What are Sage 50 3rd Party Apps?
Sage 50 is compatible with different other programs that have been created by listed third party Sage Development partners. However, these third party solution providers are required to provide all the support and troubleshooting services required by users as Sage 50 does not provide it for any of its third party development partners.
Users of Sage 50 sometimes use other third party software for some of their accounting functions. At some point, these functions running on different software need to be integrated with Sage 50. The integration does happen normally most of the time but on occasions users can face difficulties.
Ways of Integrating Third Party Software with Sage 50
Integration with Sage 50 requires you to create items in Sage by accessing its functions with the help of Sage Data Objects (SDO). A recent update from Sage in January 2018 clarifies that third party software integration no longer requires an SDO tool as it is now automatically enabled.
If you haven’t installed the update and want to integrate your third party software with Sage 50 you must use SDO tools to activate the process after communicating with Sage. The integration process needs to be activated for every Sage installation and the activation is different for the different versions of Sage 50. If you have installed upgrades prior to v24.1 you need to re-enable third party integration.
The SDO is an expensive tool but that’s how integration of third party software with Sage is implemented normally. It’s a long and costly process because codes must be written for every version of Sage 50 that is to be integrated but with the new v24.1 update, users can have some relief since the SDO tool is enabled by default.
Activating Third Party Integration in Sage 50
To begin with, you need to be aware of your Sage 50 version number; in case you aren’t aware of it, you can find it in ‘Help’ >> ‘About’. To proceed with the activation of third party integration, here’s the path:
‘Tools’ >> ‘Activation’ >> ‘Enable third party integration’
You will arrive at a screen where you can see three fields:
Sage version | Serial No. | Activation Key
Enter all the information accordingly. You now know how to find your Sage version. Your serial number and activation key is provided by Sage when you purchase the software. This process is applicable for Sage versions v21-v24, while for Sage version v24.1 the SDO tool is automatically enabled as already explained.
For Sage versions older than v21 you will get a unique SDO key which is different from the serial number and activation key that Sage provided when you bought the software. To obtain this unique SDO key, you need to call up the Sage customer support. You don’t have to pay anything to obtain this unique SDO key as it is complimentary with the Sage software.
Cheaper workarounds are available but can be risky
There are other cheaper ways of integrating third party software with Sage 50. Some third party developers create text files of transactions and then transfer these to Sage 50 with the help of their own tools that are quite advanced. In addition to creating the files, the developer can also extract them from databases and complete the integration. However, it is risky to use such software if they are not approved by Sage.
For issues related to third party integration with Sage 50 or other issues, call up our Sage technical support team on the toll free number. They are available 24 x 7.
