MAS 90/ MAS 200

Managing Growth

Best Revenues Rise

Sage Software reported an eight percent increase in revenue with a 30 percent increase in operating earnings for the first half ended March 31st. Revenue increased to about 216 million dollars with operating income at over 48 million dollars. Best reports that Act and SalesLogix revenue grew by 21 percent compared to the previous year. Results for other product lines were not reported.

Best's parent company, Sage Group, had revenue of $448 million for the half, up four percent from a year ago, while its operating income rose thirteen percent, to over $122 million.

For more information, contact Stephanie Smith at 619-683-9900 or StephanieS@dsdinc.com. 

* Some restrictions may apply, please contact Stephanie Smith for promotion details and expiration dates.

Upcoming MAS 90 and MAS 200 Classes

You must sign-up at least two weeks before the class to reserve your spot!

All classes are held from 9am - 5pm, and cost $425 per person unless stated otherwise. Lunch is provided. They are held at the DSD Building in beautiful Mission Valley in San Diego.

To register by fax, download and print: http://www.dsdinc.com/forms/registration.pdf 

To register, call Sandy McCauley at 619-683-9900 or e-mail SandyM@dsdinc.com 

Closing Periods
Closing is Important!

by Ken Phillips

Period-end and Year-end processing is an important step in keeping your accounting data up to date and accurate. Most of the MAS 90 subsidiary ledgers maintain Period-to-Date, Year-to-Date and Prior-Year data in “bucket” data fields. The buckets are maintained at Period-end processing, or cleared and reset at Year-end processing. Additional housekeeping chores are also performed at Period-end and Year-end processing, such as removing completed Purchase Orders, and old invoice transaction history (based on flags set in the subsidiary ledger’s Setup Options).

• MAS 90 General Ledger recognizes only two fiscal years as being “open” at a time, the current fiscal year and next fiscal year. MAS 90 allows you to post to any future fiscal year, but you will only be able to print financial statements for the current and next fiscal years. For example, if your current fiscal year is 2001, you can print 2002 financials, but you cannot print 2003 financials until you close fiscal year 2001.
• MAS 90 subsidiary ledgers (like A/P and A/R) recognize only two periods as being open – Current Period and Next Period. For example, if the current period is February, you can post March transactions, but February must be close prior to posting April dated transactions.

No matter when the end of a company’s fiscal year is, all companies must properly perform the period-end and year-end procedures.

Closing Order

The order in which MAS 90 modules are closed is important.

1. Bill of Materials
2. Work Order
3. Bar Code
4. Purchase Order
5. Sales Order
6. Inventory
7. TimeCard
8. Magnetic Media
9. Payroll
10. Accounts Receivable
11. Account Payable
12. Job Cost
13. General Ledger

If your company uses modules that do not appear on the above list, call DSD Support for help with your specific situation.

DSD Recommended Backup Strategy
How to Sleep at Night

by Ken Phillips and Andrew Ault

Tape backups of a company’s application data are critical in case of a massive system failure, or in case individual files need to be restored.

An adequate backup system must include the following elements:

• Enough tapes for complete backups to occur on a predefined rotation
• Regular testing of the system and media to ensure that restoration is possible
• A person that is responsible to execute the backup plan on an on-going basis
• The backup usually needs to occur when processing is not taking place (off hours)
• A logical tape rotation schedule must be established and followed
• Tapes need to be rotated to a secure location off site in case of disaster or theft
• A calendar/log must be maintained to schedule tapes and record results

Information Specific to a MAS 90 or MAS 200 Backup

The following is necessary or helpful when backing up a MAS 90 or MAS 200 system:  

• All MAS 90 data files should be backed up at the same time. DSD does not recommend incremental backups because if a massive computer failure were to occur, multiple incremental backup tapes would probably need to be restored and it would be logistically difficult to ensure that all data files were restored from the relevant series of backup media.
• For ease, DSD recommends the entire "\Mas90" folder be backed up. If this is not possible, then at a minimum you need to backup your MAS 90 company data files, the "\SOA" folder (system files) and "\Home" folder (more system files). All folders below "\SOA" and "\HOME" needed to be backed-up as well.
• MAS 90 uses a consistent folder naming convention enabling you to identify program and data folders.
• Program folders always use the two-character application code. For example, the "\GL" folder contains the General Ledger program files. Program folders tend to be 5MB or less.
• The company data folder format is five characters long including the two-character application code, and three-character company code. For example \SOABC is the ABC Demo Data Sales Order data files.
• If the "\Mas90" folder is too large, check to see if you have multiple test company or demo company data files which could be deleted. If you no longer need the test company or demo company, you can delete them in Library Master/Utilities/Company Maintenance. When you delete a company the program will list the existing applications, and allow you to select which application files to delete. This can recover a lot disk space. Additionally, the MAS 90 program folders don’t always need to be backed up, since they can be reinstalled from the MAS 90 installation CD. (Don't forget any program patches or enhancements would then also need to be reinstalled).
• Another technique for reducing the number of MAS 90 files is to periodically delete all the "*.OLD" files. When the MAS 90 rebuild utilities are run, you can save the original file. The original file is saved with the ".OLD" extension (from the standard ".SOA" file extension). MAS 90 does not provide a tool to purge these "*.OLD" files automatically, so deleting files will need to be done manually through Windows Explorer, or Find Files.

Example Ten Tape Backup Plan

A ten backup tape rotation is very common. The following backup plan is presented to give you a recommended schedule and method for daily backups, which will minimize potential data loss and re-entry time.

