Spire for SBT Pro Series, ACCPAC Pro and Sage Pro ERP Users – Why I like it

You received this email because you run old SBT Pro Series (or ACCPAC Pro or Sage Pro ERP) accounting software and are a current or former client of Lefkowitz Systems. Your SBT/ACCPAC/Sage Pro still runs well on current Windows computers and, with your SBT source code license, you can add features as required. For most of you, this is good enough and I will support you and your SBT system indefinitely (if that is what you want). But for others, this is not enough. If you want something newer and better, please keep reading.

Three years ago, if an SBT Pro client asked me for an upgrade, I recommended Sage Pro ERP without hesitation. Sage Pro was the only “straight line” upgrade for SBT Pro by which I mean it was the only upgrade that converted all your SBT data, offered all the features found in SBT Pro while adding many new ones not found in your old SBT Pro. The Sage Pro learning curve was flat meaning it was easy for SBT users to learn Sage Pro.

Sage Software discontinued the Sage Pro product line in 2014. Many of you received a scary letter from Sage telling you your software was obsolete and unsupported and recommended an upgrade to some other Sage product. Sage’s decision made you accounting software orphans. In response, I presented my company to you as an SBT, ACCPAC or Sage Pro ERP orphanage.

While I like to sell upgrades to my clients, I do not like to sell upgrades under threats of catastrophe. I prefer to sell upgrades because the upgrade makes good business sense.

Until recently, I did not have a strong replacement for my SBT/ACCPAC/Sage Pro clients. Now I do. I want to introduce you to Spire Systems, especially to those of you who are considering an upgrade. Spire is a fine system with an attractive price. It is not for all but I think it will work well for many. In the following paragraphs, I will make the general case for Spire for Pro users and, also, identify reasons not to buy Spire. If you make it to the bottom without discovering a disqualifying reason, please contact me.

Why Spire for SBT Pro users?

  • Price – Spire is a great value.

When I recommend upgrades to my clients, most respond with a simple question: How much? That’s the ‘wrong’ response. One should consider value before price. But who am I to argue with my clients?

Spire costs a lot less than competing systems and delivers as much and, for some, more than the competition. ERP systems (other than Spire) cost a lot of money. Spire delivers what most of my clients want and costs a lot less than the competition.

Enterprise Resource Planning (“ERP”) is the fancy name for what used to be called “accounting software.” Most ERP systems are not cheap. Spire is a good ERP system but does not carry an ERP price tag.

The bigger names in the ERP market – Sage, Microsoft, SAP, NetSuite – are good systems but expensive. Add the raw software cost to the implementation cost and a simple, ten-user license starts at about $50,000 and goes higher if you add advanced functionality such as manufacturing, warehouse management, web site integration and business intelligence. The “cloud” flavors of these systems cost even more after the second year of paying rent. I will talk more about cloud licensing below.

Spire costs less than these systems without sacrificing power. Spire sits in the vast gap in the ERP market above QuickBooks and below the ‘name’ ERPs. A ten-user Spire system will cost roughly $10,000 for the license with one year of free upgrades. Implementation is harder to estimate and varies from installation to installation. But using the 100% of software rule of thumb, a standard Spire purchase and implementation will cost approximately $20,000. This is less than half the cost of the competing ERPs. And, again, no sacrifices assuming Spire fits your requirements.

Here is my long piece on how to price a Spire system and Spire project for SBT Pro, ACCPAC Pro and Sage Pro ERP users.

  • Features

Accounting systems are useful because of their features. What does it do that one needs? The answer is features. All accounting systems do the basics: GL, AP, AR, sales, purchasing, inventory control, bank reconciliation, etc. and Spire does these things very well. Spire also includes manufacturing, job costing, service tracking and even a point-of-sale module.

Spire also has high-end inventory control features that many ERPs lack. These include multi-location inventory, unit of measure conversion, serial numbers and lot number tracking, and a very rich pricing system (tiers, customer-specific pricing, quantity discounts, sale price discounts).

