List of enhancements incorporated in the Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200

Version 4.05 release:

Global Enhancements
Business Insights Reporter - A Wizard-based Interface to Custom Reporting:

• The Business Insights Reporter displays data in a logical tree view, which makes the data easier to locate. You can use one of the pre-defined views or define your own custom views of data.
• You can specify report options each time the report is run.
• Reports can be added to menus.
• Reports can be edited using Crystal Reports.
• Reports can be used to export data in a wide variety of formats including XML and Excel.

Simplified Data Export to Microsoft Excel:

• The advanced lookup engine (ALE) can export the selected data to an Excel spreadsheet with the click of a button. Excel must be installed on the desktop.

Greater Flexibility with Security:

• Using role-based security, you can define various roles, such as “Supervisor” and “Data Entry”, that have different levels of access to programs. One or more of these roles can then be assigned to individual users.
• Security is task-based, not menu-based, allowing it to be maintained regardless of how various tasks are executed.

General Ledger Enhancements
New User Interface Standards:

• New grid entry provides faster and more flexible data entry.
• New controls allow you to customize column widths, sort and hide fields, and undo unsaved changes.
• All the windows have the new Windows XP look and feel with redesigned icons.
• You can quickly access various features using the right-click menus and hyperlinks.

Improved Integration with Bank Reconciliation:

• You can transfer funds between banks as a one-step transaction journal entry.

Redesigned Budget Maintenance:

• The new Budget Maintenance window allows you to maintain unlimited budgets.
• Only the budget you want to work with appears.
• You can simultaneously edit budgets for multiple general ledger accounts.

Greater Power and Flexibility in Allocations:

• Source Accounts may be Financial or Non-Financial accounts.
• Automatic allocations may be run at any time for any period.
• The new Basis allocation enables you to distribute the allocation amount from the source account based on values that are associated with other specified accounts.

New Company Setup Wizard for General Ledger :

• The New Company Setup Wizard is available only for General Ledger in this release.
• You can now easily set up a new company in MAS 90 or MAS 200 tailored to meet your specific business needs.
• An optional pre-defined Chart of Accounts helps you get started on the right track.

Expanded Account Number and Structure:

• You can format your account structure with up to 32 characters and 10 segments.
• The expanded account number is compatible with all subsidiary MAS 90 modules.

Batch Manager:

• Batch Manager tracks individual user batches and allows them to be private or shared.

Memo Manager:

• You can establish, manage, and display memos for general ledger accounts using this company-wide memo management system.

Expanded Numeric Fields:

• To accommodate larger transactions, the numeric masks in the General Ledger module is expanded to allow 999 million dollars within entry programs, 9 billion on the account level and 99 billion for reports.

Reporting Enhancements
Expanded Financial Statements:

• You can easily set up Financial Statements with a wizard-based front end.
• Quarter-To-Date Income Statements and the ability to define segment or roll-up codes for Income Statements are added.
• You can specify whether to print account numbers, dollar signs, zero balances, and/or set a percentage mask.

FRx Desktop Version 6.5:

• FRx Desktop version 6.5 is bundled with the purchase of the General Ledger module and replaces some of the more advanced features of Custom Financials.
• FRx Desktop can drill back to source transactions in MAS 90.

Saved Report Settings in General Ledger:

• You can set up pre-defined report selection options for each report, which decreases setup time and error in report generation.
• You can define the settings as Public, Read-Only, or Private to ensure that they are modified by the appropriate users.

Other Enhancements
Greater Flexibility with User-Defined Fields (UDFs):

• The enhanced UDFs are available only for General Ledger in this release.
• You may define UDFs for any table and are not limited to single pre-defined entities.
• UDFs reside in the actual data table (for example, GL_Account), not in a separate UDF table.
• The source of the value of a UDF may be defined when the UDF is created, allowing you to specify default values or the source from which a UDF value is inherited.
• UDFs can be defined to validate on User-Defined Table (UDT) key fields.

Enhanced Wide Area Network Support for MAS 200:

• MAS 200 is compatible with firewalls that use Network Address Translation (NAT).
• Traffic between the client and host may be optionally SSL encrypted to help ensure data security.
• Client/server connection is enhanced to be more fault tolerant, resulting in fewer dropped connections.

New Version of Business Alerts:

• You can send HTML-formatted e-mail.
• Streamlined setup procedure simplifies configuration.
• The user interface has been updated to be more intuitive.
• All customers with a current maintenance plan will receive a Business Alerts Select Edition at no additional charge. This limited version of Business Alerts includes the following five alerts that demonstrate the product's power:
• Accounts Payable – Invoice discount due
• Accounts Receivable – Past due receivables over $1000.00
• General Ledger – Account balance exceeds budget amount
• Accounts Receivable – New customer welcome
• Sales Order – Open orders over $2500.00

• In Job Cost Options you can select a criterion for determining if a cost code is active or inactive. You can also choose to require a password to enter inactive cost codes.

