The goal of the SDK is to let solution providers write accounting modules just like Sage writes Accpac accounting modules like Accounts Receivable or Order Entry. In fact our own developers of these products use the same SDK that we make available. When you create your application with the SDK you get all the functionality of a full Accpac application with very little extra work. For instance your application will:

• Fully support VBA — you are as customizable as any other Accpac application
• Your Business Logic will be available through all the external APIs
• Will use the standard Accpac Import/Export
• Your UIs will look, feel and behave like any other Accpac screen — you will use the same controls like Finders, grids and navigation controls
• Runs from the Sage Accpac desktop, and the Sage Accpac Web-desktop
• Will participate in data activation, database dump/load and all other Accpac database operations like database transactions

We develop Add-ins in the same manner as full SDK modules. However their goal isn't to be a standalone application. Their goal is to add to or change the functionality of existing Accpac modules. They can alter the behaviour of the business logic, as well as add their own business logic, UIs and reports.

The key feature add-ins are using is that the Accpac business logic can be “subclassed”. That means you can create a new business logic object that sits in front of the Accpac one and process all the calls first. These subclasses are chained, so there could be several add-ins all sub classing the same Accpac business logic object. This is a very powerful form of customization, in that it customizes the behaviour for everything that uses the business logic including import/export, macros, external programs as well as UIs. Whereas UI customization only affects the customized UI.