Disclaimer: At the time of announcement, this update release was intended for Sage 300 users in the North American region. They will presumably be available for end users in Asia like yourself at a later date.
After the release of Sage 300 2023 Product Update 3 in April 2023, Sage 300 received the 2024.0 and the 2024 Product Update 1 in August 2023. This latest update is expected to be made available for end users in Asia like yourself at a later date.
Sage 300 2024.0 brings numerous improvements to the Project and Job Costing (PJC) web screen and the purchase order (PO) web screen in Sage 300cloud. As for 2024 Product Update 1, it brings additional enhancements to Accounts Payable (AP) and the PJC web screen.
Let’s take a look at the new features and enhancements that came with the 2024 Product Update 1 and 2024.0 versions of Sage 300.
The following new features and improvements are applicable to both Sage 300cloud web screens, as well as classic screens in Sage 300.
Five new fields have been added to the Accounts Payable (AP) screen for 1099 purposes. They are;
These fields will also appear in the Inquiry Reporting screen. Additionally, Sage 300 will now support Form 1099-Div in the AP 1099 Filing screen.
End users will now be able to access the Sage Support Resource from any menu in Sage 300.
The 2024 Product Update 1 introduces the new Project and Job Costing (PJC) Budget Maintenance web screen. With the PJC Budget Maintenance screen, you can forecast revenues and costs over several fiscal periods. This allows you to budget your contracts more effectively than before.
The 2024 version of Sage 300 brings the following improvements to both Sage 300cloud web screens, as well as the classic screens in the desktop Sage 300 version.
With version 2024.0, you can now install Sage 300cloud web screens; modernised versions of Sage 300 screens that can be used in a web browser.
You won’t need to choose between displaying your business data through the desktop application or the web browser, as Sage 300cloud web screens run in parallel with Sage 300 desktop screens. That means that every end user in your business can use the interface that suits their needs best, while working seamlessly with a single source of truth.
Sage 300 Version 2024.0 comes with the following new web screens for the Project and Job Costing function;
You can now enter and work with job-related documents on all Purchase Order web screens. These include the following:
Both the Sage 300 2024 update, as well as the 2024 Product Update 1, brings improvements to the Project and Job Costing web screen in Sage 300cloud.
They also brought new enhancements to other types of web screens, such as Accounts Payable and Purchase Orders.
If you’d like to know more about Sage 300, click on the image below to download the fact sheet for the ERP software.
For both the Desktop and Web Screen versions, Sage 300 now contains a Vault database, in which ISM files that contain sensitive user credentials will now be stored. This means that these credentials are no longer stored in the file system itself, making it more secure from data breaches.
It also leverages the authentication features offered by MS SQL servers to directly authenticate user credentials in Sage 300.
Because of this, this update also eliminates redundant security configurations and features in Sage 300 itself which are now administered by the MS SQL server, as well as local machine policies such as password expiration, number of retries, and system lockout.
Before you can move your ISM files, you’d first need to create an MS SQL server login. This will grant you the role of ‘dbcreator’ and ‘securityadmin’. You’d then need to create two MS SQL databases while you’re logged in as the new Sage 300 Vault owner.
One should be your Vault database, where you’d store your authorization credentials. The other one will serve as the Store database, where additional information for the support of the Vault database will be stored.
After your instance of Sage 300 has received the 2023 Product Update 3, running the Sage 300 database setup screen from the server will display the Configure Databases screen. Here, you can enter the new database information.
You will then be brough to the Configure Portal screen, which will require you to fill in the login information.
The Advanced Security settings in Sage 300 will now only contain the minimum password length field. Most of the other options and features will be removed; these will now be found in Local Security Policy instead.
The 2023 Product Update 3 for Sage 300 is primarily focused on enhancing the security of your end users, by leveraging on the security authentication features in MS SQL servers. Other changes that come with this update are also made with this in mind.
With 2023 Product Update 1, Sage will include the newUser Activity Report for Sage 300 customers.
Only available to the administrator user account, this grants login/logout information permissions in the Administrative Services module. It generates a user activity log which includes:
The report will also display the following columns:
On top of this, the update will also add a new checkbox, “Enable User Activity Logs”, to the existing Database Setup desktop screen when editing the system database. This allows Sage 300 to start or stop recording user activity for companies in this system database.
New improvements for Sage 300cloud web screens include:
With the 2023 version, the security of Sage 300 has been enhanced in the following ways:
In Sage 300 Database Setup, on the Advanced Security Settings screen, there’s now only one option to require complex passwords. The complexity requirements have been increased, and passwords must now include at least one of each of the following:
Sage has made some technical upgrades and enhancements to improve the overall security of Sage 300. If you’re currently using a previous version of the ERP software, you may need to make some corresponding changes to your system setup.
Some of the new improvements for the Sage 300cloud web screens include:
Sage has improved the organisation of Sage 300 items on the Windows Start menu, to help you find what you need more easily.
There are now three menus (Sage 300, Sage 300 Admin Utilities, and Sage 300 Support Utilities), instead of the single menu prior to the 2023 update.
There are also new items added to the Sage 300 Admin Utilities menu, allowing you to use the following features without needing to open Sage 300:
You’ll need to uninstall your previous version of Sage 300, before installing Sage 300 2023.
On the E/W Sage CRM Setup screens, you can now enter up to 60 characters in the Sage CRM Server Name field.
If you’re using Sage CRM integrated with Sage 300, when changing the customer contact name (on the Contact tab of the A/R Customers screen), you can indicate whether and how to update information in Sage CRM.
Both the Sage 300 2023 update, as well as the 2023 Product Update 1, brings improvements to the web screens for Sage 300cloud.
Other new features and improvements have also been brought to the classic desktop screen, as well as other functionalities.
If you’d like to know more about Sage 300, click on the image below to download the fact sheet for the ERP software.