Sage continues move to User Based Pricing

Effective April 2, 2012, Sage will be implementing new pricing structures that will reflect the trend of more customers adopting user based pricing as compared to module based pricing.

Sage will offer a new Financials Bundle at a lower price for Sage 100 ERP (MAS 90).  A new Distribution Bundle priced similarly to MAS 200 with the choice of the Standard (MAS 90 / Sage 100 Standard), Advanced (MAS 200 / Sage 100 Advanced) or Premium (MAS 200 SQL) editions. www.comstrategies.com

MAS 90 Sales Tax Compliance

There is a good chance your company will be audited for sales tax compliance.  Managing sales tax is a complex, labor-intensive and confusing process.  Avalara leads the way in web-based sales tax solutions and has a fully integrated solution for MAS 90.  When entering a MAS 90 Invoice, set the Tax Schedule to “AVATAX”.  Based on the Ship-to location, the proper amount of Sales Tax will be calculated, applied to the invoice and saved into the AvaTax on-line reporting database.

ACT! 2011

Organize your contacts, communicate with customers and download new prospects using ACT! 2011.  If you need a good CRM software package, check out ACT! 2011 by downloading a free 30 day trial at http://experience.act.com/2011/choose.aspx

If you want to compare ACT! to other CRM programs, download trial versions from www.sugarcrm.com, www.salesforce.com or www.microsoft.com

Think Spring! Think Baseball.

March has arrived and the baseball spring training season has started.  Get ready by checking out two local teams.

Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.  Minor league farm team of the Milwaukee Brewers.  www.timberrattlers.com   Having served on the board of directors for the past 9 years, here is one question that most people do not know the answer to.

Q:  Who owns the team?  A:  The Appleton Baseball Club owns the rights to host and contract with a minor league baseball franchise.  The Appleton Baseball Club does business as the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.  Much like the Green Bay Packers, the Appleton Baseball Club is owned by members of the community.  Anyone can purchase a share of stock and become a team owner!  This is quite an awesome and unique opportunity.  The Appleton Baseball Club is a for profit entity that runs the local baseball business.  The team is the responsibility of the Milwaukee Brewers who hire and pay the coaches and players.  The stadium is owned by a local non-profit group called the Fox Cities Sports Authority.

Green Bay Bullfrogs.  Primarily consisting of college players wanting to play in the summer.  Visit  www.greenbaybullfrogs.com for tickets and schedules.  Did you know that Green Bay is looking to build a new baseball stadium.  Check it out at www.sportinggroundsoftitletown.com

A Taxing Time at Year End

As 2010 has officially ended, those of us dealing with the payroll tax changes and year end reporting are very busy.  Please remember to change the Employee FICA rate from 6.2% to 4.2% before doing a 2011 payroll. 

This politically motivated change seems small to politicians but has once again created lots of extra burdens for business.  As one company discovered this week, older versions of Business Works only have one FICA rate.  In MAS 90, the FICA rate needs to be changed to 2010 rates when running the 941 report for 2010 year end but one needs to make sure and change it back to 2011 rates before doing a 2011 payroll.

HIRE Act reporting is another year end reporting issue.  Make sure all qualified employees have completed a W-11 form.  It will be interesting to see how the government will ever audit this one-time exemption where employers do not have to pay the employer FICA tax for employees hired in 2010 that meet several different guidelines.

I find it interesting that with all the talk about social security being in trouble, our politicians have substantially reduced the payments into social security as a way to try and stimulate the economy.  For those of you doing payroll and putting in the extra time to comply with these changes, I have felt your pain!

Credit Card Compliance

If you store, handle or transmit credit card data, you must comply with new Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) by July 1, 2010.  Sage has announced that MAS 90 version 4.30 with service pack 18 and version 4.40 with service pack 1 are in the process of being certified as compliant with PA-DSS.

So, if you use MAS 90 or MAS 200 and store credit card data, you need to start planning for being in compliance.  Visit our webpage dedicated to credit card processing to learn more and to sign up for free webinars provided through Sage and Sage Payment Solutions.