x Want to participate? Join the group to interact
New

Sage 200 Manufacturing- withdrawal of support

We have been advised today 4/11/2020 that you are withdrawing Sage 200 Manufacturing as of 1/11/2020 from sale and that it will no longer be supported from next year or later, depending on which version is in place. Instead we can migrate to Sicon Manufacturing  for a fee, albeit less 20% if we do it soon.

We are a manufacturing business and migrated from Sage 50 Accounts & Manufacturing to Sage 200c in 2019 because we were sold the idea that Sage 200c is an all in one package that is future proof, and obviously because it was very similar to Sage 50 (!) and that everything would migrate across seamlessly (!!).

Why do you appear to be abandoning Manufacturing as a supported service?

How reliable will the Sicon add-on be and will it genuinely seamlessly integrate with the core module or will we end up with a re-run of the clunky Sage 50 Manufacturing module that you also abandoned support on?

Why does Sage have to rely on bought in add-ons to make their core software better or indeed useable, in this case for manufacturing businesses?

Should we be looking to move to a non-Sage platform?   

Jon Watkin
  • Hi Jon,

    Our product strategy can be found on our product roadmap pages

    Essentially we are focusing on the core product and working to replace the current desktop app with a new web accessible forms which means access will no longer restricted to PCs.

    Sage 200 Manufacturing will be supported in line with the product version in use, based on our end of support policy

    Our network of ISV solutions provide a wide range of functionality to support our customers and are experts in the vertical spaces they work with.

    Feel free to speak to your partner directly if you want any further information - alternatively happy to connect if you send me a direct message.

  • Hi Martin. I don't doubt that Sicon Manufacturing will be a good product, we have various Sicon products already to augment our Sage platform. We have no choice anyway unless it's to ditch Sage and find something else. It just would be nice to have an answer from Sage directly as to where their software development is going. You buy a core product like Manufacturing 200 expecting it to be supported going forward but instead it seems you have to buy add-ons at additional cost to make the core product useable. To revert to a cliché, you can have the car body when you buy from the main dealer but the wheels and engine are an extra add-on from somewhere else! We didn't go down the bespoke route but by the time we have finished with the add-ons the cost will be the same anyway except that you now introduce compatibility issues if each add-on  supplier does not maintain the updates consistently. GB does still make things in some quantity, much of it by small business like ours- or is Sage not bothered?

  • Hi Jon, Sicon Manufacturing has been around for about 10 years, and is a very stable replacement for Sage Manufacturing. Sage Manufacturing hasn't really been updated since Sage 2013 R2. When you come to do stock valuation reporting Sicon does it much better than Sage. Sage you need to have everything closed for it to value stock properly. Sicon does integrate fully with the rest of Sage, and there are some nice features within it that Sage can't do, or are difficult to do. 3rd Party applications are key to the majority of accounting software products.

*Community Hub is the new name for Sage City