Acumatica Summit 2019 Day Two
Jon Roskill, Acumatica’s CEO, started off Day Two focusing on Acumatica’s R&D initiatives, which can be carried out by the fact that 74% of all employees work in R&D. This focus is what makes Acumatica a fun company to partner with and the day was filled with a look at near and not too distant future.
Acumatica Summit 2019 Day One Recap
For those lucky enough to attend in person and pick up a stainless steel tumbler from Miir or a tasty dessert from Nothing Bundt Cakes, two Acumatica customers, attendees also got to see some exciting new features coming in Acumatica 2019 R1.
Acumatica 1099-MISC Form Update for 2018
If you are reporting non-employee compensation (NEC) in Box 7 of the 1099-MISC form you must provide payees with their copies AND file those forms with the IRS by January 31, 2019. Acumatica has released a customization to satisfy this 1099-MISC requirement that allow for the printing of 1099-MISC forms separately for non-employee compensation (NEC) (Box 7).
Acumatica 2018 R2
Acumatica has announced the 2018 R2 release is now generally available. This update is focused on enhancements in response to customer and partner feedback, improvements that will help streamline operations and meeting compliance regulations like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Some of the improvements are highlighted below:
Project Change Management in Acumatica 2018 R1
Acumatica has released version 2018 R1 which includes several new features for project users. Today we will highlight one of them – Project Change Orders.
Acumatica 2018 R1 is Now Available
Acumatica has released its latest version – Acumatica 2018 R1. This is the scheduled spring update to Acumatica 2017 R2. The release consists of four parts:
- The General Availability of 2018 R1
- Acumatica Construction Edition availability
- Acumatica Distribution Edition announcement
- Business Intelligence with Reporting, Dashboards and Analytics
Acumatica 2017 R2 – Our Vote For The Top Five New Features
This month, Acumatica released the latest version of their award-winning ERP software. Acumatica 2017 R2 comes with a host of new features and we have highlighted the five we find most interesting.
Say hello to Polaris Hosting!
Effective October 2017, Polaris has launched a hosting service for companies (and Polaris customers, of course!) seeking to run their ERP, accounting, or other business-critical software on a cloud-based platform. The hosting service – which is an alternative to businesses running and maintaining their own servers – offers advantages like improved security, improved reliability, increased server performance, and cost-savings. The new offering is a logical extension of our company’s core business of developing, deploying, maintaining, and troubleshooting software solutions from Microsoft Dynamics SL and Acumatica.
“We’ve been helping a wide range of clients manage their Dynamics SL- and Acumatica-based ERP, accounting, and other business software for over 10 years now, almost exclusively on their own servers or in homegrown data centers,” says our founder and president, Todd Delaney. “While there’s nothing inherently wrong with taking a DIY approach to running things on your own box, there can be considerable advantages to moving to the cloud. So, we’re excited to offer that as an option — and a broader service offering of both software and robust, remote servers to run it on.”
In launching Polaris Hosting, we’ve identified and expanded on three key benefits to businesses currently managing their own servers:
- Lower “IT” costs – Information technology is oftentimes not a core competency of many businesses. By moving software and server management outside, businesses can reduce their “IT” costs or render them more predictable, eliminate headaches, and focus on their mainline business.
- Scalability – Especially for smaller or growing businesses, needed server capacity, bandwidth, and speed can fluctuate and evolve, making it difficult (and costly) to predict and purchase the right hardware. By ‘leasing’ space in the cloud, servers can be added (or even scaled back) to stay in step with demand, web traffic, or common business fluctuations; companies reduce the risk of purchasing and maintaining equipment that can quickly become obsolete; and, with Polaris Hosting, customers can establish a ‘hybrid’ approach of in-house and cloud-based servers to migrate to the cloud gradually – or choose between a privately held or “public” server farm (such as Amazon or Microsoft Azure).
- Superior security – In the face of ever-evolving security environment, Polaris’ hosting service increases confidence, thanks to added protection, automatic server software updates (no need to track and manage updates, patches, and upgrades in-house), robust back-up power, and well-defined/documented disaster recovery.
Current and prospective Polaris customers interested in learning more about the hosting services now available from Polaris Business Solutions can initiate a no-cost server audit, consultation, and estimate with a simple email.
With Sage Acquiring Intacct – Why Are You Still Using Sage 100 (MAS 90)?
This week Sage Group announced that it has agreed to acquire Intacct Corporation – a 19-year-old cloud ERP vendor – for about $850 million. This is the largest acquisition Sage has ever made and their third acquisition this year.
What prompted Sage to make this move?
Sage has been lagging behind the competition in moving to the cloud and generating a recurring revenue stream – which Wall Street loves. Sage has also had difficulty in gaining mid-market cloud installs. Analysist have said this acquisition was a necessary, but expensive way to address these issues.
Before the acquisition, Sage had three cloud products that are the focus of Sage’s new “Cloud First” policy: Sage One (for very small businesses), Sage Live (for growing, but still small businesses), and Sage X3 (for larger enterprises). Sage Intacct (as it will be called assuming the deal is finalized) will try to fit in-between Sage Live and Sage X3 and provide some needed North American cloud clients that Sage is desperately trying to add. Intacct is primarily for US GAAP accounting, which could be an issue for companies with multinational needs.
Impact on Intacct
Acquisitions always create uncertainty, as the recent NetSuite acquisition showed, and this purchase is no different. Certainly, Sage wasn’t just paying for Intacct’s customers, but also their technology and people as well. But $850 million is a big price tag and Sage will have to find some efficiencies to keep shareholders happy. Anyone familiar with Sage will know that they don’t have the best reputation for investing in technology. Will the ability and desire to innovate Sage Intacct be diminished? Will the pressure to increase dividends and show a return on this investment take precedence over innovation? If you are considering a new ERP package are you willing to take that risk with Sage Intacct?
Impact on Sage 100 (MAS 90)
This acquisition by Sage has been big news this week and I have combed through dozens of articles discussing the details of the transaction and the impact it will have on Sage’s product strategy. There have been plenty of mentions of Sage One, Sage Live and Sage X3. But, I haven’t seen any mentions of Sage 100 (formerly known as MAS 90).
Are you still using Sage 100? If so, why?
The product has been around for decades and has plenty of accounting functions – that can’t be denied. As a former reseller of Sage 100 I know what it can do. I also know what it can’t do. The technology has always been behind the competition, even other legacy ERP packages like Dynamics SL. It was my experience as a partner of Sage that improving the technology was secondary to getting new clients. Sage continues to provide a roadmap for the Sage 100 product and is still updating modules to the “new business” framework – something they started around 2005, but you must wonder where does Sage 100 fit in the priorities now that Sage Intacct is in the family.
How does Sage 100 fit into the “Cloud First” priority? How many accounting packages can Sage support? How long does Sage want to support Sage 100? How many partners have stopped supporting Sage 100 and moved to a different package and how would that impact you?
Acumatica
I was one of those partners that dropped Sage 100 and added Acumatica. It wasn’t an easy decision, but in the long run, it looks like the right one. Acumatica has recently announced a Sage 100 migration tool. Acumatica is built on the latest technology and continues to innovate and Acumatica is a true global product. Now seems like the perfect time to review Acumatica if you are looking for a new ERP package or if you are still using Sage 100.
Acumatica 6.1 Now Available
In January, Acumatica has released the latest version – 6.1 It includes several new enhancements and bug fixes. Some of the enhancements are detailed below: