Important Extended Solutions 941 Update Needed for Q2 2010

The Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 Extended Solutions listed below require an update to be compatible with the Q2 2010 941 form changes. You should be using software showing a release date on or after 07/09/10. Please contact us to request your necessary title update by calling 800-390-3643 and selecting Option 1.

Effected Titles for Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 version 4.3, 4.2:

Title	Description
JC-1095	Bill Rate Specified By Job/Employee/Cost Code
PR-1003	Extended Decimal Precision
PR-1015	Deduction Calculation Based On Earnings Type
PR-1018	Automatic Earnings Code Maintenance By Employee
PR-1019	Location Processing
PR-1023	Deductions With Monthly Maximums and Minimums
PR-1024	User Defined Payroll Cycle
PR-1040	User Defined Earnings And Deduction Types
PR-1044	Career To Date Hours Worked
PR-1051	Employee/Department Allocation
PR-1054	Payroll For Saipan
PR-1055	Deduction Calculation For Pension Plans
PR-1059	Tax Accrual Account Posting By Department
PR-1062	Employee User Defined Fields
PR-1064	Tax And Deduction Liability Check Generation
PR-1067	Additional Deduction Calculation Methods
PR-1072	Enhanced W-2 Form Printing
PR-1074	Enhanced Perpetual Payroll History Report
PR-1090	Multiple Concurrent Local Taxes
PR-1091	Enhanced Benefit Accrual
PR-1094	Exclude Employees From Unemployment Accrual
PR-1098	Union Payroll
PR-1100	Enhanced Workers’ Comp Processing
PR-1102	Accrual Yearly Limit Set by Months Of Employment
PR-1105	Deduction Taxability By Local Code
TC-1005	Temporary Employee Billing
TC-1017	Incentive Pay

Effected Titles for Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 version 4.10 / 4.05/ 4.0 / 3.71

Title	Description
JC-1095	Bill Rate Specified By Job/Employee/Cost Code
PR-1003	Extended Decimal Precision
PR-1018	Automatic Earnings Code Maintenance By Employee
PR-1019	Location Processing
PR-1024	User Defined Payroll Cycle
PR-1044	Career To Date Hours Worked
PR-1051	Employee/Department Allocation
PR-1054	Payroll For Saipan
PR-1059	Tax Accrual Account Posting By Department
PR-1062	Employee User Defined Fields
PR-1067	Additional Deduction Calculation Methods
PR-1072	Enhanced W-2 Form Printing
PR-1074	Enhanced Perpetual Payroll History Report
PR-1090	Multiple Concurrent Local Taxes
PR-1091	Enhanced Benefit Accrual
PR-1094	Exclude Employees From Unemployment Accrual
PR-1098	Union Payroll
PR-1099	Reciprocal Taxation (Windows Only)
PR-1100	Enhanced Workers’ Comp Processing
PR-1102	Accrual Yearly Limit Set by Months Of Employment
TB-1000	Time and Billing Interface With TimeCard & Payroll
TC-1005	Temporary Employee Billing
TC-1017	Incentive Pay

Product Update 3: estimated Q3 2010 release

• Customers with National Accounts (AR 1068)
• Price Level By Customer/Product Line (SO 1005)

Product Update 4: estimated Q4 2010 release

Product Update 5: estimated Q1 2011 release

• Distribution Table For Invoice Entry (AP 1043)
• Additional Check Printing Sort Option (AP 1077)
• Multiple Company Aged Invoice Report (AP 1101)
• Multiple Company Bank Reconciliation (BR 1002)
• Security For Inventory Inquiry (IM 1111)
• ‘Inactive’ Item Designation (IM 1244 )
• Background Color by Company Code (LM 1028)
• Enhanced Faxing for Paperless Office (LM 1033)
• Enhanced Batch Processing (SO 1100)
• Back Orders Allowed By Customer (SO 1269)

Be careful to consider all of the integrated applications, enhancements and customizations your system is running. This is the equivalent of an upgrade: do not take a product update installation lightly.

The July meeting will include a presentation of BizInsight, a potential replacement for FRx or Custom Financials (with additional flexibility and capabilities). Following the presentation and Q&A session, we will continue with the open forum where the floor is yours to share your stories or ask questions: your fellow users and service pros will be ready to help.

Join us for the 60-minute meeting on July 22 at 10:00 am. Space is limited so reserve your seat now.

Here is a short description of BizInsight directly from the publisher:

Looking for a suitable replacement for FRx? In addition to replacing FRx, are you also looking to enhance your financial reporting and analysis capabilities? BizNet Software has the answer. BizNet’s BizInsight™ is an Excel-based financial reporting and analytics solution that delivers simple, yet powerful, reporting and analysis capabilities to business users. Designed with the assistance of FRx professionals, BizInsight makes it easy to gain immediate control of the entire reporting and analysis process and allows users to produce reports accurately, efficiently and more easily than ever before.

