What's new in Sage 300 ERP 2014

Sage 300 ERP 2014 is the new version that will be shipping in a couple of months. Many of its new features will follow Sage’s stated goal to deliver functionality suggested by and voted on by its customers. This customer-driven approach to product design was also present in Sage 300 ERP 2012 and in Product Update 1. Here’s a quick recap of what’s new in Sage 300 ERP 2014 and some of the new features added based on customer-requested functionality:

• Colour coded companies – Users will be able to distinguish between open companies by assigning a different colour code
• Table Line Shading – Table rows in grid are displayed in alternating shades to make reading information easier
• Order Entry Improvements – “Entered By” and “On Hold Reason” fields added to Order Entry to provide more accountability
• Sage Advisor Update – Manage and view available updates
• Capability to reverse either an entire G/L batch or just a single journal entry
• Fiscal year range criteria added to G/L Transaction Listing
• Access to inventory information from within Sage CRM
• Reporting distribution trees for Sage Intelligence

In the upcoming Sage 300 ERP 2014 release, there are a number of features and improvements added that people have been asking for.  The key highlights of the 2014 release include:

• User Interface Modernization and Refresh – Improvements in the main Desktop along with throughout many application screens
• Enhanced Desktop and Data Entry screens
• Required Fields Indicator
• User License Management Utility – View Lanpaks users without logging in and see which users are accessing/using
• Visual Process Flow links – Allow users to add external links to Visual Process Flows such as Macros or third party products
• Report filters
• Mobile & Cloud Applications: Sales, Service, Inventory, Billing & Payments

The picture below previews the new Sage 300 ERP 2014 Desktop with its new ribbon and icons.

Combined with the changes to the Desktop, the following changes give the product a fresher look.
New O/E Order Entry Screen:

Asterisks have been added to all the required fields. This has been a long time requested feature. These just give you a visual sign of which fields to enter, so you can avoid annoying error messages when you save or post a document.
Better methods to manage Lanpaks
First by letting you see what is going on without using a Lanpak and then secondly by giving you more useful information on what people are currently doing.

Further there is an option to see all the screens that they are running and the time when they started the screen.

Sage has committed to providing new functionality rather than just fixes and patches with each product update of Sage 300 ERP.  To accomplish this, Sage has encouraged customers to provide ideas and feedback from in-product surveys and on its idea website. Feel free to provide feedback of your own if you have an idea for improving the product!
More exciting new features to look forward to in Sage 300 ERP 2014. Stay tuned!