Pastel accounting problems

OK, so you are within the Pervasive for WorkGroups limitations. Assuming they are using the WorkGroups version.

I would strongly suggest the migration to SQL for the PoS users.
Do a proper LAN sniff to identify network issues.
Also, where is the Pervasive database, physically? On a dedicated "server" or on a user's workstation? If the latter, strongly consider moving the Pervasive database to it's own hardware, and use SSDs for the disks.
 
ODTech said:
So what happens is when specifialy supplier invoices are processes pastel would hang and then after 15 or so minutes it would either finish or it would give an Microsoft Access related error.
Click to expand...

Since it's ms access being involved, there is a good chance its a database problem. If I recall correctly, ms access uses table level locking for writes, so if two or more people write to the same table then all of them has to wait until the one using it has finished, including waiting for table flushing and ms access terminating and accepting new connections, closing and opening the table again, and if it takes too long the user waiting times out (and probably not gracefully either, but that depends on the pastel software error handling).

If you only use one computer you probably won't have any problems, but if you use all the computers and run a transaction simultaneously you will probably get the problem. The best solution is to not use ms access, the second best solution is to use other software that doesn't use ms access. There is no respectable solution that involves fixing and continuing with ms access.
 
I used to be Pastel first line support 18 years ago (did it for almost 10 years) - so it was a long time ago and things have moved on a lot I'm sure. I'll share of my experiences, maybe there is something here that can help you.

Back then there were no cloud solutions etc so Pastel ran on a local machine. If you wanted to have more than one Pastel users access the same company, you needed to buy a multi-user licence which allowed the database to be updated with transactions that are sent from other network computers. The one PC is then set-up as a "server" and on the other PC's you map a network drive to this server and these PC's then read and write the data directly to the company file on the server.

There was a massive issue with the Realtek drivers that certain network cards used back then which sent incomplete info to the server file. It was an issue with the way that the driver sent the TCP/IP packets to the Pervasive DB. I spent plenty of time changing network cards at clients to attempt to solve the issue. Pervasive back then was pretty bad as well as the DB allowed partial records with no parity checksums to ensure complete updates of the DB tables. So if there was a power dip for instance during the time a workstation user saved a transaction, the debits will be stored but the credits not. That resulted in your trial balance going out of balance and I had to take out my trusty version of Smitware DDF builder to insert a manual one-sided entry. It was fun and games I tell you. If the server is also a workstation that is under heavy use, it places strain in the DB further. Moving the Pastel company to a dedicated server does help to some extent.

I will never run Pastel on a DB such as Access where a network is involved, more so where POS is in the mix and you have high volume data flow.

Pastel POS function was pretty poor back then - more of an afterthought than anything else, not sure if it has improved.
 
Affieplaas said:
I used to be Pastel first line support 18 years ago (did it for almost 10 years) - so it was a long time ago and things have moved on a lot I'm sure. I'll share of my experiences, maybe there is something here that can help you.

Back then there were no cloud solutions etc so Pastel ran on a local machine. If you wanted to have more than one Pastel users access the same company, you needed to buy a multi-user licence which allowed the database to to updated with transactions that are sent from other network computers. The one PC is then set-up as a "server" and on the other PC's you map a network drive to this server and these PC's then read and write the data directly to the company file on the server.

There was a massive issue with the Realtek drivers that certain network cards used back then which sent incomplete info to the Pervasive server file. I spent plenty of time changing network cards at clients to attempt to solve the issue. Pervasive back then was pretty bad as well as it the DB allowed partial records with no parity checksums to ensure complete updates of the DB tables. So if there was a power dip for instance during the time a workstation user saved a transaction, the debits will be stored but the credits not. That resulted in your trial balance going out of balance and I had to take out my trusty version of Smitware DDF builder to insert a manual one-sided entry. It was fun and games I tell you. If the server is also a workstation that is under heavy use, it places strain in the DB further. Moving the Pastel company to a dedicated server does help to some extent.

I will never run Pastel on a DB such as Access where a network is involved, more so where POS is in the mix and you have high volume data flow.

Pastel POS function was pretty poor back then - more of an afterthought than anything else, not sure if it has improved.
Click to expand...
In saying that there are still quite a few companies running Pastel in house server/workstation. Have never dealt with POS, but to quite a bit of support work on Partner/Express.
 
deweyzeph said:
It's the 21st century. Tell your client to move over to Xero.
Click to expand...
Been trying to move our elderly accounts ladt over to xero, but she worried about support etc and Sars updates. And didn't like change...

Anyone got advise?
 
petum said:
Been trying to move our elderly accounts ladt over to xero, but she worried about support etc and Sars updates. And didn't like change...

