Complete Sage Accounting Review – How Good Is It?

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In my very first experience of co-founding a startup, I found it challenging to find the right accounting software—especially because there were already a ton of options back then. There are even more choices today. I was excited to write this Sage accounting review as it tends to stand out somewhat from the rest.

I’ll show you what this tool does, how it compares to its competitors, and more.

While we’ve used a few software solutions before, we always rely on industry professionals within our team to test how helpful tools are in terms of their jobs. This is why you can trust that this Sage accounting review will be different. Let’s get started.

Sage Accounting Pros and Cons

To cut to the chase, here are the pros and cons of using Sage accounting software that we found in our testing.

Keep reading on to find out more; this Sage accounting review will also show you how you can mitigate the cons of using this software tool.

Is Sage Good for Accounting?’

The history of Sage, a UK-based software as a solution (SaaS) provider, started with its founder, David Goldman, wanting to automate estimates and accounting processes for his printing business. When he collaborated with university students in building that software for him, they discovered that other businesses could benefit from it, too.

Through the years, the company grew and added more solutions that cater to other business needs, including:

We feel it’s worth mentioning in this Sage accounting review the company’s move to add the power of AI automation to its range of services. It also applies the same tech to the abovementioned services, including its accounting software.

The company also enjoys local recognition, as it appeared as a Superbrand on the ranking of the UK’s best B2B brands in 2019. Meanwhile, its services also received awards in other countries.

How Hard is Sage Accounting?

One professional in our testing team – this time, our associate accountant – said that many users would find that Sage’s interface isn’t too far from other accounting software. This similarity, she added, makes usage easy for those with experience in other tools.

While getting started is easy, our team noticed a few features that could be puzzling to some, particularly those transitioning from manual accounting processes.

Key Sage Accounting Features

As promised, we’ll show you how Sage’s software solutions can streamline your financial processes. The features listed below will help you make a decision.

Please note that in our Sage accounting review, including its features, we based mostly everything on our testing of both their software solutions, Sage 50 Accounting and Sage Intacct. Under each feature, we’ll let you know whether it’s exclusive to one platform or available across both.

Keep in mind that the main difference between the two is that Sage 50 is a desktop software with cloud connectivity, while Intacct is purely a cloud-based platform with AI and API capabilities.

Payroll

This feature is a cornerstone of any robust accounting software. When it comes to establishing your payroll processes, Sage gives you a straightforward setup for adding benefits and setting up employee lists, including their pay types (monthly, hourly, special payments, and bonuses). Once that’s set, the app takes care of the rest.

The setup wizard will guide you through essential aspects such as State Unemployment Insurance, benefits such as medical, dental, and vision coverages, flexible spending accounts, retirement plans, and vacation and sick leave plans.

Since it’s almost the end of tax season, taxes aren’t left out of the equation either. Whether it’s federal income, state income, social security, Medicare, or federal unemployment tax, Sage has you covered. This feature simplifies an otherwise complex task and ensures that your tax obligations are handled accurately.

When it comes to payments, Sage offers flexibility, too. You can make third-party payroll payments via general journal entries for payroll taxes and government contributions.

Alternatively, you can handle these within the platform itself through direct deposit, which comes with printed-out payroll.

Expense Management

Ever wondered how to keep track of all your spending in one place? Expense management helps businesses monitor and control their expenditures efficiently. Under the “Vendors & Purchases” tab, you can create vendors, select their 1099 type, and then set them up for payments. Even better, you can write custom letters to vendors or checks for payments with just a few clicks.

Sage also simplifies check printing with customization options that make it easy to preserve your pre-printed check forms. For instance, when our accounting associate intentionally attempted to print a $0.00 check, the software immediately displayed an alert.

Invoicing

Another area where Sage shines is its invoicing features, which are one of the most important aspects of your business that you need to automate. Our testing team found it to be very versatile, as it can streamline the invoicing process of both product and service-based businesses.

The Sales/Invoicing window allows you to create invoices for customers seamlessly. All entries are automatically posted to the general ledger, customer records, and possibly job and inventory records.

In addition to its customization features, we were impressed by how efficiently transactions could be applied to jobs through the distribution list box.

We also got drawn to another feature that lets you print an invoice directly from the system or set up recurring invoices for customers. This is a time-saver for businesses with regular billing cycles. Sage 50 supports a whopping 500 line items per invoice, proving its competence to handle voluminous transactions.

Sage 50 offers different methods for managing recurring invoices. The memorized transactions function like templates, ready to be fleshed out quickly for specific deals without being posted to the general ledger.

