While there are several ways to update the budgets in MAS 90, I find the easiest way is using F9’s Budget Write Back functionality.

F9 is an Excel plugin that reads financial data

First you need to create a spreadsheet with your GL Accounts and periods. The critical piece is to have the headers exactly correct. The header for the Account Column needs to say Account, the header for the account description needs to read Description, and the individual periods needs to have the number only for the period as the header (ie: Period one is 1, Period two is 2, etc.). You don’t have to have the account description in your spreadsheet for this to work. I’ll put up another post explaining how to do this later and link to it here.

Next you need to fill out the budget amounts for each period. If you only want to update a single period, you don’t have to have the other periods in your spreadsheet.

Before we run the F9 Budget Write back, you can see the MAS 90 budget here:

Next we go back to Excel and highlight and copy the cells with the accounts, periods and budgets you want to update.

Then go to the F9 Menu | Budgeting | Budget Write Back.

Verify the company code, budget, and Fiscal year.

The other concern here is whether you have the “Write ‘Sales’ accounts as debits” check box checked. Check it if you entered the sales accounts as positive amounts on your spreadsheet. Don’t check it if you entered them as negatives.

Click on Write and over in MAS 90, you will see the budgets have been entered automatically. Note that it will show the credit balances as negatives in MAS 90.

You can use the same technique to only update certain accounts and certain periods. To make this work, just make sure you only copy the sections you want to update before performing the Budget Write Back.

In my example below I’m updating only period three for the account selected.

Sage MAS Intelligence is Sage’s replacement for the soon to be retired Microsoft FRx. It is an Excel based plugin that reads Sage MAS 90/200 data and presents it in both a report format and as a dashboard.

Additional good news: unlike FRx and F9, SMI reports not just on General Ledger Data, but it reports on data from the other MAS 90/200 modules.

This video by Clients First, a fellow Sage Partner and 90 Minds member firm.

via Clients First

As Brett Zimmerman points out over on the 90 Minds blog, the Upper Case Address Utility (or SWUPCS) is a “Hidden Utility” in Sage MAS 90/200 for converting Customer and Vendor addresses (or just City in case you forgot about the “Return City Name in ALL CAPS” setting in Company Maintenance) to ALL CAPS.

WARNING!: This is a permanent change, so be sure to use with caution!

To access this utility in MAS go to File | Run.

Enter SWUPCS in the Program box and click OK.

From here you can select City Only or All Address Fields and which addresses you’d like to set to All Caps (Customer, Ship To, Vendor, or Purchase Addresses) and click Proceed.

Unfortunately there isn’t a utility to convert all addresses to Mixed Case, but that’s what Visual Integrator is for, right?

Via 90 Minds

See! I told you you were invited.

The event will lead with an update from Sage North America’s CEO, Sue Swenson followed by customers viewing very short introductions to sessions that might be presented at the full Summit 2011 conference. Each customer can then vote on which sessions would interest them most — and perhaps most interesting they can also send questions direct to the Sage Product Managers.

Registration is live, so register now.

Sage Summit Virtual Event Registration – November 18, 2010 via 90 Minds

This has to be one of the most requested features for any user of the MAS 90 Bank Rec module.

From Modules | Bank Reconciliation | Main select Check, Deposit, and Adjustment Entry. There are a few new features here. From either the Checks tab

or the Dep/Adjust tab

you now have access to a “Select For G/L Posting” check box and a “Distribution Account No.”. If you check the GL Posting check box, it will allow you to enter the distribution account number.

Once you’ve finished entering your adjustments you can click the new “B/R Trans Register button at the bottom of the Check, Deposit, and Adjustment Entry screen (highlighted in red above).

You’ll then be prompted to select the bank code or leave it blank for all and select the GL Posting date and print and update as you would any other module.

