If you have anyone using the new W4, you would have to be using at least version 18.4.  We are still using 16, but don't use the new W4 fields.

Is the year-end release going to be an update that gets applied to version 20?  (Small file to download, quick update applied to server and workstations, no need to run workstation installs.)  Or will the year-end release be a "full" upgrade? 

HI Christine, it will be an Upgrade (full install), not an Update. Version 20.3

Thanks Denise!  Do you know I can find the release notes?

Release notes won't be available until the GA release.  If you have quesitons about what's included you can email me and I can provide you with some information.   Right now in Help, Product documents the release notes for v20.1 include all the changes in both 20.1 and 20.2 versions. For the most part product changes in 20.3 will be dedicated to Year End changes for AP and PR with a few exceptions. Only PR and AP data files will need to be upgrading if coming from 18.4.1 and above

Thanks again - I appreciate the prompt reply. 

I am going to have fire up the the discussion of the ongoing issue of forced and rushed upgrades at the end of the year (from last year: Sage 300 CRE: Reminder: supported version for year-end 2019) that apparently is falling on deaf ears at Sage.  For three years now, a full upgrade has been mandated at the last moment to stay up-to-date on payroll and its associated tax tables and forms.  Big warnings and chaos if we don't upgrade in time.  My team and I have been put behind the eight-ball year after year due to these Sage upgrades; forcing us to work a 24+ hour day or over an entire long weekend during the Holidays to keep our company current and not upsetting business production.  This has also left us very susceptible to making mistakes as we rush around trying to upgrade clients and servers in all of our locations which wastes enormous amounts of valuable resources that would better be spent producing instead of supporting a software vendor.  Sage support is also all but unreachable since we are all in the same boat, inevitably running into roadblocks, and the support offices have banking hours unless we are lucky enough to reach Canadian support (this pulled my bacon out of the fire two years ago when File Doctor went berserk).  As stated above, a full upgrade is going to be required from version 18.4.5 to 20.3 that is not even available yet with less than five weeks until the end of the year.  Sometime in December is the closest estimate I have gotten. Last year it was not even available until two weeks before the first hour of 2020 struck.  We ended up having to piecemeal the process and hold our accounting department at bay until the first week of January.  Unacceptable!

I have a couple of suggestions:

1).  Have the year-end full upgrade available in September or October.  This allows plenty of time to do the hard work on our end.  Make the payroll an update at the server level only.  This could be a small download that requires maybe half an hour to apply and has no effect on the client; which is where most of the arduous work and time is spent.  It could even be integrated into the existing Payroll process (Payroll --> Tools --> Download Taxes).

2).  Allow the payroll tax tables and forms to be compatible with the prior version(s) of the software.  This would fix the problem outright and allow many of us to breathe much easier.  It would also give us a choice as to when we upgrade.  For example, we are on an infrastructure refresh right now that is going to take us a bit longer than anticipated due to COVID and other unforeseen circumstances.  We were hoping to migrate to the new servers and upgrade at the same time while implementing the Replicator 2.0, all in one shot.  Now, that choice has been eliminated since we will be crossing the year end date.  Also, some companies want the latest and greatest versions while others want the stability of software that has matured from its initial release.  This should be left to to the customer, not mandated by the vendor.

Agreed 

We understand and feel your pain as well.  We generally do not have the finalized requirements from the government agencies until well into November and quite often the requirements are not finalized by the government agencies until well into December, and sometimes there are additional changes to tax tables that are effective begining the first of the year that have not been finalized by the governing agency come January 1st. We do our best to get the software upgrades out as soon as we possibly can once the changes have been finalized by the government agencies. Even now there are potential requirements for W2 reporting changes that have not been finalized or included in the W2 form instructions on the IRS website.

Agreed. At the very least they should have more support hours. I am lucky enough to not have to deal with Payroll or 1099 creation. We sub all of this out and it allows me to take time off during the holidays. For all of you frustrated with the current product and looking for something more modern maybe start looking at Sage Intacct. It is completely in the cloud and updates are automatic. I have only seen a small demo but was impressed and will continue to investigate.

Neither of my suggestions is on a set time line.  The first simply asks that the software itself be upgraded earlier than weeks before the end of the year.  The taxes could be updated quickly without requiring the clients to be touched.  The second suggestion actually makes more sense to me, especially when there are no database changes being made like upgrading from 18.4.5 (late 2019/early 2020 version) to 20.x.

OMG!!!!  THANK YOU, PATRICK QUICK FOR YOUR RESPONSE!

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE KEEP RUNNING IN TO AS WELL!  WE HAVE BEEN USING SAGE TIMBERLINE SOFTWARE FOR 19 + YEARS AND HAVE HAD A NUMBER OF REALLY AWFUL & CRITICALLY DISRUPTIVE EXPERIENCES WITH THE FORCED FULL UPDATES AT YEAR END!  I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU, BUT FEAR YOUR SUGGESTIONS WILL FALL ON DEAF EARS.   

