As Sage Abra is Discontinued, Future of Human Resources is in HRMS

Sage has announced that Sage Abra Suite Canada’s days are counted. As of June 2013, the classic human resources enterprise software will no longer receive updates for its payroll and government compliance functions.

In turn, customers currently using Sage Abra Suite Canada have incentives, both financial and functional, to migrate their human resources operations to Sage HRMS, a popular solution that offers customers key advantages that were not present in the discontinued solution.

Most human resources customers using Sage Abra Suite Canada run their program on the outdated Foxpro database format. Sage previously attempted to modernize the solution by offering clients incentives to upgrade the Abra Suite to SQL. Foxpro is a text-based programming language that serves as a Database Management System (DBMS). Compared to SQL, Foxpro’s drawbacks are that it is a filesystem database, while SQL is a database engine, meaning that among other things, Foxpro lacks in data centrality. Essentially what this all means for human resources activities is that upgrading to SQL allows payroll to be run without interruption of HR’s systems and simplifies time entry and calculations for all payroll activities.

In addition, and in some cases due to, Sage HRMS providing customers with a modernized database system, the migration from Abra to HRMS will give clients the following benefits:

  • Ability to easily complete the Record of Employment (ROE) using a standard form.
  • Entering and reviewing both earnings and deductions from a single, unified screen.
  • Maintaining separate payroll and HR databases, so you can work in HR while payroll is processing.
  • Enabling employees to view pay stubs online with Sage ESS.
  • Option to select from ten different pay frequencies.
  • Splitting direct deposits, by percentage or amounts, between multiple bank accounts.

Human resources users of Sage Abra Suite Canada have further motivation to stick to Sage because the learning curve of using the new Sage HRMS is not steep at all. Although the payroll function is a new program under HRMS, the human resources functions of the program are very similar to those of Abra.

For current Abra customers, Sage is offering savings of 50% off the license migration price, as well as a fixed implementation price. The discount on the migration pricing means that customers only have to pay the difference of upgrading to HRMS, minus 50%. This offer is available until the end of 2012, while product updates for Sage Abra Suite Canada will no longer be available after June 30, 2013 and Business Care technical support will end on September 30, 2013.

If you are currently using Abra and would like to know more about how to deal with these changes, feel free to contact The Answer Company where one of our consultants will be happy to shed some light into the matter.