Earlier this year, in September 2009, Vertex® notified all Sales Tax Q (STQ) customers of the plan to offer a new Extended Support Program starting in January 2011. This second notification is a reminder to customers of the need to plan an upgrade of their STQ software during the coming year, or be prepared to participate in the Extended Support Program.
Starting in January 2011, STQ customers that continue to operate on an STQ software release that is five years old or older (that is, STQ release 3.2 or older) will be required to participate in the Extended Support Program in order to continue to receive monthly data updates (that is, rules and rate changes). The monthly data update #340 that will be delivered in December 2010 will be the last data update that will be compatible with ALL (that is, new and old) releases of STQ.
The goal of this new program is to encourage customers to upgrade their STQ release at least once every five years in order to receive the benefits of continued product improvements and compliance updates. We also believe this initiative will help to control future costs associated with data support of older program releases.
However, we recognize that some customers using an older STQ software release may be operating within an IT environment that cannot be easily upgraded before January 2011. For these customers, the Extended Support Program will provide continued availability of monthly data updates for older STQ releases. The price for the Extended Support Program will be an additional 25% of the annual renewal fee. This fee for Extended Support, independent of your annual renewal fee, will provide continued access to monthly data update files for one year. After one year, the fee will be applied again if continuation of support for an older release or IT environment is still required.
Starting in Q2 2010, customers that anticipate the need for this new Extended Support Program and want to sign up early may do so by contacting Vertex Sales. In addition, we recommend that customers continue to visit the Vertex Customer Café® under STQ Product/News/Extended Support Program for the latest information and updates regarding this new program. If you would like more information regarding the latest available software release(s), please continue to visit the Customer Café. You may also order the latest program release by submitting a request on the Customer Café at http://www.vertexinc.com/customercafe/onlineform.asp?req=stq40 or by contacting Product Support at 1-800-281-1900 ext 4720.
Posted in News
