Our company likes Sage 100 Contractor, but by the day other softwares are becoming more popular for the following reasons:
- Fully accessible in the field and the office without third party software.
- Web APIs that allow for easy integration of custom tools.
- Automatic updates and fewer server requirements.
Additionally, other features that are lacking in Sage 100 Contractor could be more easily improved if the software was in the cloud:
- An improved job cost table that allows cost records to be recorded ‘per material’ instead of ‘per cost code’. This would allow for “T&M” billing to be used more efficiently. I have made this request already in the existing software, but the main reason for not implementing it was that “it would require too large of server resources”. Moving to a cloud system could allow the software to be optimized to a standard server with better specs than what has to be allowed for if customers are allowed to choose their own server. This could also improve reports; there could be a “consumption” report that details all of the materials used on a job/phase/work order (or any combination). There could also be “quantity” budgets, where field employees could see budgeted/actual quantities of materials used (so they know they are on track), but the costs aren’t visible (so they don’t run costs up to the budget amount or get other unnecessary financial opinions about the project).
- Better third party support. The web is a universal format and front end web developers are much more abundant than other types of developers. This would make third party support easier because Sage would only have to support the API.
- Only one software would need to be maintained (instead of separate server/client softwares).
by: Ryan B. | over a year ago | Other
Comments
Amen to all of the above! We're currently using third-party integration solutions, mainly because Sage 100 Contractor is waaay behind the status quo insofar as technologies are concerned. Sage is robust and does so many things so well, and it does things that many other software platforms just can't quite get right.
Sage's integration w/ Paya for receiving customer payments was a step in the right direction. But even so, they could have done so much more, such as allowing Paya to email a link to the customer and allow the customer to input their own CC information, which would significantly automate the payment process. This is only one small example, but it demonstrates how far behind things are getting as technologies continue to improve. It's the year 2023, for heaven's sake. And much of what's going on with other cloud-based solutions has been functioning very well for over a decade. Indeed, a frustration!
One thing we tried differently this year was to get on board with the subscription version of Sage. We're hosted on a virtual machine [VM], which makes it much easier for updates and server management b/c it requires updating only once, and all users are instantly updated (b/c all users work on the same VM). We've also implemented a very good third-party time tracking app that does an amazing job capturing cost codes and work order data that syncs directly back to Sage. Sage Intacct has some niceties, but it's much too expensive, and (in my opinion) it doesn't offer as much as Sage 100 Contractor. I'll keep watching to see if this enhancement gains traction.