We brough Sage back in May 2011, joining the Accountants Club.
From day one we found issues with the software. We were continually told we are the only one to have this problem, but there is a work around.
5 months on, we now have an issue where on upgrading to increase the number of companies we can handle on the program, the activation key they supplied caused problems whereby it is actually reducing the number of clients we can see. We have kicked up such a stink, Sage are sending an engineer to meet us on Thursday in Walsall.
I have asked our Account Manager, why did they sell us a product with so many known issues or work arounds and the answer was, speak to someone else basically. Now the Account Manager is basically a sales rep, so I would think sales would know about the issues.
No one at Sage seems at all interested in explaining anything to us about the issues and we have directly asked for a list of known issues to be told how can we give you one when we don't know what they all are? As far as sales is concerned, there aren't any.
All we want is the product we brought into to do what it says on the tin, nothing more, nothing less.
Does anyone else have a problem with Sage and their known issues or not as the case may be?
Once I know what is wrong with our disappearing clients, I will post here and let everyine know.
Thanks for reading, moan over.
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Replies (16)
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Sage 50
I've never, in almost 20 years, not seen an activation key work correctly. When you say it is reducing the number of customers you can see, do you mean on the Open Company Screen when you first go in to the program?
As for knowing what the known issues are, you can log in to the Sage Support Site and, if you do a search for 'known issues' there are a load of articles for different versions of all of Sage's programs - it took me all of 20 seconds for example, to get a list of known issues with v2012.
I wouldn't expect a sales rep to be aware of the issues as they don't support the product.
John
Hi John
Yes, when you go to open company. The product key has apparently decreased the number of clients we have, so they are still there, but Sage wont show them to us.
To be honest, we expected the product to do what it says it will on the tin, nothing more, nothing less. If they had advised us of the known issues in advance, we may well have stuck with the system we had.
I see it as when I brought my car. I saw there was a cigarette lighter. I wouldn't expect to be driving along, go to use the lighter and it didn't work. Take it back to the dealer and he says oh yes, we know about that, here's a disposable lighter free of charge as a work around. This is exactly what Sage have done.
Maybe I am being picky, but if someone sells me something, I expect it to work without having work arounds.
I am also hacked off with the fact that Sage keep telling us, it's not a known issue, but by the way, we have a work around. Where do they get workarounds from if the issue isn't known?
Dear Old Sage
I agree with John that activation keys have not caused any problems for me, and I've been using Sage from about 2 years after they started.
It may be because they are so desperate to milk customers for every extra thing they need/do, they have changed the way the activation key works and as usual the change was done by a student in his lunch hour. There was probably inadequate checking before the program went out and you are in reality the beta checker!
It is very common for people on the helpline who aren't very knowledgeable themselves to imply that you are a raving lunatic because you are the only one to have complained. I'll bet they aren't told how many customers have complained - in case they pass on the info to other poor souls.
I am a regular moaner about Sage 50. It used to be absolutely excellent. Now, because it's a "mature" product, Sage keep messing about with what is obsolete technology to try to justify why they feel it necessary to charge me more each year. Upgrades frequently contain errors in parts of the program that were OK before and are now ruined.
I unfortunately can't move to another supplier very easily as I've built my business around their software. It is still very good for businesses with a fair number of transactions who want to do good quality accounts. That's why I think you should get the immediate problem sorted and try to put it behind you, as you may well come to see it is still quite a good product. (Surely Sage will give me some money off for saying this? Not blooming likely!!!)
Product Keys...
It may be because they are so desperate to milk customers for every extra thing they need/do, they have changed the way the activation key works and as usual the change was done by a student in his lunch hour. There was probably inadequate checking before the program went out and you are in reality the beta checker!
Much as it might be nice to think that, in reality it's not the case and I should know, I spent some of my time at Sage writing the system then generates them :)
I'd guess that it is simply the case that the wrong keys are being given out time and again...
To the OP - Someone at Sage could easily generate a set of keys, test them and then send you the file that contains those details to you (rather than have you enter them) - it would then simply be a case of saving that file into the relevant location on your PC and away you go...
John
John
Sage have had a senior tech bod nose around the PC and feel we have a virtual copy of the program as well as the actual one. This is apparently a rare known issue. So we effectively have 2 versions of the program. This is caused by corrupted files, though PC World have told us there is nothing wrong with the laptop.
Sage are sending a bod from Newcastle to have a look at the laptop.
All we want is for the program to do exactly what it is supposed to. We don't want work arounds and we certainly aren't paying the kind of money we do to have work arounds.
