If you’re reading our newsletters or posts from our website, you’re probably already familiar with what ERP does. But as a relative newcomer to the business software landscape, some are still figuring out what CRM can do for your business and how it’s different than the ERP system you already have. Let’s explore.

What is CRM?

First things first … CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and it’s important to understand that CRM is both a tool and a philosophy for managing relationships with your current and prospective customers.

At its core, CRM software ties all of your customer-facing activities together. So, whereas ERP ties together “back office” functions such as accounting, purchasing, inventory, and operations, a CRM system ties together “front office” functions such as:

• Sales, Meetings & Calendars
• Company and Customer Contacts
• Customer Service & Support

In short, CRM connects

Sage recently hosted a presentation that provides us with a glimpse of what’s ahead for Sage 100 in the near and mid-term. Here’s a quick peek at what to expect for the rest of 2020 and beyond.

New in the Sage 100 Ecosystem

A couple of new add-on solutions are expected in the Sage 100 ecosystem including:

Sage Enterprise Intelligence - a powerful, web-based business intelligence (BI) reporting tool that converts massive amounts of data from across your entire Sage 100 system (not just your financial modules) into meaningful insight and powerful real-time reports. Refer to the full-length article in this newsletter for a more detailed look at Sage Enterprise Intelligence (expected in July 2020).

Credit Hound - an accounts receivable collections management suite that helps reduce late payments and collect overdue invoices. Robust features include automated payment reminders, overdue customer reports, dispute management and more (expected in Summer 2020).

New Features and Product Updates

Here are some of the new or enhanced features that are expected for release later this year.

Sage 100 Payroll – a collection of updates and worksheets related to COVID-19 and tracking for Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act.

Acumatica released the 2020 R2 Beta on August 11^th 2020. This new release contains an astounding number of improvements and new features. Acumatica typically has two releases R1 and R2 throughout the year. Each of these releases are not only fixing any bugs that are found but releases multiple enhancements to the core product. With Acumatica you work smarter, not harder. Each of these releases they give you more power at your fingertips and streamline the process to find information you need, when you need it.

Usability and Reporting

• Generic inquiry table join suggestions and previews
• Recently viewed records list
• Dashboard auto-refresh

Technology

• Visual state automation engine
• Workflow engine enhancements and build out
• API enhancements and automated inquiry mapping
• Unified notifications using business events
• Advanced UDF visibility and enablement
• OData v4 – LINQ-based access to data objects
• In cell error reporting for data imports
• Mobile dialog box support – phase 1

Financials

• Automated AP document creation (*)
• Cross company sales

Custom Office is a popular module in Sage 100. So let’s take a moment to review some of the enhancements applied to Custom Office with the release of Sage 100 2020.

Improved Grid Customization

This feature introduces a new user-interface in Custom Office similar to how grids appear in other Sage 100 tasks. Right-clicking within the grid now opens a Customize Grid Definition window that enables you to:

• Drag-and-drop columns to rearrange their order as well as move columns from one grid to another.
• Access Column Properties in order to modify column name, size, width, secondary grid description, and whether it’s locked.
• Easily create additional columns.
• Access a Bulk Hide window to set the ’Hidden’ option for multiple columns in a grid.