Version 4.0 and Version 4.05 of Sage MAS 90 and 200 changed the data structure for the General Ledger module.

This means that all of the historical data for your accounting system must be converted by Sage MAS 90 and 200. In many instances the volume of data is very large as this data goes back several years. Because of the critical nature of your financial data, we must look at each year individually to make certain that the data is correct and in balance. Use of certain special journals such as the Beginning Balance (BB) journal can make conversion problematic. Also, if the Delete/Renumber/Merge utilities have been used to remove accounts, this may cause issues during conversion (missing account error messages).

Version 4.1 further changed the data structure of your Accounts Receivable, Sales Order, Bank Reconciliation and RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) modules. In addition all UDF's, custom screens, custom forms (orders, invoices, picking sheets, statements), custom Crystal Reports and Visual Integrator jobs must be completely re-done if they involve these new modules.

Sage Software has a special Customer Guide to Upgrading that you can download and read. This explains many of upgrade steps required by the new features included in version 4.xx. In addition, we have seven separate steps that we undertake PRIOR to beginning your upgrade. Once your upgrade is underway, there are at least an additiona twenty steps performed before we are ready to start testing your upgrade.

Once we gather this information we apply it against our standards (based upon our experience with similar clients) to come up with a quotation for the typical amount of time our clients in similar situations have taken to upgrade. You may expect that this number will generally be higher than all previous Sage MAS 90 and 200 upgrades due to the additional steps for installation and data conversion.

Regardless of our initial cost detail - only the actual time spent is billed.

Sage Software supports the current version of Sage MAS 90 and 200 and one prior level. If you are more than one version away from being on the current releases then you are on an unsupported version of Sage MAS 90 and 200. Whether this is acceptable to your business depends on a number of factors - most prominently how crucial the working of Sage MAS 90 and 200 is to your business.

Ask yourself - if Sage MAS 90 and 200 quit working today and you could not get support - how would our business be affected?

If your business would be negatively impacted then you should plan for a software upgrade to remain on the most current release level.

Sage Software supports the current version and one prior release. The decision to remain on an older unsupported version is entirely up to you based upon the amount of risk you are willing to assume.

We can upgrade your Sage MAS 90 and 200 software to the most current release level sent to you by Sage Software.

However this approach is only our best estimate that significant issues have been minimized. There is no guarantee that we will not encounter program issues that require us to work with the developer (Sage Software). In all instances our time researching these issues are billable events and have been incorporated into our fee estimate to the greatest extent possible based on our prior experiences.

Our time diagnosing program issues with Sage Software is billable. We do our best to minimize such calls - however with the increasingly technical nature of the upgrades, it is very common for us to log at least one support case on an upgrade. Due to the individual nature of such support calls we bill for our time diagnosing these program issues even when they involve bugs that have been discovered in the software.