Spire lets you email everything which is a trick SBT cannot do without an expensive, 3rd-party add-on. If you are spending time and money stuffing envelopes with invoices and statements, Spire will pay for itself quickly.

Spire has a Requisitions module that converts inventory shortages into purchase orders. This module replaces the Lefkowitz Systems Auto PO and SO-2-PO add-ons without extra cost. For those of you who do special orders and drop-shipments, this is a great feature. Buying and making the right inventory – not too little and not too much – is a great way to increase profits. Spire Requisitions lets you do this.

Spire has ‘lite’ CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and work-flow features built in. Spire tracks all contacts with customers in one place and you can manage multiple individuals at each customer. You can attach documents and notes to customers (and inventory, and vendors and orders, invoices and POs) that all can see easily. The Spire Alerts feature reminds you and other users to follow up on tasks at a day of your choosing. These alerts pop up when needed and link to the affected Spire function. For example, an alert to a sales rep to follow up on a bid links to the bid. Click the alert button and the bid opens automatically. Spire remembers and things get done.

There is a lot more in Spire that puts it far beyond what you have in SBT/ACCPAC/Sage Pro. Not all of these features will help you but some of them will and some will help you a very great deal. Finding the useful features for you in Spire is my job.

  • Technology – Spire is state of the art.

I really hate the cliché “state of the art” but here it fits. Spire is written in open-source Python and uses the big, strong, fast, 64-bit, open-source PostgreSQL database. This is the good stuff. PostgreSQL backs itself up automatically each day among other virtues.

Spire runs on standard hardware and operating systems. Chances are it will run on the machines you have now. Here are Spire’s system requirements.

  • Reports and Information

Spire contains a large collection of canned reports in each module and Spire’s reports are written with industry-standard SAP Crystal Reports, the current, 64-bit version. All reports and forms can be customized under program control using Crystal’s included report engine. If you know Crystal, you can do this yourself. If you do not know Crystal, we can help.

But you will find yourself using the Spire reports less than your SBT/ACCPAC/Sage Pro reports because so much of the information you need is presented on the screen in the Spire user interface. All Spire screens use the grid-detail paradigm (“grid-detail paradigm?”) and all the grids contain a powerful filter and export engine which means all the screens are, themselves, report engines.

A grid is a bunch of rows containing records. A list of customers is a grid. A list of open orders is a grid. A list of payables is a grid. Double-click a row in a Spire grid and Spire opens that customer, order, invoice, vendor in a pop up window. Want to see more than one customer, vendor, order, etc.? Keep clicking. No limits on the numbers of open windows in Spire.

Grids can be filtered. Want to see all customers who owe you $20,000 or more? Filter the grid. Want to see all receivables over 60 days old. Filter the grid. Want to see all customers who owe you $20,000 or more and have not paid you in over 60 days? Filter the grid. Spire grids can be filtered on all columns and popular filters can be saved so that you need not re-make them. Just pick the pre-fabricated filter and the grid presents the results instantly (thanks to the super-fast PostgreSQL database).

Grids can be printed and exported (to Excel, PDF, email and MS Word mail merge). Things like marketing, collections and analysis that are difficult in SBT, ACCPAC and Sage Pro are easy in Spire because of the grid filter and export system.

  • Data conversion – I can convert most of your SBT Pro data.

Your SBT Pro data has value. If you move to Spire, you can keep most of it. I have written SBT-to-Spire data conversion programs.

  • Support

Spire is developed and supported by a viable company, Spire Systems, in British Columbia, Canada. I have known the owner for over ten years and have examined the company closely. Spire Systems is strong financially and completely focused on Spire. This is important. With many of the larger publishers, each product in their software portfolio is a department run by a hired manager who competes for resources with other product lines in the larger company’s portfolio. With Spire, there is only one product and lines of communication between users, resellers and publisher are short. Problems are addressed and resolved quickly.

While Spire is new, it is not ‘bleeding edge’ new. It has been out for over a year with good results from the field. I recommend it with confidence.

