Wow.  $40K to upgrade?   How many users do you have?

If you don't have any of these situations, my general opinion is don't consider advanced.   Others may have different reasons to justify it, but these are mine.

1.  You have 20+ users  (faster).

2.  You need to access from remote locations over lower speed connections such as over the internet, etc.(faster)..

3.  Your network connection may not be as stable as you like (less likely to corrupt a file if your connection temporarily drops out - will be more stable).

4.  Installation of product updates are easier in 2013 (5.0) and above are easier in advanced because the workstation updates for the product updates are installed automatically the next time a user logs in (easier maintenance).

Other than this the feature sets are essentially the same.

Anyone have anything else to add to this?

The upgrade fee is ~$35K along with an additional 5 users.  Plus $5k/year to our yearly maintenance bringing that to nearly $10k.  So for this upgrade, $40k.

1. We have 21 users (the free one that came with 4.5+)  Included in the upgrade is 5 users to bring us to 26.  I wouldn't be surprised if we need another 5 within a year or two.

2. We do have 2 remote users, but they just have remote desktop sessions they can use, though native via VPN would be far preferable.

3. We've only had a problem with this once, early in our "Mas90" days and a lightning storm took out our system while someone was doing daily processing.  But to have a more stable connection is definitely a plus in my opinion. We have since put everyone that processes any daily activities on UPS.

EDIT:  

I just dug up the quote to verify my numbers It's more like $37k all said and done.

The upgrade fee is ~$35K along with an additional 5 users.  Plus $5k/year to our yearly maintenance bringing that to nearly $10k.  So for this upgrade, $40k.

1. We have 21 users (the free one that came with 4.5+)  Included in the upgrade is 5 users to bring us to 26.  I wouldn't be surprised if we need another 5 within a year or two.

2. We do have 2 remote users, but they just have remote desktop sessions they can use, though native via VPN would be far preferable.

3. We've only had a problem with this once, early in our "Mas90" days and a lightning storm took out our system while someone was doing daily processing.  But to have a more stable connection is definitely a plus in my opinion. We have since put everyone that processes any daily activities on UPS.

EDIT:  

I just dug up the quote to verify my numbers It's more like $37k all said and done.

Is that for just a change between standard and advanced?   No version upgrade?  No new hardware?

Pricing aside,  you are definitely moving into advanced territory.

Correct.  License $17500 + 5 Users $7700 + Prorated Maintenance $3600 + our next maintenance cycle $9500.

Then some upgrade labor from our reseller.

One thing I haven't been able to figure out is that Prorated Maintenance seems to be going up as we get closer to our maintenance cycle in May.  Almost as if they are prorating backwards for the year instead of forward to our next cycle.  If this is the case, I could wait a month and save nearly $4k.

I think we should have started with what was 200 at the time, but just didn't know any better.  We started at 10 users and quickly went to 15.  Sage didn't really want to sell me the next 5 up to 20 users because I wasn't on Advanced.  Now just for the sake of performance, I think we need to move up.

I think I figured it out once as being about 50 cents per user per working hour for the first year.  Will we gain that 50 cents/user/hour back in improved speed and efficiency? Maybe.  Will the improved speed and efficiency account for the yearly salary of roughly one employee?  Maybe.  It is just difficult to request budget based on speed alone.