This backup scheme requires ten separate sets of backup media. A "set" of backup media means the number of tapes (or other media like disks) needed for a complete backup. This may be one tape (for other media) or more than one tape. Each set of backup diskettes or tapes should be labeled as follows:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Month 1
• Month 2
• Month 3

When creating the calendar for a given time period, such as the next six months or year of tape rotation, use a standard calendar (whether paper or electronic) and enter the schedule in advance with the planned tape for each day. Then, each day, enter the results of the most recent backup, including:

• Who performed the backup
• When the backup was performed
• Comments about the backup set

The backup schedule provides a daily backup for Monday through Thursday, followed by a weekly backup on Friday. The daily media is then recycled again until the next Friday, when the media for Week 2 is used. The cycle continues until all of the weekly media have been used. The next monthly media set is used in place of the weekly set, and the cycle repeats.

• Day1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 tapes correspond to Monday through Thursday and are used every week.
• Week 1, Week 2 and Week 3 are used the first three Fridays in a month cycle.
• Month 1, Month 2 and Month 3 are used instead of a "Week X" tape on the fourth Friday of a month cycle.

Off-Site Copy

It is essential to keep an off-site copy in case of disaster or theft. In this example, the off-site copy could be the Monthly or Weekly media (tapes made on Fridays). Additional backups performed at year-end and before period-end processing may also be very helpful in the event that any unforeseen processing problems occur which may affect your data.

Tape Rotation Over the First Four Weeks

Each tape made on a Friday under this plan should be rotated off site when it is done recording. As a practical matter this means that on Monday the backup person should take Friday's backup to the off-site storage location and bring back the previous off-site tape (from the previous Friday).

Week One 

Week Two 

Week Three 

Week Four 

*Note that what differs from week to week is the tape selected for Friday.

Make Sure that the System is Working

Ensure backups are periodically tested to ensure the backup program and hardware is working properly. DSD has found several instances where the backups appeared to be occurring, but when they were needed, the backups had not occurred or completed properly! Also, someone in your organization should know how to backup and restore your own data, or individual files in case of an emergency.

The type of media (usually a tape type) you select for your backups should take into consideration how long it takes to back up your data and your selected frequency of backups.

Call David Yaeger at 619-683-9900 (DavidY@dsdinc.com) in our DSD IT Department for help implementing your backup system, or to determine the best backup medium for you!

MAS 500

MAS 500 Promotions

*Some restrictions may apply, please contact your account manager for promotion details and expiration dates.

For more information, contact April Holman at 619-683-9900 or AprilH@dsdinc.com.  

MAS 500 Web Events

All you need is an Internet connection and a telephone to learn about the latest solutions, technologies and services available from Best. Simply select the event you want to attend and register. Feel free to call us here with any questions or for more detailed information.

For more information, contact April Holman at 619-683-9900 or AprilH@dsdinc.com. 

MAS 500 Overview

5/29/2003 8:30 AM PST

MAS 500 is a highly reliable, robust and integrated series of applications covering all areas of enterprise e-business, including accounting, budgeting, distribution, human resources, payroll, enterprise reporting and electronic commerce. Natively created on Microsoft compatible tools, technology and architecture, MAS 500 is flexible, scalable and full-featured to deliver a total e-business management solution.

MAS 500 Distribution

5/22/2003 8:30 AM PST 
6/19/2003 8:30 AM PST

In today’s distribution environment, many factors can jeopardize your profitability. Learn how to maximize your inventory performance by stocking the right quantities of the rights items, at the right time, and at the right price. See why a distribution industry expert calls the MAS 500 distribution solution “the most powerful set of software tools available for helping a distributor maximize both productivity and profitability.” 

MAS 500 Manufacturing

5/22/2003 10:00 AM PST

This presentation provides an overview of MAS 500’s advanced manufacturing system. The presentation will cover system-wide features such as user interface, navigation, and system help as well as basic and advanced manufacturing features. This presentation is highly recommended for prospective customers, newly certified manufacturing software resellers, consultants, and others who want a general understanding of the manufacturing system.

MAS 500 Project Accounting

5/29/2003 10:00 AM PST 

MAS 500 Project Accounting, Sage Software's integrated PSA solution, enable managers to monitor costs, track employee time and expenses, analyze and forecast project data and import projects from Microsoft Project.

MAS 500 e-Business

5/15/2003 10:00 AM PST 

Leverage the Internet to reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, eliminate barriers to productivity, and allow remote users to access critical business information. Easily integrate your existing e-business web site with our distribution solution, or utilize our out-of-the-box web storefront. The MAS 500 e-Business solution leverages the Internet to reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, eliminate barriers to productivity, and allow remote users to access critical business information.

MAS 500 Customization

5/15/2003 8:30 AM PST 

The MAS 500 powerful Customizer adds productivity and greater control to your processes through customized information. You don’t need extensive programming knowledge to put MAS 500 Customizer to work for you, by modifying screens, forms and application interfaces to fit your business needs. The powerful Customizer adds productivity and greater control to your processes through customized information.

Enhancements

Product of the Month

Product of the month: Multi-Company Enhancements APMU and GLMU

15% off of new sales!

For more information, contact Lisa Buchner at 619-683-9900 or LisaB@dsdinc.com. 

CRM

Are you still using TeleMagic?

ACT 6.03 released!

ACT has release version 6.03 for users of version 6. Besides fixing numerous faults, there is support for Eudora E-mail program, and new features like the the ability to schedule a calendar entry automatically from sending an e-mail.

Think Your Company is too Small for SalesLogix? Think Again!

Fighting Duplicates in ACT!

TeleMagic Windows Tip
Error 39 Numeric Overflow (Data was Lost)

SalesLogix Tip