Hello Angella Excel Accounting,

Thanks for reaching out! The Accountants Edition allows you to work with company data files formatted for any edition of the program (First Step, Pro, Premium or Quantum), however, the version and update must be the same, 2018.3 would be the latest. Sounds like your client's file might be more up to date than yours?
- If the client's file is older than 2018, your program will try to upgrade it, at which point the client would need to upgrade their software to the latest version.

Download Sage 50 2018 Product Update 3

Visit the Sage Knowledgebase article 88076 (FR 260-1008014) to get the direct download for the update

IMPORTANT NOTE:

The recently elected Ontario government has decided to roll back the tax changes planned for July 1st in Ontario. Our Tax Table update was already created and it was too late for us to go back. Therefore, we are going ahead with the July 1st update for everyone and still recommend that all clients install the 2018.3 update. Our research and development team has provided the following:

Sage 50 CA 2018.3 Hotfix

First, Sage told me it could read - without updating - anything back to 2013.  However, that is not the case.  My client has pro 2018.3.  I have accounting 2018.3  Yet, somehow, this is not working.

I have been pushing clients to sage.  I will not be if they cannot get their together,.

The advantage of the Sage Accountants' software for working with client data is that it does not 'convert' Editions.  You can move client data back and forth only if you and the client stay current on the latest Version.

To get our terms straight:

Update = convert the data to a newer 'Version'  (2014.1 ro 2014.3 or 2018.1 or 2018.2 to 2018.3)

All software for Simply Accounting and Sage 50 has always had to update the data to the installed Version before opening it.  There has never (to my knowledge) been any software available (including the Accountants' Edition) that could open Simply / Sage data from an older Version without updating it.

This includes client data where the client has not updated to the newest version for the year - I might have kept 2014.3 installed, but I can't work with 2014.1 client data and return it to the client as 2014.1 data.

Upgrade = convert the data to a higher / more expensive 'Edition'  (Pro, Premium, etc).

Single-company license software of Sage 50 can only open and save data from a single Edition.  They are not able to open any file from a 'higher' Edition, and can only open files from a 'lower' edition once they have been converted.

If you heard that differently, there may have been a miscommunication or a misunderstanding. 

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For any desktop, database-backed software (like Sage 50) where the data *structure* has to change year-to-year, if you need to swap data back and forth between separate desktop systems you have to be on the same Version.  

Microsoft Office has recently gotten off the Version Update crazy train by using a file *format* that doesn't change.  Many software companies are ditching the desktop - going to SAAS online systems where *everyone* is on one version.

Another way to have everything 'the same' is to use hosting (you and the client connect to a single computer), or to use virtualization (basically you and the client swap the whole computer back and forth)