One place where the posting from Bank Rec is different from other modules is that you can delete the record from Check, Deposit, and Adjustment Entry after it’s been posted and it won’t update the GL. Also the account number can’t be changed after it’s been posted, so you’ll either need to correct with a GL Journal entry or enter a correcting entry if there is a problem with an account that has been selected.

If you try to update the Bank Reconciliation Register and purge cleared transactions you will get the following message and be unable to purge until you have run the Bank Reconciliation Transaction Register and updated it (or deleted the transactions).

Via Partners In Technology

How?

From the main MAS 90 menu select Help –> Help Topics.

Under Contents scroll all the way to the bottom and open the last topic “Module PDFs”.

You can then open and print the PDF documentation from the list.

While these are not manuals in the strictest sense, they do provide a document that you can use to guide you through your MAS 90 software and help with understanding how the software works.

The /C comment lines do not carry over from Sales Orders to Invoices.

Just for verification, I had to test it out myself and sure enough here’s the screenshot of the sales order:

and here is one of the invoice:

What is interesting is the comment on the line item did carry over.

Hopefully Sage will get a patch out for this quickly!

See Dawn’s post here: http://community.sagemas.com/t5/Technical-and-Installation/ALERT-Do-not-install-PU3-yet/m-p/34286

Update: Dawn reports that Sage is aware of the issue and working on a fix ASAP.

Sage has posted their writeup on the knowledgebase.

Wayne Schulz points out over on the 90 minds website that if you have Kit Bills (are using Bill of Materials and kits) they are not carrying over to work orders.

Please do not install PU3 without discussing with your reseller first.

Update 5:15 pm: Sage has verified this and the kit issue and are working to get a hot fix out as soon as possible.

Update 10/1/2010 2:17 pm: Sage has updated the 4.40 update page to reflect the issue with links to the kb articles.

Update 10/5/2010: Sage has release a fix to correct the SO Comment problem: http://support.sagesoftwareonline.com/mas/query/index.cfm?action=tipdetail&tip_id=1874

Now we’re waiting for the patches for GL Paperless and the BOM issue.

There are many solutions out there for individuals looking for help with their Sage MAS 90 or MAS 200.

1. The best place to look for free help is The Sage MAS 90 and 200 Community (http://community.sagemas.com/sagemas/?category.id=SageMAS90-200)

It’s free and doesn’t require you to be on a current subscription plan. You don’t have to know you’re Sage account number or be on your company’s current contact list with Sage. You don’t even have to own MAS 90. Best of all many of the brightest Sage consultants and end users are frequently on there answering questions.

2. The Sage Knowledgebase is currently available for free with no login required. I’m not sure I’m allowed to provide a direct link, but a quick Google search should reveal the way.

This is the same knowledgebase that consultants use to help support our end users. Sometimes Sage locks it behind a login which requires a current Sage MAS 90 / MAS 200 subscription, but for now it’s freely accessible. So take advantage of it.

3. The Sage MAS 90 / MAS 200 help system built into MAS 90 and MAS 200. The online help built into the software itself often provides many answers.

It’s not as good as having actual manuals, but it definitely contains a lot of good useful information.

4. Google (or your favorite search engine) is another tool that can be helpful. I’d wager it’s even how you found this site. However there are many consultants with blogs and resources that have been made available without requiring subscriptions or logins. Additionally, I’d suggest checking out the 90 Minds website for a listing of reseller websites that may contain helpful information. And of course check back here frequently for new and exciting tips, tricks, and ideas.

5. Finally Sage University while not free provides many courses both online and classroom based for reasonable fees.

While not tailored to your exact needs, these classes are usually cheaper than training from a consultant and the manuals that you get are often worth the price of the class.

If none of these solutions provide you with the answers you seek, then feel free to contact us for a quote to help you.

via 90 minds

This question came up in the Sage Resellers group I’m in yesterday.

One obvious answer is to hard code it onto each of the forms in Crystal Reports. But what if you need to update the boilerplate regularly and don’t want to update each form individually every time?

