Key Strengths of Sage MAS 500

Technology

Sage MAS 500 is the only three-time winner of the Microsoft Industry Solution Award for Sage Technology Integration for many reasons. First, MAS 500 was built and optimized exclusively for the Microsoft environment. It's front end was built in the standard development environment of Visual Basic and utilizes a granular COM (Component Object Model) architecture, providing a rich framework for reusable code. A variety of customization tools are provided that allow organizations to modify Sage MAS 500 applications to their specific requirements or build brand new applications and easily upgrade as new releases become available.

Sage MAS 500 runs exclusively on the SQL Server 2000 platforms, incorporating more than 3000 stored procedures and delivering superior performance benchmarks. Database-enforced security and referential integrity, implemented through SQL triggers, provides the appropriate level of system security while ensuring data accuracy.

Application programming interfaces (APIs), delivered as SQL stored procedures, provide high performance integration to MAS 500 with full validation allowing organizations to seamlessly integrate their mission critical, line of business applications to the back office. Extended APIs, available through Sage Professional Services, provide integration through COM- and command-level interfaces.

With the new .NET architecture from Microsoft, MAS 500 will once again reap the benefit of its Microsoft-only heritage. Already written using Visual Basic and Visual Interdev, moving to .NET will be a matter of moving to the next version of these development tools, released as Visual Studio.NET. Third party add-ons developed with the MAS 500 Application Framework will also be able to leverage this migration path, ensuring that MAS 500 and our strategic third party alliance products will smoothly upgrade to the .NET environment.

User Interface:

Sage MAS 500 incorporates a Microsoft-centric user interface that promotes a short learning curve for those familiar with other Microsoft applications. The Launchpad menu system, was modeled after the Microsoft Office Shortcut bar and allows users to quickly and easily access any back office function. Other features include a tab interface design, tool tips and VCR buttons.

The Navigator, a powerful search engine, facilitates easy access to all Sage MAS 500 data by allowing the user to define search criteria without having any knowledge of SQL or the underlying data structure. The Navigator is implemented on all Sage forms, queries and standard reports facilitating access to information.

The Sage MAS 500 robust online help includes field-level "what's this" help as well as common procedures help for each module (e.g., "How do I close a general ledger period?"). In addition, step-by-step instructions are provided for every process within the application and include a shortcut for launching the task directly from the help file. Data flow diagrams show the relationships between tasks, identify outputs from a particular task, and provide drill down to procedural help.

Sage MAS 500 contains extensive right mouse click functionality throughout the software, enabling users to drill up and drill down to related information and source documents through a context sensitive menu. Users can also move laterally or "drill around" within any form to access master file information, allowing "add on the fly" functionality.

Productivity Tools:

Sage MAS 500 Office provides seamless integration to Microsoft Office applications, leveraging OLE/ActiveX technology. A variety of templates are shipped with the software (i.e., budget spreadsheets with Excel, Word documents for AR correspondence, and MAPI-compliant email notifications) and users can create their own templates without any programming expertise. Additionally, any Windows application file can be attached to a master file or transaction record providing an "electronic file cabinet" for storing critical information.

Sage MAS 500 Alerts provides you with automated email notifications when certain business conditions occur. Configurable alerts allow you to configure what conditions are scanned for, control how often the database is scanned, and determine who will receive the notification. This proactive approach to managing your business contributes to the efficiency of your business and the satisfaction of your customers.

Distribution:

The Sage MAS 500 distribution suite contains some of the most sophisticated functionality seen in a middle market application. Order processing features place emphasis on line item flexibility, including line item ship-to, drop-ship, and inventory visibility across warehouses. A robust pricing matrix facilitates date sensitive pricing by product, product line, customer, customer group and contract, with discounts available by quantity, weight, and volume.

Customer credit limit information can be checked during the initial order, automatically placing orders on hold pending security event override.

At the core of the Sage MAS 500 inventory management system is its robust replenishment capability. MAS 500 replenishment uses an inventory calendar to record the number of business days by period allowing more accurate forecasting by calculating demand per day rather than per period. Replenishment rules are defined at a product line or item level, including formulas placing weighted averages on prior and future demand, lead times, and safety stock. Analysis reports are available with the ability to generate purchase orders directly from suggested orders and approved target and emergency orders.