On the other hand, recurring transactions are complete operations set on a predetermined timetable – monthly, quarterly, or yearly – ideal if you’re contracted to provide services on a regular basis. What makes this even easier is that you can duplicate existing invoices, which streamlines repeat processes.

Inventory Management

This is actually the first thing that we tested, as I’ve experienced managing inventories. One repetitive process I remember was copying and pasting details for each inventory item. To my surprise, Sage filled in that information for me upon logging a new inventory item.

That’s because the accountant then said to me that she’d already entered an item beforehand and set the details I’d inputted as default. But basically, the platform already had its own defaults right before I set them up.

The other fields you can edit while setting up include general ledger accounts, costing methods, item tax and shipping info, and sales price levels.

Integration With Other Tools, Including Potential E-commerce Backends

Similar to solution suites like Zoho and Oracle Netsuite, Sage 50 Accounting can connect with other solutions under Sage’s product range, including its human resource management (HRM), CRM, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and business intelligence solutions.

What about third-party integrations? We got a little disheartened to see that Sage lists only Avalara (tax-compliance software) and Microsoft 365 as compatible apps.

Don’t worry; we asked one of our IT associates to try Sage 50’s compatibility with Zapier, which was successful. We’re able to connect it with other famous platforms, including:

Also, while we haven’t listed Sage 50 among accounting software you can integrate with WooCommerce, Zapier made it possible as well.

The best thing for us here is that both Sage 50 and Intacct have an app marketplace. This means that in addition to third-party integrations, you can also opt to perform other business processes without exiting the Sage 50 platform. The two have apps such as barcode scanners, data-entry automation, and even CRM.

Reporting and Analytics

These features give users insights into various aspects of their financial health. Our accounting associate says this Sage accounting review is nothing without checking its reports function – this is something that accountants spend a lot of time on.

The good news is that Sage’s dashboard already displays many types of information, such as account balances, vendors to pay, and customers who owe you money.

What we loved the most here is the Reports & Forms function, where there are tons of reports you can generate and customize based on your needs.

You can filter these reports by date range, department, location, or even by custom fields that you’ll set up.

Sage U Certification, Product Support, and More

Sage provides many additional resources to help you become more familiar with the product. Want to ramp up your expertise even more? Get started with software certifications via Sage University, which can help accountants boost their skills with Sage 50 and Intacct.

We haven’t tested their customer support line, but the knowledgebase and community forums were enough for us to find answers (we discovered the Zapier integration via the forums).

Miscellaneous Features

Both Sage 500 and Intacct have additional features that would make your processes even simpler. Note that Intacct has most of Sage 50’s main and additional functions, while Sage 50 doesn’t have the ancillary capabilities of the other.

Sage 50

Intacct

With all the features listed above, we can also say that Sage 50 Accounting and Intacct are both potent accounting software tools for self-employed professionals, too.

Sage Pricing and Plans – How Expensive Is It?

Sage’s website only offers pricing plans for Sage 50, which has three subscription types. For Intacct, you must contact Sage and request a quote tailored to your company size and needs.

Let’s have a quick rundown of what’s included in each Sage 50 plan, which you can trial for free for 30 days.

Pro

This is probably the best plan for self-employed accountants, as it offers all the basic accounting functions, including invoices, billing, expense management, orders, and inventory. Even better, this plan already has reporting capabilities.

Note here that only one person can use Sage 50 when you’re subscribed to Pro.

Premium

Under this plan, you’ll get everything from Pro. But this time, you can add up to four users and multiple companies. You can also have serial numbers in your inventory with this plan.

This is also where the Audit Trails function becomes available, along with more advanced reporting, budgeting, and job costing.

Quantum

Subscribe to this plan should you need to assign role-based permissions to your team. With a Quantum plan, you can have a total of 20 users working on Sage 50. Here, you can start accessing a few workflow capabilities.

Now, is it hard to cancel a Sage 50 subscription? Definitely not for both the monthly and annual plans. If you’re on a monthly subscription, you can cancel anytime and just continue using the remaining days.

For an annual subscription, you’ll have to notify Sage at least 30 days ahead of time, and you can expect a pro-rated refund upon cancellation.

Let’s just be honest with one thing here: Sage’s starting monthly price of $49.58 is higher than Zoho Books’ $10.00 (they also have a free-forever plan), and Freshbooks’ $5.70. While that’s the case, these two competitors’ starting plans don’t have the same level of capabilities as Sage’s.

Sage Cloud Accounting Interface – Is It Easy to Use?

Among the software solutions we’ve tested, Sage has one of the cleanest UIs on both mobile and desktop apps. When you go into your dashboard, you can easily see vital business statistics, such as liquidity, profit and loss, and cash flow, in real time.

This app can be accessed through a mobile browser on different devices and downloaded on Android and iOS devices.