You are prompted if you enter a cost code that is inactive for a selected job in the following windows: Invoice Data Entry (Accounts Payable), Manual Check Entry (Accounts Payable), Transaction Entry (Inventory Management), Job Posting Entry (Job Cost), Purchase Order Entry (Purchase Order), Receipt of Goods Entry (Purchase Order), Receipt of Invoice Entry (Purchase Order), Return of Goods Entry (Purchase Order), Material Requisition Entry (Purchase Order), TimeCard Entry and Edit (TimeCard), and TimeClock Punch In/Punch Out (TimeCard).

Worker's Compensation Code Default by Cost Code:

• An unlimited number of cost codes can be specified for each workers' compensation code.

When a cost code and state are entered in Payroll Data Entry, the program verifies if the cost code is assigned to a workers' compensation code for the state. If so, that workers' compensation code overrides any existing entry at the Payroll Data Entry W/C Code field.

Improved Reports and Registers
Accounts Payable Registers Sorted by Vendor Name:

You can sort the Invoice Register and Payment Selection Register by vendor name instead of by vendor number.

Improved Job Transaction Detail Report:

• You can suppress the printing of jobs with no activity within a specified date range.
• You can select to print either estimate information (revised estimated cost and percent of estimate) or the bill amount as calculated from Cost Code Maintenance.

The report can include labor unit subtotals for each job, and a labor unit total for the entire report.

Job Close-Out Report with Cutoff Date:

• You can select which jobs will be closed out when running the report. Close all completed jobs, no jobs, or only jobs with no transactions after a specified cutoff date.

Improved Billing Selection Register:

• The appearance of the posting comment on the Job Billing Selection Register has been enhanced by providing the employee name as a posting comment to Job Cost.

New formatting options have been added for the posting comment for combined Payroll and TimeCard source transactions.

Expanded Comment Formatting Options
Employee Name as Posting Comment to Job Cost:

New formatting options have been added for the posting comment used when posting Job Cost transactions to the Payroll and TimeCard modules. The comment can now include the employee's last name and first initial, along with other information such as the Payroll period-ending date, the TimeCard Job Cost Selection period-ending date, or the TimeCard week-ending date.

New Formatting Options for Invoice and Manual Check Comments:

• Several new options for formatting the general ledger line distribution posting comments allow more flexibility.
• The four new invoice posting comment formats are: vendor number and detail comment; vendor name, invoice number, and invoice date; vendor name and header comment; and vendor name, invoice number, and detail comment.

You can now use the vendor name and detail comment as the manual check posting comment.

Enhanced General Ledger Posting Options for Payroll and Accounts Payable
Benefit Accrual to General Ledger by Department:

• Vacation, sick, and user-defined benefit accrual amounts can be posted to the general ledger using account numbers you specify for each department.

Benefit amounts accrued to more than one department are combined and posted in summary format to the employee's home department.

Voluntary Deduction Posting by Department:

• You can specify deduction codes and general ledger account numbers for each department.

You can enter an unlimited number of deduction codes for each department.

Wage Expense Posting by Labor Code:

• A wage expense account can be specified for each labor code.

The wage expense account is used when payroll earnings lines that reference the labor code are posted to the general ledger during the Daily Transaction Register Update process. If no wage expense account is specified, the update process uses the earnings expense account defined in Earnings Code Maintenance or, if that account is not defined, the standard payroll expense account defined in Department Maintenance.

Cash Account by Division:

• You can specify a cash account for each division to use instead of a single cash account for all Accounts Payable transactions.

This cash account number is used during the Check Register update and Manual Check Register update processes. If no cash account is specified for the division, the bank code's cash account is used.

Perpetual Job Cost History
New Job Cost History Files:

• You can save closed jobs to history files instead of purging them during period-end processing.

The job information can later be purged from the history files using the new Job Cost History Purge Utility or restored to the active files using the new Job Cost History Restore Utility.

Reviewing and Printing Historical Job Information:

Review and print information on jobs in the history files using the new Job Masterfile History Inquiry, Job Transaction Detail History Report, and Job Masterfile History Listing features.

Improved Vendor and Invoice Payment Options
Additional Payment Selection Criteria:

• Vendors can be selected for payment based on the balance due to them. You can specify a dollar amount and select to pay only vendors with a balance due that is greater than or equal to the amount, or only vendors with a balance due that is less than or equal to the amount.

Vendors can also be selected for payment based on the sort field information assigned to them in Vendor Maintenance.

Vendor Remit-To Address:

• A separate remit-to address can be defined for each vendor.
• Checks can be printed with the remit-to address instead of the main vendor address.

The remit-to address can be viewed during Vendor Inquiry.

Enhanced Department Setup
Unlimited Earnings Codes by Department:

Department Maintenance now allows the entry and posting of an unlimited number of earnings codes for each department.