Recently ACC sent Sean and Chris into the Heart of Texas for Sage Software’s yearly Channel Partner convention, Insights. This year the event was hosted at the Gaylord Texan, on the outskirts of metropolex Dallas. Insights, yearly offers Channel Partners the opportunity to work with Sage software employees, and get to know what to be expecting in the year to come. This year was no different.

As you may have noticed by now, Best Software has once again changed their name. This time though, they have are using an older one familiar to us long time users, Sage. Sage Software’s parent company is based in the UK and uses the same name. Sage is looking to create a unified name internationally. So next time you’re in Comp USA you may just see a Sage Peachtree box on the shelf.

Two big announcements were also made at Insights, which we’re very excited to see.

Sage Software is introducing a Payroll Service, similar to ADP or Paychex. A few benefits to the Sage Payroll Service are complete integration into the MAS and Abra product lines, as well as online reporting components. Usually when trying to get a report from ADP, they will tell you it may take up to three days. Sage Payroll Service has online live reporting.

MAS CRM will be coming out around the same time as MAS90 v4.2. Over the last few years, Sage has acquired several Customer Relationship Management software systems, including, ACT, ACCPAC CRM, and Sales Logix. A more recent release of Sage CRM will be getting beefed up as the MAS CRM, with strong integration into the MAS product line and heavy customization capabilities. At several sessions Sage went into depth on the future of their MAS product lines.