We actually got £90.00 out of
We actually got £90.00 out of Sage. One of their IT bods logged into the computer, deleted the wrong program's and generally messed about. He finally finished by telling us to uninstall and reinstall te program and then check all of our clients data. That ended up being a wasted Sunday morning as it failed to fix the problem and when we spoke to someone at Sage who actually knoew what they were doing, they fixed the issue in less time than it takes me to write this. We invoiced them for our wasted time and they paid. We took the view if they give us duff advice and waste our time, they need to pay for that. Don't think they were happy, but we threatened to take our business elsewhere.
At the end of the day, if we turn up to do someones accounts and we make a mistake, we don't expect the client to foot the bill for it. If they end up wasting time, we give them a refund as we want to keep the business. In 2 years we haven't lost a single client. We have only given 1 client a refund when we took on a bookkeeper who proceeded to put the wrong transactions on the wrong customers accounts. Our fault as we should have monitored them more closely. We held up our hands, told the client exactly what had happened and gave them a refund of that months bookkeeping bill. Client was happy and so were we as we kept the business. We expect Sage to do likewise, but they don't.
Glad you got a result...
The issuing of the keys is about as standard as it gets and, whilst the algorithm does change now and again, it should be just about the simplest thing anyone on tech support should be able to sort out...
John
Hmmmm....
Have to say I'm not convinced but, if they are willing to send someone out...
John
'You are the only one who has this problem.'
This is a mantra chanted by every software support service that I have ever dealt with! They will NEVER own up to the fact that there are problems with their system but you can bet your life that at the next update, assuming you are correct, it will be fixed.
When I was regularly dealing with a 'proper' mid range MRP system I asked at every upgrade whether there were any known problems and the answer was always 'No'. However there were always several and our motto became 'One step forward, two steps back.'! Worse still they would often fix a problem with an interim fix and then overwrite the fix at the next update, reverting back to the problematic.
@Richard
This is a mantra chanted by every software support service that I have ever dealt with!
And this attitude is what annoys people (it annoys me anyway!). I have much more respect for someone who admits the problem, and then gets it sorted. Do they really think we will not learn of others having the same problems? They lose all credibility when their deceit is exposed.
Sage Visit
Sage saw us this week and have installed 2012 in the laptop.
The problem we had was virtualisation apparently. Something to do with Sage wanting to put files in one location and Windows 7 not liking it, so put it somewhere else.
A Technician from Sage sorted it out so fingers crossed it is all OK now.
My partner and I are going to keep a spreadsheet with any issues we have and reports made to sage and see where we are at a later date.
If Sage are willing to deal with serious issues by coming to see us, then, we are willing to stay with them. They also didn't say it was our fault and admitted it was their program and Windows 7, so their honesty won us over.
Thank you to everyone who respond to our post.
As you say, fingers crossed
What Sage are admitting to is that their program has not been properly adapted to cope with Windows 7. I have never heard of them sending out an engineer before, as they hate spending money on anything much. As for honesty, the engineer was honest (probably a subcontractor) but a lot of Sage management people are not inclined to be up straight about what is going on. Could be they are going to keep an eye on your situation to help write fixes in the program, which is good for you.
It may be that you are now sorted. I am very concerned about the problems you had and will keep an eye out for clients buying laptops in the new few months, to warn them they might not get their own personal engineer as you did.
I really hope you can now get on with what you bought the program for in the first place!
Sage & WIndows 7
What Sage are admitting to is that their program has not been properly adapted to cope with Windows 7.
They are not doing that at all, what they have done is do everything possible to get the software up and running on this particular PC which may well have had a 'unique' installation of Windows 7 and good on them for doing so.
Based on the OP's latest post, it would appear that there was an issue writing a file to a particular folder and, based on the original problem of licence restrictions, the file that actually holds that data is written to a folder that is, by default, public (i.e. all users should have read/write access to it) in Windows and one that Microsoft themselves say that program data should be stored in...
I've currently got v8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 & 18 installed on a PC running Windows 7 32bit, another running Windows 7 64bit and another running a Virtual Windows 7 install on an iMac and none of those installations have the issue reported by the OP...
John
Jaundiced User
John, as you know so much, I accept what you say.
If my own experiences with Sage hadn't been so clouded several years ago by having to pay someone to completely reinstall my operating system as a result of a ghastly payroll "update" one year of which "no-one else" had complained perhaps I would be more willing to be more understanding of the problems they themselves face.
Payroll...
If my own experiences with Sage hadn't been so clouded several years ago by having to pay someone to completely reinstall my operating system as a result of a ghastly payroll "update" one year of which "no-one else" had complained perhaps I would be more willing to be more understanding of the problems they themselves face.
I remember that one well, I think the kindest thing you can say is that it wasn't one of their finest moments :)
John