The last minute changes are one thing, full system upgrades is quite another. Why must client software be updated on every workstation when the updates are confined solely to payroll related modules? A server side patch and a client side patch for payroll staff would be VERY manageable, whereas updating 150+ endpoints after the server upgrade is a significant undertaking. It's bad enough we got thrown off our Memorial Day upgrades due to late release of 20.2, this additional upgrade (not UPDATE) cycle is extremely aggravating.

I will add my name to the list of disgusted users that are FORCED into an upgrade at year end.  Not only am I having to do year end planning and prepping for the beginning of the year (on shortened weeks because of multiple holidays) but i also have to plan to do a software update....and then hope that nothing goes sideways and makes things worse.  I usually end up doing the upgrades in the evening after everyone goes home and the computers are idle or on a weekend...either way there isn't any support available during those hours if I need it.

This needs to be addressed and changed.  I'm sure Sage doesn't do major updates on any of their internal systems during peak times.

Guy

Thank you all for your input and concerns. We understand that the timing of Year End releases is difficult, and we want to shed light on the 3 major topics in this thread in hopes to clarify why year end is the way it is.

First regarding timing of the release being early to mid-December. Unfortunately, due to the IRS (as well as other government entities) typically releasing changes on a calendar basis, an update of the software is needed near the end of calendar year. Most of the time government entities don’t finalize these changes until very late in the year, sometimes they aren’t even finalized until the end of November or beginning of December. In an effort to minimize the number of updates customers must make, we only release software updates once the changes have been finalized. Early December is simply the earliest the changes can be released.

Second, regarding updates versus upgrades and having to install them on all machines. Due to the configuration of the client-server environment that Sage 300 CRE relies on when the server is updated, the workstations must also be updated so that the versions match between each machine. If the machines aren’t in the same version of Sage 300 CRE, the system wouldn’t know how to handle data it wasn’t programed to recognize, and issues would arise. We try to avoid requiring a full upgrade when at all possible, however, when year-end changes require new fields to be added or changed (i.e. database changes) and/or data related to form generation to be modified, we must perform a full upgrade. Unfortunately, this has become a common need over the last several year ends due to the complexity of the changes that have been passed.

Lastly around taxes and backwards compatibility. Tax files are backwards compatible, for the most part. It is the last part of that previous sentence as to why we recommend being on current version of the software with new tax files. Tax files can be used on earlier versions; however, tax changes sometimes aren’t limited to the tax file itself. To explain a little further; occasionally a tax change isn’t as simple as a tax rate change and it DOES require a software change to accommodate. In this scenario, if the new tax file was used with an older software version, the tax might not calculate correctly. To ensure your taxes always calculate correctly, we recommend being on a current version. In addition to the complexities that scenario generates, testing all the configurations of software version and tax file versions would place an immense load on our Q&A team at a time of year where quick turnaround is critical. Similarly to the previous topic, many times government bodies don’t finalize changes until late December, sometimes they even finalize changes in the month of January even though they are effective January 1^st. Typically, we have very little time to respond to these changes which is why we recommend installing the current version of software to be used with new tax files.

Should you have any further questions or concerns regarding these topic please reach out to me through SageCity. 

Thank you, 

Phil

Phillip Wiering

Product Management

Thank you for the explanation. I guess the spaghetti tax code emitted by Congress has a lot of other costs built in to it. I remember the 9.8 final update file being a nice tidy way to wrap things up. 

I would love to have a reliable scripted install work, the 18.2->18.4 upgrade was about the only one that ever worked properly for us. The simplified syntax in 20.2 left upgraded machines missing all the applications. I realized chained installers is a tough situation, but I hope more resources are devoted to making client installs more resilient and scriptable, instead of 130 instances of next, next, agree, next, next.....my helpdesk lead is going to dread coming to work Monday!

Thank you for the explanation.  Just my $.02, but fix the dependencies or completely separate the server functionality from the client's.  I understand that PSQL is likely the culprit on why this would be difficult, but there has to be a workable solution.

I see that the year end software is now available but My Assistant, My Communicator and Office Connector are not ready.  These are crucial to our upgrade.  When can we expect these to be available please?

Keep in mind, because BTRIEVE doesn't have db engine constraints, all that application logic is resident on the client side. The core modules do their referential integrity on the client, which is why we have charming incidents of duplicate values in key fields if someone's desktop app crashes.

My Assistant needs nothing but a Desktop upgrade to function normally. We run it on a separate server, if you host it on the same server as Sage it's already done. We're still running the 20.1 version, we went to 20.2 before MA was updated. You have to import custom fields and restart the services, that's it.

I just launched Office Connector, the last update on their site is from Feb 2020. It seems to work fine. I'll check with my CFO, he's the only one using the advanced read/write tools from there. We don't use My Communicator, no idea as to that status.