Sage 500 ERP 2013 (formerly Mas 500) – Upcoming New Release

Sage 500 ERP 2013 is scheduled for release this fall. The release is packed with capabilities that deliver value. The new features span many areas, so most users within a typical ERP organization will experience the benefits of increased usability and efficiency. In this introductory post we focus on capabilities for accounting and finance and enhancements to Credit Card Processing.

Accounting And Finance

Sage 500 ERP 2013 includes many user-requested enhancements that will benefit accounting and finance users. Enhancements include expanded capabilities for ACH remittances, new and more efficient ways to manage cash receipts, easier bank reconciliation, and better control over posting at period end.

ACH Remittances
The ACH Remittance capability in Sage 500 ERP allows you to send payments to vendors electronically, saving the cost of paper checks and mailing. But for confirmation and audit purposes, many organizations want to print a hard copy advice listing the items paid. With Sage 500 ERP 2013, the new Print ACH Remittance task provides the required documentation in a familiar and easy to use format.

Enhanced Cash Management
Sage 500 ERP 2013 adds top customer-requested enhancements including the ability to easily import pending cash receipts; the ability to track miscellaneous cash receipts in Accounts Receivable; and an easy to use Bank Reconciliation screen.

Increased use of electronic funds transfers, lock boxes, third party Web pages, and alternative collection methods can make the manual entry and application of customer payments cumbersome. To address this change in business processes, a new cash receipts import entity has been added to the Maintain Import Job task in Data Import Manager for Sage 500 ERP 2013.

Miscellaneous Cash Receipts are by their very nature harder to track and often can be the source of discrepancies when reconciling cash. In order to raise the visibility of these transactions, Sage 500 ERP 2013 includes enhancements to standard reports and views to include miscellaneous cash receipts.

Getting your bank balance to reconcile is often a trial-and-error process that may take several passes. In order to ease this process, Sage 500 ERP 2013 includes an easy-to-use resizable Bank Reconciliation screen with the ability to print and review the register as many times as needed before completing the final step of marking transactions cleared.

Period End Closing
At period end, there often is at least one transaction that someone attempts to post after the period end closing is complete. This of course cannot be allowed once financial reports have been submitted to external entities. Now you can manage period-end closing more smoothly by locking down posting from individual sub-ledgers when preparing for period-end closing. This new feature will be found in the Set Up Fiscal Calendar task. Note: With the proper permissions, the locks can be overridden if necessary.

Credit Card Processing

The technology supporting the credit card processing capabilities of Sage 500 ERP is being updated with the 2013 release. The new technology, Sage Exchange, will offer customers additional payment entry options, reduced exposure to fraud, and an easy-to-use portal for managing and analyzing your payments information. Sage Exchange is the cloud-based technology that will provide the integration between Sage 500 ERP and the Sage Payments Gateway. It consists of two elements: the Sage Exchange Vault. and the Sage Exchange Portal.

Additional Payment Entry Options
The adoption of Sage Exchange in the Sage 500 ERP 2013 release introduces more flexibility and power in payment entry options, including card swipe capabilities, mobile payments, and ACH Receivables.

If your customer’s credit card is in your hand, you can process the payment with a lower transaction fee. Sage Payments offers a recognized USB card-swipe device attached to the desktop terminal for this purpose. The new card-swipe capabilities have been integrated so that payment processing is built into the normal Sage 500 ERP workflow—this can replace any disconnected card-swipe capabilities that already may be in use.

Sage Exchange supports collection of payments anytime, anywhere, via smart phone. Ideal for cash sales, Sage Mobile Payments will immediately capture the cash transaction information and send it to Sage Exchange, for secure transfer to Sage 500 ERP 2013. Companies that provide services and collect fees in the field, such as mobile repair services, will find these features especially helpful.

Current market trends demand the ability to accept automated payments for receivables, and many big-box retailers require businesses to accept electronic payments as a condition of purchase. Sage 500 ERP 2013 introduces the ability to accept ACH receivables through the Sage Exchange interface. The workflow closely mimics credit card processing, with ACH receivable processing built into the Sage 500 ERP invoice creation process.

Reduced Fraud Exposure
Earlier versions of Sage 500 ERP gave customers the option to store sensitive credit card information locally in an encrypted state. With the release of 2013, customers can reduce fraud exposure by only storing sensitive cardholder data in the secure, cloud-based Sage Exchange Vault. For added security, Sage 500 ERP 2013 also will support one-time use transactions without saving credit card information. You easily will be able to move your customers’ credit card information from its current location into the secure Sage Exchange Vault.

Sage Exchange Portal
The Sage Exchange Portal provides a user-configurable dashboard and the flexibility to view payments information on the Web in the manner each customer prefers. There are predefined tabs you can use to assign access to the Sage Exchange Portal for your employees, and easily make connections using alternative devices such as tablet PCs or mobile phones.

There is more to the Sage 500 ERP 2013 release than we have space for here. Look for details on pricing, order entry, and manufacturing enhancements as well as other enhancements in future newsletters. Call us with your questions.