best way to connect crystal to your Sage 50 dataset is through crystal.  If you just tell your report in crystal what the path is to your data, that should not consume a user

Hi Dave, thanks for your response.

My problem is connecting as third party application.  

Any comments?

I apologize that I thought you were connecting to Sage 50 using the crystal reports program.  Have not tried it with any other 3rd part app.  It may very well consume a license