Beginnings

Accpac was originally developed for the long-obsolete CP/M operating system. Pictured here is a standard CP/M computer. Source: Vintage Computer Photos

EasyBusiness Systems – CP/M Operating System

The original product, EasyBusiness Systems, was developed for the CP/M operating system in 1976 by the Basic Software Group and distributed by Information Unlimited Software.

EasyBusiness Systems was a package of programs covering the basics of accounting: accounts payable and receivable (AP/AR), order entry, and the General Ledger (G/L). This was part of an office productivity suite which also included a spreadsheet program and word processor – much like an early Microsoft Office. Canada-based Basic Software Group developed the suite for the then-dominant CP/M operating system.

This was ported to MS-DOS and the IBM-PC in 1983, two years after the IBM PC’s debut.

Accpac Plus: The DOS Era

Computer Associates acquired Information Unlimited Software in 1983 and ran it as an independent business unit. Easy Business Systems added payroll processing in 1984 and supported multiuser networking at this time. In 1987, it implemented a multi-window interface to allow moving between different modules.

Easy Business Systems was renamed Accpac Plus in 1987 with the release of version 5. Accpac became popular in Canada with support of Canadian public accounting firms that would sell and support the software. The name Accpac is an acronym for ‘A Complete and Comprehensive Program for Accounting Control’.

As the top product in CA’s accounting solutions line aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Accpac Plus’s modules handled both accounting functionality and other key work processes like inventory control, payroll, and project job costing. For larger finance teams spread across a whole building, the LanPak local area network (LAN) connector module gave the assurance of a single version of accounting data. More importantly, improved data security and integrity.

Like today’s Sage 300 offering, users had the freedom to implement only the modules they needed. And as early as 1988, Infoworld magazine noted “the extensive collection of vertical-market, third-party programs that will integrate with Accpac.” One of these programs was Crystal Services’s reporting add-on, now better known as Crystal Reports.

Accpac Plus also offered a “primitive” form of multitasking through the System Windowing Manager, making it easier not just for users to understand where they were in the flow of the system, but to switch easily between modules too. Sage closed this chapter of Accpac’s history when they retired the product in 2006, long after the DOS era ended.

Bringing the Accpac Advantage to Windows

Accpac for Windows v3 desktop
The first Windows version, CA-accpac/2000, popularly known as ACCPAC for Windows, was developed in the early 1990s and released in October 1994.[17][18] The Windows version marked the move to client/server and was developed with all new code in COBOL with Computer Associates development tools (these components were redeveloped in 2001 in Accpac Advantage Series with a core business layer developed in C and a user interface layer developed in Visual Basic).

The very first Accpac for Windows, as seen on Windows 3.1. Accpac arrived on Windows desktops in 1994, just as the OS was picking up in popularity. Not only would the program be more intuitive to use, there’d now be a lot more flexibility and room for further development. Accpac initially ran on Btrieve Databases and then later supported a variety of database backends.

In October 1996 ACCPAC for Windows 2.0 was released.

To start with, the 2001 release of Accpac introduced a new, multi-tiered system architecture, which now allowed for more extensive customisations on top of the previous plug-in approach.

In August 2001, the company presented ACCPAC Advantage Series 5.0, its first web-based version.

Sage Accpac

In 2004, the British public-listed software firm Sage – who developed their own accounting software in the 1980s as well – acquired Accpac from Computer Associates.

While Accpac had been marketed as financial management software for most of its life, Sage’s first step was to rebrand it Sage Accpac ERP in 2006, better reflecting its end-to-end connection of work processes beyond pure accounting and financials.

Sage renamed Sage Accpac ERP to Sage ERP Accpac in 2009.

Finally, in 2012 the Accpac brand was officially retired. Sage dropped the Accpac name and renamed the product to Sage 300 ERP. The Sage 300 ERP name reflects its positioning as an SME-targeted solution, a step up from Sage 50 accounting software.

In 2016, Sage rebuilt the web interface in version Sage 300 2016 for cross browser support, running on IIS with ASP.Net.

Also since version Sage 300 2016 only the MS SQL database is supported and key functions like A/P and A/R were also made accessible through web browsers.

In 2016, Sage introduced 300c (now 300cloud), and with it a refreshed series of HTML5-based web screens that complement the classic desktop program.

Since 2016, Sage has continued its gradualist approach to migrating its product to the Cloud, without drastically overhauling the system.

Better yet, role-centric dashboards are now available online. If you’re a finance manager for example, the attached finance dashboards.

Finally, for businesses interested in reaping the advantages of the Cloud in a private set-up, since 2019 you can now host Sage 300 on Microsoft Azure.