Updated 941 Forms are now available through the 2010 Q2 Payroll Update. We encourage all Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 Payroll customers to download and install this update, which captures and processes the employee information required for compliance with the new HIRE Act. The new 941 form is required for Q2 filings for all Payroll customers even if the HIRE Act does not apply to you. New Tax Table Updates for 2010 Q3 are also available. To download the 941 Forms and Tax Table updates:

1.  Login to Sage Software Online by following this link: .

2.  For 2010 Q2 Payroll Updates, follow this link.

3.  For Tax Table Updates, follow this link.

Like all updates to a live system, every precaution should be taken including verifying a reliable back up (and working with a MAS 90 and 200 professional).

The HIRE Act encourages companies to hire unemployed workers by exempting certain wages from the employer’s portion of Social Security taxes (payroll tax exemption), and by providing employers with a business tax credit if new hires are retained for at least 52 consecutive weeks. For an employer to receive these tax benefits, the unemployed worker must be a “qualified individual”. A qualified individual is anyone who:

1. Begins work for a qualified employer after Feb. 3, 2010 and before Jan. 1, 2011
2. Certifies by signed affidavit (under penalties of perjury) that he has not been employed for more than 40 hours during the 60-day period ending on the date the employment begins
3. Is not employed to replace another employee of the employer unless that former employee separated from employment voluntarily, or for cause
4. Is not related to the employer (under rules similar to those for related individuals in IRC §51(i) ) [ IRC §3111(d)(1) ].

The IRS has drafted Form W-11, Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act Employee Affidavit, to help employers meet the second requirement under “qualified individual”. The form instructions state that the employee must complete and sign the affidavit, or a similar statement, under penalties of perjury, for an employer to receive the tax benefits under the HIRE Act. The Form W-11 requires qualified individuals to provide their name, Social Security Number (SSN), first date of employment, and name of the employer.

Additional information can be found on the IRS website.

On the support pages, Sage has posted the file for versions 4.30, 4.40.0, and 4.40.0.1. The file for versions 3.71-4.20 will be posted next.

What are the features of the newest releases that have the greatest affect on you as a user? If you were able to attend the meeting, please let us know what you thought of the meeting.

This is the reason so many users say that reporting (specifically custom reporting) is so important to their organization. The data has been collected, indexed, and stored, but if it cannot be organized into logical and comprehensible outputs, the software application is not serving its primary function of organizing financial data.

There are a number of tools to organize the data in Sage MAS 90 and 200 including Crystal Reports. After including the classroom course Introduction to Crystal Reports on our class schedule for several years, in 2009 we added Data File Structures and Crystal Reports: Beyond the Basics (a total of five full days of classroom education). These five days alone won’t be sufficient to qualify any user as a Crystal Reports expert; practical, in field application of the knowledge is required to master Crystal Reports for MAS 90 and 200, but these courses are a good start.

Introduction to Crystal Reports
(soft prerequisite: Data File Structures)
December 7-8

Data File Structures
August 9
October 25
December 6

Crystal Reports: Beyond The Basics
(hard prerequisites: Data File Structures, Introduction to Crystal Reports)
August 10-11
October 26-27

If you are interested in these or any other courses but your schedule does not permit you to attend, leave a comment below and we will see if arrangements can be made to accommodate your calendar.

Beyond the PA-DSS requirment (the software portion of compliance) which was setup by the Payment Card Industry, there is also the PCI-DSS (Data Security Standard),  technological and physical controls of card holder data and the processes used to manage those controls. These physical controls include addressing details like where records are stored, who has access to these areas, how the records are retained, and when they are destroyed. There are varying levels of controls for the varying types of merchants, but if you maintaining card holder data in MAS 90 or MAS 200, you are considered Level 4.

To meet the standards, you must complete a Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ). To give you an idea of how seriously these standards are taken, the Level 4 SAQ includes 222 questions. The good news is that you don’t have to handle this on your own. Sage has partnered with a Qualified Assessor (QA) in Trustwave. For $85 annually, Trustwave provides an SAQ assistance tool, security awareness training for your staff, and will complete monthly security scans (better than the quarterly scans required by PCI-DSS).

Be certain, there is a great deal of work to do and detail to monitor, but consider the risk if you customer data is compromised:

• Damage to your brand
• Costs of investigation
• Cost of remediation
• Fines and fees
• Ongoing compliance audits
• Victim notification costs
• Financial loss
• Data loss
• Charge backs
• Operational disruptions

By working with a QA like Trustwave, you will ease the burden of becoming compliant and reduce your risk of exposure. If you have done everything you can to maintain your compliance, your business should receive some sympathy from the card brand if data is compromised.

I have mentioned it before and will mention it again. Sage has created a PCI Compliance website. The information is thorough and updated often.