Many companies have been using Sage 300 CRE for decades. During this time period, they’ve massively changed. Their business model has seen changes, their workforce has changed, and even the real estate and construction industry they operate within hasn’t remained the same.
All these changes and years of use cause their Sage 300 CRE software to not perform with the initial glory. They start encountering performance lags, particularly in reporting.
Frustrated by performance issues, they start considering leaving behind their trusted software and migrating to the cloud or newer systems. If you’re in the same boat, this blog is for you.
But is that the right thing to do? No, not necessarily. Businesses don’t realize that there are ways to extend the life of their Sage 300 CRE and continue getting value from it for years to come. In this blog, we cover it all.
Why Businesses Consider Leaving Sage 300 CRE
The main complaint users have with Sage 300 CRE centers around performance issues.
When their data volume grows, the system starts lagging, and reports start taking longer to generate.
Performance issues mainly arise due to Sage 300 CRE’s foundation on a Pervasive database. These databases are reliable and stable, but they aren’t good at performing fast queries on massive amounts of data.
This is the reason complex reports that analyze years of transactions across multiple jobs and cost codes take hours or even days to complete.
You may also find Sage 300 CRE’s reporting functionality outdated and cumbersome. For example, when you need to pull a ledger report, you can only see debits and credits at a time.
For more detailed information, Sage requires you to dig through multiple layers. The same is the case when you’re dealing with job cost reports and have to extract details across different categories. You are required to run multiple separate reports.
Why You Don’t Have to Migrate Off Sage 300 to Go Cloud
It’s natural for organizations facing the issues we discussed to consider migration to the cloud.
But this pressure to migrate often overlooks some fundamental realities about business technology.
Industry experts actually recommend against undergoing an ERP migration unless it’s absolutely necessary because of the costs and risks that come with switching systems.
Financial Overhead
With new software comes costs like implementation fees, data migration costs, consultant expenses, training programs for your entire team, and the hidden cost of reduced productivity during the transition period.
You might think a smooth migration might not cause a loss in productivity. But even then, your team will spend weeks or months working at reduced capacity as they learn the new system.
Data Loss
Every migration carries the possibility of data loss or corruption during transfer. Your custom reports and workflows that you’ve spent years perfecting might not properly translate to the new system.
Even your integrations with other tools might require an expensive redevelopment, if not a complete replacement.
Perpetual Payment Model
By migrating to the cloud, you’re committing to perpetual payments that continue year after year.
In contrast, your current Sage 300 CRE is already paid for, and you own its software license outright.
If you’re a company with stable operations and predictable needs, the shift from capital expenditure to operational expense won’t make much financial sense to you.
How to Modernize Sage 300 Without Migrating
Now let’s show you how to extend the life of Sage 300 CRE with a proactive approach to maintenance and optimization.
The tips below solve most performance and usability issues of Sage 300 CRE.
Archive Your Log Viewer File
A large log viewer file, particularly those exceeding multiple GBs, significantly slows down your entire system.
Similarly, if you’re running Sage MyAssistant with tasks set to execute at the conclusion of programs, this configuration can create bottlenecks that affect overall performance.
These two are the main performance culprits, and adjusting them can remove most of the unnecessary overhead.
Check Your Network Settings
Sometimes what appears to be a software issue is actually a problem with faulty network components or misconfigured settings.
For example, incorrect network adapter duplex and link speed settings can create latency issues and make you put the blame on the software.
Your IT team should use diagnostic tools to ensure your network hardware is functioning properly. Issues with network connectivity and response times only require simple configuration changes to fix.
Upgrade Your Hardware
Before blaming Sage, see if your hardware infrastructure is causing performance issues.
Symptoms like icons and files taking a long time to display or corrupt files appearing randomly might indicate hard drive failure.
Similarly, if your server or workstations no longer meet the minimum requirements, or if they’re being asked to handle too many simultaneous tasks, upgrading the hardware part usually solves the issue and breathes new life into your Sage 300 CRE software.
Keep Your Software Updated
Annual software upgrades keep most security and performance issues at bay.
Sage engineers continuously build improvements and address known bugs with new versions, so if you’re regularly updating, your Sage 300 CRE will work fine for years to come.
Archive Old Data
You can also improve day-to-day performance by moving older data to history files instead of keeping them in your active database.
With an archiving strategy, your current files remain lean and responsive, which naturally translates to a fast working environment.
It also becomes easy to access your historical data for swift audits and long-term analysis.
Use Cloud Hosting for Remote Access
After COVID-19, remote work has become a standard. So it’s very possible that remote access might have become essential for your operations too.
And Sage has a cloud accessibility solution for that.
Sage Partner Cloud allows you to deploy your Sage 300 CRE solution in the cloud using Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Sage-accredited cloud platforms.
Optimize Your Reports
Your report design can also cause performance issues.
Reports should be designed with efficiency in mind. They should utilize Sage 300 CRE’s existing capabilities.
If specific reports run slowly, consider reviewing their design and how they access and sort data.
If you built these reports years ago, there might be room for optimization, if not complete rebuilding.
Even complete rebuilding is easy with a consultant who understands Sage 300 CRE’s reporting engine by your side.
Anterra Data Center: A Dedicated Solution for Sage 300’s Reporting Challenge
While the strategies above improve Sage 300 efficiency, they require a lot of manual work on your side.
A smart move would be to look for one perfect integration that singlehandedly tackles all Sage 300 CRE’s reporting issues.
That’s what Anterra offers. AnterraTech developed Anterra Data Center (ADC), which continuously replicates your Sage 300 CRE data into a SQL Server database running in parallel to your existing system.
Unlike Sage’s pervasive database, which isn’t built to run queries fast, an SQL server is purpose-built for high speed.
With ADC, when someone needs to run a report, they’ll be querying the SQL version of your data instead of bogging down the pervasive database.
Your Sage 300 CRE system continues operating exactly as it always has. The only change will be a high-performance reporting engine working alongside it.
But speed isn’t the only benefit. Having your data in SQL Server opens up new possibilities for reporting and analysis. You can connect various reporting tools to your SQL Server database and create custom reports with details that standard Sage 300 CRE reports don’t allow viewing together.
In addition, our solution scales naturally as your company grows and your data volumes increase.
Want to see how much faster your reports run with Anterra Data Center before making any commitment?
We offer a fourteen-day free trial of Anterra Data Center.
So get this free hands-on experience and let the results speak for themselves.