.
Comprehensive Integration
Sage ERP MAS Intelligence is integrated so that it already recognizes the data structures within Sage ERP MAS 500. The software reads your data and knows your fiscal periods, chart of accounts, detail transactions, and various types of balances. As a result, you quickly will be able to build your intelligence solution to work the way you do.
Informed Decision Making
The Dashboard Analysis report provides a one-page summary of key business information, featuring Top-N details on customers, items, and expenses. View information both textually and graphically to help with daily and long-term planning. In addition, comparative profit and loss figures are displayed for current month and financial year-to-date. You can drill down to get further insight into what makes up the numbers.
Components
Sage ERP MAS Intelligence is organized into several components, similar to that of the FRx system it replaces. The components are Report Manager, Report Viewer, Report Designer, and the Connector Module. You can select the components based on the level of functionality you require.
Report Manager
At the heart of the system is Report Manager. This is where you create and edit new reports, as well as filter and aggregate data. Here you will find built-in report templates that help you get a quick start using the system. There are templates for financial reports as well as Financial Analysis, Dashboard Analysis, General Ledger Transaction Details, Inventory Status, Vendor Purchases, and Customer Sales.
With Report Manager it is a simple matter to create your layout, set multilevel groupings and consolidations, and add formulas where you want them, all using intuitive selection tools. You even can use what-if analysis by changing a set of values on your reports to instantly see the impact of a change on an area of your business. Report Manager includes flexible security settings that allow you to set permissions and protect sensitive data from unauthorized access.
Report Designer
Report Designer gives you the ability to author new reports. When you have a Report Designer license you also can import data from external sources to be included in your reports.
Report Viewer
Report Viewer Licenses are available for staff members who need to run reports, but not create them. A Report Viewer License allows you to view existing reports with real-time information, perform basic filtering capabilities such as selecting the date range, and drill-down to detailed reports.
Connector Module
The Connector Module gives you access to information from multiple data sources and multiple Sage ERP MAS 500 companies. With this module you can produce consolidated financial reports for multiple companies and connect to and report on data from other ODBC-compliant data sources, including Sage Abra.
What Is Included?
The Sage ERP MAS Intelligence Module will be available for customers on Sage ERP MAS 500 Version 7.3. Customers on a current subscription plan will receive, at no charge as a replacement for their FRx licenses, four single user Report Manager licenses. These licenses give you the ability to:
- Author new reports (organize, create, edit) as well as filter and aggregate data based on existing data containers.
- Run, edit, and clone the standard report templates, including financial reports, dashboards, financial trend analysis, general ledger, sales, purchases, and inventory transactional reports.
- Set security and permissions on all reports.
- Connect to one company database at a time. If you are running two or more companies, you can redirect the software as needed to access data from your other company codes or purchase an additional Report Manager or a Connector license if you wish to generate reports that include data from multiple companies.
If you own and trade-in additional FRx licenses, only maintenance will be charged. Maintenance will not be charged on the initial free Sage ERP MAS Intelligence licenses.
Advanced Capability Add-ons
You can purchase advanced capabilities to add to the Sage ERP MAS Intelligence module.
- Import/Export functionality requires the purchase of an additional Report Manager License, a Report Designer License, or the Connector Module.
- Optional Report Scheduling requires the purchase of an additional Report Manager License, the Report Designer, or the Connector Module.
- Connections to other types of databases or more than one company database at a time requires the purchase of a Connector Module.
Note: Because Sage ERP MAS Intelligence utilizes Microsoft Excel it requires Excel 2003 or Excel 2007. In order to run the Report Designer, customers will need Excel 2007.
Sage will not include FRx in the Sage ERP MAS 500, Version 7.4. However, Sage will continue to support FRx as part of previous releases, according to the published Supported Versions Policy. Please note Net at Work is still evaluating this module and will shortly determine how to proceed. Please give us a call with your questions.