Their mobile version is really convenient; when we tested this version, we were really amazed at what you can do despite being on mobile. It’s not a “watered-down” version; it has all the core features needed, such as creating and sending invoices, capturing expenses with receipt uploads, approving bills, and monitoring cash flow.

Obviously, you’ll need a lot of memory when you perform advanced tasks such as generating reports, managing multiple inventories, and processing your payroll.

Sage vs Top Accounting Software

Want to compare Sage with other accounting solutions? Here, we’ll give you the core differences of the top tools we’ve tested, including their best use case, starting price, and best features.

There are many accounting software programs available, and your choice will depend on your business needs. Of the four we reviewed, Sage comes out on top in terms of flexibility.

Sage can be used by almost any type of business that needs their accounting in check. From invoicing to even payroll management, you’ll be able to streamline all of your accounting efforts into one software.

If you’re looking for budget-friendly and free solutions, Zoho and Freshbooks are your options. They are perfect for new users of this kind of software, and their interfaces are very user-friendly.

However, for larger businesses or organizations looking to scale soon, you can contact Netrsuite for custom pricing.

Want to explore these solutions’ features more deeply? Visit our blog about the best accounting software to learn more.

Sage Accounting System Reviews – What Are Customers Saying?

Our experience with Sage Accounting is positive. From the get-go, using the web app and the mobile app, we didn’t experience any lags or have any challenges navigating this software. It’s easy to use with all its well-rounded feature sets across all devices.

To provide more insight, we also checked review websites from real Sage users, such as TrustRadius. The same goes for our experience; most users didn’t have any problems using the app and didn’t even understand the complex report Sage offered.

Regarding its features, many users like the one we saw praised Sage for being very invaluable and complete. The platform already proves this with its dashboard, which you can access on mobile, too.

Why You Can Trust Our Sage Accounting Software Review

At TechReport, we take pride in our reviews, as we know how important technology is for small businesses and its role in modern accounting. In this case, for Sage Accounting, we prioritized practical experience.

We did this by setting up test companies and creating invoices for dummy accounts. We generated different sets of reports and evaluated their efficacy. To further test other features and Sage’s flexibility, we also used its payroll system and tried to integrate it with other CRM systems.

Other than our own experience, we also scoured the web and looked for feedback from users from TrustRadius. As a software reviewing platform, we also compared this software to other accounting software, such as

Netsuite and Freshbooks, which we reviewed recently.

We aim to deliver a trustworthy and informative review of Sage Business Cloud Accounting by combining practical exploration, user feedback analysis, and competitor comparisons.

How to Use Sage for Accounting: Step-by-Step Guide

You’ll never have any issues when setting up and using Sage for the first time. When we set it up ourselves, it took less than an hour to create a quote and start to bill a customer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use Sage Accounting:

Step 1: Login and Set Up Your Account

Visit Sage.com and log in using your credentials. You’ll then be prompted to set up several pages, such as your company’s financial year, regional settings, VAT settings, supplier, items, and branding.

Before installing Sage 50 Accounting, take note of the following minimum requirements that would ensure the platform would run optimally:

• At least 2GB RAM running a 64-bit operating system
• 5GB of disk space
• A 2Ghz processor
• A download speed of 4Mbps and upload speed of 2Mbps
• Windows Server 2016 (for server-based OS) or Windows 10 and above

Step 2: Customize Your Workspace

Most of your time will be spent on your Workspace. Here, you will find your dashboard, which you can customize later.

You can create quotes, invoices, receipts, and credit notes, along with managing expenses and bank accounts.

Step 3: Team Management

This step is optional if you collaborate with an accountant or team member on your finances. Sage allows you to add users and assign them specific permissions within the software.

Remember: you can only assign role-based permissions by subscribing to Quantum Accounting.

Step 4: Adding Customer and Invoicing

Before you can start invoking your clientele, you need to add your customers. Look for the tab that says “Customers” and then click Add Customer.

The next steps are very easy to follow; just make sure you have all your billing details with you.

Sage Accounting Review – Verdict

Sage Accounting strikes a sweet balance between user-friendliness and feature flexibility. It’s a great choice for small businesses looking to scale. Whether you have your own accounting team or not, it will definitely cater to all your business needs.

Its Payroll feature is also worth highlighting. With it, you’ll have all the features of payroll software that you’ll need without the complex bells and whistles.

For $58.92 per month, you will get payroll, invoicing, expense management, and many more. The price might be more than its competitors, but keep in mind that you’ll already have a payroll subscription included out of the box.

So, if you’d like to try it without committing to a paid version, make use of Sage 50’s free trial today and see how the tool can streamline your accounting processes.

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