Manufacturing:

Enterprise Manufacturing includes an integrated Advanced Planning and Scheduling system. This is a rules-based, drag-and-drop scheduling engine completely integrated with MRP, Inventory Management, Purchase Order, and Sales Order.

Advanced engineering features allow viewing of CAD drawings at the header or operation detail level and provide an import function for bringing in a Bill of Material from popular design programs such as AutoCAD.

The MRP system uses forecasted demand from the powerful replenishment module providing much more accurate material plans by calculating demand per business day as opposed to demand by month.

Complete handling of co-products is supported (when more than one product is produced per production order - e.g., a left and right fender per hit on a stamping machine). This feature is important for companies who require disassembly, co-products, by-products, and blind manufacturing.

The manufacturing system supports standard, average, actual, FIFO, and LIFO costing methods.

The MRP system allows users to have multiple material plans for different product lines, different facilities, and thousands of MRP variations based on selected criteria. The MRP system is both intuitive and fast. Users can schedule not only to the work center but also to the specific machine. They can also finitely schedule tooling requirements.

The manufacturing system handles outsourced operations within the Routing and Bill of Material. These outside process costs correctly affect the total cost of production. Outsourced operations can also be scheduled to an outside work center.

The configurator not only configures materials for a Sales Order, but it also configures the Routing and the Bill of Materials for manufacturing.

Data flows seamlessly from Estimates to Quotes to Sales Orders to Routings and Work Orders, and to MRP and Scheduling without duplicate data entry.

Query and Reporting:

Crystal Reports 8.0 is shipped with System Manager. All standard reports and business forms (i.e., checks, invoices, sales orders, etc.) have been developed using Crystal and the .RPT files are delivered with the application for easy report modification. Runtime parameters are provided for all reports allowing users to define sort and selection criteria without modifying report source code. Stored procedures are used to extract report data providing enhanced report performance.

FRx Desktop 6.0 is shipped with General Ledger. This powerful report writer allows organizations to quickly and easily create a variety of financial reports based on reusable components for row formats, column layouts, and reporting trees. Based on security permissions, reports can be distributed electronically and provide complete drill down capabilities into the back office system.

Our flexible query tool allows users to query Sage MAS 500 without any knowledge of the underlying database or a query language. Like Sage's standard reports, users can select from a variety of predefined search options to view data to screen, print, or output directly to Excel for further manipulation or analysis.

Web Functionality:

Sage MAS 500 Web Reports provides an out-of-the-box solution for remote access to all standard Crystal Reports. Browser-based reports are secured by user, security group and company, and selection criteria can be defined prior to report generation.

eCustomer provides an out-of-the-box business-to-business e-commerce solution. eCustomer in fully integrated with Accounts Receivable, Sales Order and Inventory Management and provides order entry, transaction inquiry and customer self service features. eCustomer provides Single-Screen Procurement™, an interface unlike any other mid-market application. Single-Screen Procurement™ provides a customizable interface that promotes fast and efficient order processing by allowing the user to view catalog, catalog item list, item detail and shopping cart information on a single page.

eSalesforce is a web-based salesperson's portal integrated to Sage MAS 500 and SalesLogix. Salespeople can track and convert opportunities stored in SalesLogix to orders in Sage MAS 500, with item and pricing visibility from the back office. SalesLogix prospects are easily converted into customers, including credit application workflow and processing. The customizable eSalesforce module allows salespeople to view information related to prospecting activities, opportunities, recent order, recent shipments, customer summary, and salesperson summary.

eExecutive leverage Microsoft's Digital Dashboard technology to provide executives with an unsurpassed level of knowledge management. This customizable solution to information overload puts up-to-date sales statistics, key Sage MAS 500 data, industry news, and competitive intelligence at the executive's fingertips by consolidating critical personal, corporate, and external information.

Customization Capabilities:

The Sage MAS 500 development tools provide a robust suite of development products for MAS 500 applications. The product suite consists of three components:

Sage MAS 500—Features

Sage MAS 500—Success Stories