Anyone got advise?
Click to expand...

Xero support is world class. They've got tons of how-tos and an active support forum. I'm not sure what relevance SARS updates are. There's nothing that SARS updates regularly that affects the basic principles of accounting.
 
+1 for Zero

Pastel is such an iffy program, we have to Partner 11 to 19 installed on each workstation as clients never upgrade and datasets often need to go back.
We slowly working the older versions out as Pastel now yearly subs.

But Ja, Pastel gives issues if there are network issues.
 
I know it's been a while but if anyone was interested. This did turn out to be a MS Access issue because the problem went away after a database rebuild.

I've suggested they get someone to switch them over to SQL, hopefully they will listen.
 
Gtx Gaming said:
Doing every manually in MS excel, still better than pastel in 2021
Click to expand...
not that I've worked much with pastel (thank god), but I have tussled with it on occasion over the years and even wrote some code to integrate a POS system with it

objectively speaking, from a dev perspective, pastel is a piece of utter shyte, its continued commercial success is one of the greatest mysteries of our time

Quickbooks ran circles around it with ease of use, reliability, integration maturity and what-not and these days we have a proper startup and new kid on the block of accounting software in the shape of Xero which is a good option ... and then there's Wave accounting which is free of charge

using pastel still in 2021 ... does. not. compute.
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
not that I've worked much with pastel (thank god), but I have tussled with it on occasion over the years and even wrote some code to integrate a POS system with it

objectively speaking, from a dev perspective, pastel is a piece of utter shyte, its continued commercial success is one of the greatest mysteries of our time

Quickbooks ran circles around it with ease of use, reliability, integration maturity and what-not and these days we have a proper startup and new kid on the block of accounting software in the shape of Xero which is a good option ... and then there's Wave accounting which is free of charge

using pastel still in 2021 ... does. not. compute.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. Pastel Partner, Sage Evolution, VIP and Syspro all have their origins in the 90's and there are still traces of that legacy to some degree or another in their architecture. There is certainly free open source ERP and accounting software that is easily more capable and modern than Partner or Evolution and would give Syspro a run for its money.

Where I think Sage and Syspro do have an advantage in SA is that their products are pervasive (see what I did there :ROFL: ) and familiar to a customer base who have limited computer skills and there is a pretty extensive support ecosystem here for their products.
 
InvisibleJim said:
pervasive (see what I did there :ROFL: )
Click to expand...
lawd if you're talking about the company called Pervasive Software that got acquired by Actian then yes, I do see :X3:

my first ever job was a kind of internship at what is now merged with BCX, but back then was Comparex Africa which was just freshly rebranded from PQ Africa ... suffice to say much of their consulting solutions were using one of Cognos, Sage, Pervasive
 
Pastel is probably around only because back in the early nineties, it was the go-to package that was punted by all and sundry for most SOHO and SMME's in SA.

Anyone remember Pastel when they still used to be based on the Btrieve Database system?
 
Credit to Pastel their support has improved since lockdown, crikey, remember waiting 20+min on support.
Now their online chat its a breeze.
 
Ugh. So Pastel POS is using MS SQL 2014. I'm running two Windows 10 machines and one WIndows 8 Machine. One of the Windows 10 machines acts as the server and has POS installed on it. The other two don't need POS they just need access to the Point of Sale database. The problem is 99 out of a 100 times it refuses to connect to the MS SQL 2014 database from within Express saying the details are incorrect. I've triple checked all the details and no luck. I see some people are saying MS SQL 2014 can get iffy with sharing files past WIndows 7 but I have run out of ideas on how to fix this. Does anybody here have any thoughts on what else I can try? Pastel's call centre is a nightmare today and I just want this fixed.
 
lowriderza said:
Ugh. So Pastel POS is using MS SQL 2014. I'm running two Windows 10 machines and one WIndows 8 Machine. One of the Windows 10 machines acts as the server and has POS installed on it. The other two don't need POS they just need access to the Point of Sale database. The problem is 99 out of a 100 times it refuses to connect to the MS SQL 2014 database from within Express saying the details are incorrect. I've triple checked all the details and no luck. I see some people are saying MS SQL 2014 can get iffy with sharing files past WIndows 7 but I have run out of ideas on how to fix this. Does anybody here have any thoughts on what else I can try? Pastel's call centre is a nightmare today and I just want this fixed.
Click to expand...
Support is your best bet here. The SQL POS setup in Pastel is complicated and for the smaller POS installations I have, I tend to stick to the MS Access installation.

In situations where I have needed support the IT guys I deal with normally know MS SQL quite well so they assist in setting it up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X