What if there’s a way to store a text file on the server and have that used as the basis for the boilerplate text — which means if the text changes you does not have to open up 10 different forms and make changes?

Crystal Reports provides the solution. You can embed a Word document or a RTF (a format used by both Word and Wordpad) in your form so when you need to change the boilerplate, you can just update the document and it will update all of your forms. I like using the RTF because it doesn’t require you to have MS Word on all workstations to edit the text.

First create your document in either Word or Wordpad and save it to the network. When I do this, I usually save the document to the \MAS90\Home\Textout directory.

Next go into MAS 90 and go to Sales Order Printing (Modules -> Sales Orders -> Main -> Sales Order Printing) and click the Designer button. If you don’t have a Designer button on your screen, you either don’t have Crystal Reports loaded or you don’t have rights to access the Designer in MAS 90 security.

In Crystal Reports, create a space for your verbage. I usually add a section to the Footer B area for it. Right click the Page Footer B area on the left and select Insert Section Below.

From the menu, select Insert -> OLE Object. Click the Create from File radio button and Browse for the file you created. Once you select the file, click OK and insert the object in the space you created.

Close and save your Crystal Form and repeat for other form codes or invoice forms as needed.

You’re boilerplate is now ready to use and you can update it by opening the document and editing the text when needed.

Here’s how:

1. Create a vendor account for the customer if one does not already exist. Go to Modules -> Accounts Payable -> Main -> Vendor Maintenance.

2. Link the customer and the vendor. Go to Modules -> Accounts Payable -> Setup -> Vendor and Customer Link Maintenance. Select the customer number and the vendor number in the appropriate fields.

In my case, my customer number and vendor number are the same, but again it’s not necessary that they be the same. Click Accept.

3. Now go select the transactions you want to transfer from Accounts Receivable to Accounts Payable. Go to Modules -> Accounts Payable -> Period End -> AP from AR Clearing Entry.

Select the Customer number and invoice(s)/credit(s) you need to transfer to AP from AR. Click Accept. * See note below for an alternate step to transfer multiple customers and multiple invoices in one step.

4. When you click the printer button in the lower right, you’ll get an AP from AR Clearing Register. It should look something like this.

After printing the Register, you will be prompted to update the Register. If the invoices listed are the correct invoices/credits for you to issue the refund, you can click Yes to post the register. If not you will click No and repeat steps 3 and 4.

5. Next up is selecting the invoice(s) that have been created in AP for payment. Go to Modules -> Accounts Payable -> Check Printing (or Check Printing and Electronic Payment) -> Invoice Payment Selection.

Select the parameters for your check run. In my case I’m just paying this one vendor. Click Proceed (or use the Select Button). Click the printer button in the lower right and you will get an Invoice Payment Selection Listing.

This Invoice Payment Selection Listing shows how the invoice was transfered from AR. You may need to include a copy of the customer’s statement to explain what the amount represents, since the amount transferred is rolled up with that system generated ARM number you see above.

6. Now it’s time to print checks. Go to Modules -> Accounts Payable -> Check Printing (or Check Printing and Electronic Payment) -> Check Printing (or Check Printing and Electronic Payment). Print your check(s) and proceed as normal.

You will now have a check for your customer in the amount of a credit balance. This same method can be used to apply AR balances against AP balances if you have a customer who is also a vendor you use regularly.

*You can use AP from AR Clearing Selection to select multiple vendors and multiple invoices or credits. You would just replace Step 3 above with this next step:

3. Select the Customer(s) you need to issue refund checks. Now go select the transactions you want to transfer from Accounts Receivable to Accounts Payable. Go to Modules -> Accounts Payable -> Period End -> AP from AR Clearing Entry.

You can choose to include/exclude Invoices on Payment Hold and prevent the transfer from AR customer from Exceeding the AP Balance on the vendor. In our case, we’re trying to issue a refund check, so you’re going to uncheck the A/R Transfer Amount check box. Click Proceed.