History, Strengths, and Weaknesses of Sage 300 (Sage 300 ERP, ACCPAC)

Sage 300 ERP (ACCPAC) has a long history, beginning as a DOS based product in the 1980s. At that time, the product contained a core of accounting and business management functionality that rivaled competitors.

History of Sage 300

At the time ACCPAC was moved to a Windows platform in the mid-90s, the product was owned by Computer Associates (CA). CA purchased a number of development tools and combined them in an effort to quickly move the product to Windows. This created a hodge-podge of development tools. The product was solid, but by the end of the 1990s, it was substantially behind other competitive products in feature set. ACCPAC took until mid-2005 to shake off the effects of this conversion.

Current versions of the product are constructed with a combination of VB, C, and proprietary tools. As of version 6.0, Sage 300 ERP is beginning a migration to a web toolset based on Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and Sdata (sdata.sage.com). Pundits promote this toolkit as ennabling quick modification while leveraging the current architecture. The first real fruits of this labor can be seen in Sage 300c, released as part of the 2016 release. A 30-day trial version of Sage 300 is available for review.

Strengths of Sage 300

ACCPAC has a good core collection of modules. It is particularly strong in distribution, inventory, and general accounting. The Job Cost (Project and Job Cost) has improved dramatically since it's first release and works well for some industries needing project or job costing. Add ons are generally used for other functionality such as manufacturing, service, and warehousing. 

ACCPAC is very solid, and has good quality control on service packs. Data corruption is rare to non-existant in current versions. The number of databases supported is wide, and Sage is moving toward industry leading technologies with GWT and Sdata. The initial release of this technology is Sage 300c 2016.

Weaknesses of Sage 300

Throughout its history, it has relied on independant software developers to provide functionality that the core product lacked. In previous versions, this also included such core functionality as serial numbers, manufacturing, and warehousing. Recently, Sage has acquired several of these products and integrated them into the core product, strengthening the offering. However, there are areas in which ACCPAC is still catching up from a features standpoint. Careful needs analysis will reveal whether needed functionality is needed.

Disclosure

Data Guidance Group, Inc. is a reseller partner for Sage 300.