New Sage One Affiliate Program and Sage 300 ERP Top the News at Sage Summit

Sage Software kicked off its annual user and reseller conference on Monday in Nashville, with several announcements that include a new affiliate/reseller program for Sage One, the debut of Sage 300 ERP 2012, and enhancements to Sage ERP X3. The company also announced the recipients of its Partner Awards for 2012.

Sage Summit opened with a keynote address to more than 1,000 attendees from the CEO and president of Sage North America, Pascal Houillon, and Chief technical Officer Himanshu Palsule. The executives announced several new initiatives and revealed their mobile and cloud business apps strategy.

“Mobile and cloud computing have become driving forces for efficiency among small and midsized businesses,” said Houillon. “A recent survey of SMB owners showed that 36% of them now use tablets or cloud computing, up from just 14% a year ago. A third of them use both. These early adopters stay connected longer to their business and in more ways. They are also more successful and faster growing. Sage is delivering for the cloud and mobile computing today, and we are committed to helping SMBs be successful in this new world.”

Sage One Affiliate Program
Sage One is the company’s most recent small business management system, providing a cloud-based service for entities with up to nine employees. The new partner program gives accountants and Sage partners the opportunity to be compensated for referring small business clients who subscribe to Sage One.

Enhancements to the system were also announced, including improvements around the payment process: integration with online payments and the ability to import transactions directly from users’ bank accounts, thus reducing data entry, reducing the potential for errors and making reconciliation almost automatic.

“Entrepreneurs were closely involved in the initial development of Sage One, and now, as Sage One users, they’re helping us identify the next great opportunities,” said Connie Certusi, EVP Small Business Accounting with Sage North America. “As we add to Sage One, our focus will remain on providing a solution that is easy to use and one that simplifies the life of a small business owner.”

Over the next year, additional enhancements will be focused on increasing automation of workflows, new integration capabilities, additional reporting and collaboration tools.

Sage ERP X3

For mid-sized businesses, the company announced enhancements in Sage ERP X3 (v. 6.5), including new and extended cloud applications, integration with Sage SalesLogix, enhanced payment processing functions, and more efficient cloud-based sales tax automation.

Sage ERP X3 is also now available in a new subscription licensing option, which can provide a lower start-up cost, lessened IT requirements, no long-term contracts and a more predictable month-to-month cost. Pricing for the system, which is designed for mid-market companies, starts at $115 per user per month.

Sage anticipates a total of more than 3,500 attendees and 450 exhibitors during the nearly week-long conference, which offers customer and partner training sessions, discussion panels, round tables, networking events and social gatherings.