The link you pasted is from a USA site and the picture of the box in that link says Peachtree and shows the USA flag. USA versions of Sage 50 are not at all the same as Cdn Versions of Sage 50. You would not be able to customize Crystal Reports unless you bought it separately or you have the Simply Accounting 2008? Canadian version that it came with at that time.

To run payroll you have to have pay extra for Business Gold and renew every year to continue with payroll updates along with other patches/fixes, etc - but these 'others' would likely only be twice per year when the payroll patches comes out. Try this site below for Canadian products -

na.sage.com/.../sage-50-accounting

Thanks for your reply smithco,

I did notice that the review was of a US product, but I didn't imagine that Sage would sell a product under the same name with less features. Does anybody know if Sage has plans to include these features in the Cdn version in the near future?

Regarding the updates. I have never had a subscription to payroll and wasn't looking to get one necessarily, I was just wanting to confirm that I can get the patches/fixes etc.. without the Business Silver or Gold.

CMB said:

...but I didn't imagine that Sage would sell a product under the same name with less features.

They actually sell the product under a similar name in at least three different countries and all were originally different products and not interchangable.

Smithco is a little off with the year.  Crystal Reports 8.5 designer was distributed with Simply 2004 and 2005 all versions, and 2006 Enterprise and Accountant's Edition.  It is not distributed anymore.  In order to use any features currently in the program you must still use the 8.5 version which is currently over 10 years old.  Newer versions of Crystal will allow you to do reporting on the program but you will not be able to print directly from the Simply/Sage 50 program.

Vendor-specific inventory is available in Quantum only.  It is not available in Premium.  You might want to look at the cost before you decide to upgrade to see if the cost is worth the features.

CMB said:

Regarding the updates. I have never had a subscription to payroll and wasn't looking to get one necessarily, I was just wanting to confirm that I can get the patches/fixes etc.. without the Business Silver or Gold.

Last year Sage decided to not allow users buying at a Retail level to gain access to any product updates unless they are on a business care plan.  The logic is that they have said they are releasing new features with the product updates.  They are not just payroll updates and bug fixes anymore.  However, last fall they did allow all users to gain access up to release 2014.2 (January 2014) so far as long as you call and complain about the problems you were having.  I have not been told if you have to pay for that call or not.  Not all users experienced problems so not all users required the updates.

Thanks Richard, that helps clarify it.

If we stick with the premium version,, do you know if it would be possible to enter the Vendor part number into one of the additional info fields on the inventory record and have that print our on PO's instead of (or as well as) our own part number?

I'm guessing if this is even possible it would require a custom Crystal form.

You can use that technique several times and it can be done with your current version without upgrading.  The limitation is only if you have multiple vendors that supply the same part.

When that happens, then I would suggest you use the pop up option of the Inventory Additional Info fields so you know which part number belongs to which vendor, then put it in the description column manually.

If you wanted to always put the Inventory Additional Info field(s) on the PO, you would have to use Crystal 8.5 or have someone do it for you.  The internal Forms Designer does not support those fields.