How to export your data from Sage 100

Sage 100 — formerly MAS 90 and MAS 200 — has a large, long-tenured installed base, which means catalogues with decades of history in them. Its export tool, Visual Integrator, is capable. The complication is that it's a licensed module, so the first question isn't how to export, it's whether you can.

1.Pin the cutover, then pull five things

On-hand is only true at an instant. Agree a freeze point, pull after it, then key the gap in or cycle-count on day one. Take: item master (with status flags), on-hand per item as of a stated time, average cost, customer and vendor master, and open orders if the cutover isn't quiet.

2.Two routes

Route A — Visual Integrator export job (recommended)

1. Open Visual Integrator → Main → Export Job Maintenance.
2. Create a job and select the source table from the lookup:
   • CI_Item — item master
   • IM_ItemWarehouse — on-hand quantity and cost per warehouse
   • AR_Customer — customers
   • AP_Vendor — vendors
3. Move the fields you want from Available Fields using Add Selected Field.
4. Set the output to CSV (VI will also write fixed-width, or straight to ODBC).
5. Save the job and run it. Jobs are reusable — which is exactly what you want for the second pull at cutover.

Route B — ODBC (when VI isn't licensed)

Sage 100 ships an ODBC driver, SOTAMAS90, giving read-only access to the same tables. It is slow on wide tables — select only the columns you need rather than SELECT *.

3.Field mapping into AegisSwift

4.Gotchas

Cost lives in IM_ItemWarehouse, not CI_Item

CI_Item is the catalogue; quantities and average cost are per warehouse. You will be joining these two tables — plan for it rather than discovering an empty cost column after the export.

Fields are fixed-width and space-padded

Item codes come back padded to the full field width. Trim every string column or your SKUs won't match anything later — not the vendor file, not the re-import, not your barcodes. This is the number-one cause of a failed Sage 100 import.

Sage 50 is a different product

If someone says "Sage", confirm which one. Sage 50 (Peachtree) has no Visual Integrator and exports via File → Select Import/Export, a far more limited fixed-format tool. None of Route A applies to it.

Inactive customers are flagged, not deleted

Filter on the status column, or you'll import decades of dormant accounts.

5.What happens on our side

Two spreadsheets — items, and parties — matched on sku and name. Because VI jobs are reusable, the cutover re-pull is genuinely cheap here: save the job the first time and re-run it on the day.

AegisSwift costs on a moving average, seeded from AverageUnitCost. If Sage 100 is running standard costing, expect a small permanent divergence by design.

6.Questions people ask

Do I need Visual Integrator?

It's the best route, but ODBC via SOTAMAS90 gets the same tables if VI isn't licensed.

Why is cost missing?

It's in IM_ItemWarehouse. Join it to CI_Item.

How long does this take?

Half a day. Building the job is quick; reconciling padded codes and per-warehouse rows is where the time goes. Expect to import twice.