  • Third-party add-ons.

We have only a few of these so far but the ones we have are quite attractive. We have strong products for integratd e-commerce, mobile sales, EDI and shipping sales. More is coming.

  • Integration and development.

Spire has a strong, documented API (“application program interface”). Software developers can build products that integrate with Spire. A few have already. An API is good. It is not the same as source code but it is better than nothing.

Why not Spire for SBT Pro users?

  • No source code.

SBT Pro included a source code license and many of you hired me to customize your SBT to handle special requirements. Spire does not have a source code license. It cannot be customized at the source code level. If you have a special, ‘mission-critical’ requirement that Spire’s standard features and external, integrated solutions cannot satisfy, Spire is not for you. Spire has dozens of user-defined fields in each module and screen. Spire’s reports and forms can be customized without limit. And Spire’s open database can be queried for external data analysis and external application development using Spire’s rich API (“Application Program Interface”). But the business logic in Spire is locked.

  • No USA payroll.

A few of you run your payroll in-house on SBT and buy the annual payroll tax plan from Lefkowitz Systems. If you want to continue to run your payroll in your accounting system, Spire fails. I have stand-alone USA payroll software but it will not integrate with Spire. You must account for payroll in Spire through A/P or G/L.

  • Cheap is not free – SBT/ACCPAC/Sage Pro is free

While Spire is cheap compared to the alternatives, it is not free. Your SBT/ACCPAC/Sage Pro is free. You own it and you know how to use it. This is a powerful reason to do nothing. “Do nothing” is my top competitor and there is nothing wrong with staying with what you have if what you have does what you want. But does it do what you want?

  • Temporary disruption.

Installing a new ERP disrupts your business temporarily. A good installation takes a month or less, a bad one takes longer. During that time, your work increases and your productivity drops. Things get better – much better – after the transition. Do not order a Spire installation if you and your company are not ready for a temporary disruption of your business and, if you do order a Spire system, schedule the implementation wisely.

What about cloud licenses?

Increasingly companies are renting ERP software running on servers owned by others rather than buying licensed software installed on servers owned by themselves. Software distributed in this way is called “cloud” because the software and your data are stored on some server somewhere “up in the clouds.” Exactly whose server hosts your software and where it lives is unimportant. Is Spire a “cloud” product? The short answer is no. The longer answer is, it does not matter. You can install Spire on any server anywhere as long as you can connect to it over the public or private internet.

In the ERP market, “cloud” software is, functionally, the same as “on premise” software except you rent the software rather than own it. The main difference between “cloud” and owned licenses is financial, not technological. With cloud software, you own nothing beyond the month of software service you rent. With licensed software, you own the license in perpetuity.

As with most rental deals, the up-front cost of renting is lower than owning but the long-term cost of renting is higher. A typical cloud deal costs more than a purchased deal between the second and third year of ownership and it gets worse over time. If your company’s outlook is three years or less, renting is a good decision. But if you are in business for the long haul, owning is better than renting.

Cloud licensing also carries considerable vendor risk. Because the vendor owns and hosts the software, you depend on the vendor for your software service and you hope they will not raise the rent on your software. If they raise the rent, you must either pay the higher rent or lose your software. With a purchased license, you own the license forever.

As you can tell, I am not a big fan of cloud software. But its success in the market is undeniable. Spire can be installed on a hosted server and delivered over the internet if you do not want to own and maintain a server. There are hundreds of managed services companies offering application hosting at reasonable prices.

Spire for SBT Users – Michou Jewelry.

Next step.

Still here? If so, let’s talk. I will tell you if I think Spire is a good candidate for your company. I will quote a Spire license. If you are still interested, we will schedule a Spire demonstration and then see where things go.

And if you intend to stay on SBT Pro Series, ACCPAC Pro or Sage Pro ERP for the long-term, that’s fine too. I will support you. I am not closing my ‘orphanage’ any time soon.

Sincerely,

-Matthew Lefkowitz, President
Lefkowitz Systems, Inc.