Sage Accounting Reviews

Pros

Easy to use, intuitive and with great reporting tools that allow me to keep on top of my business performance. Invoicing to clients, profit and loss reports, VAT returns, keep up to date on cash flow and knowing how my business is performing every day

Cons

I want to be able to compare this YTD performance with LYTD performance and that isn't possible to do

Alternatives Considered

Xero

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

Easy of use and the simplicity of installing it for the first time

Pros

We like that it is intuitive and has a specific accounting module for us as a charity - fund accounting and gift aid functionality.

Cons

We have a problem at every year end (last 5 years) when rolling the balances forward on the restricted funds (new opening balances on Balance Sheet). They are always incorrect, causing our opening balance sheet to be wrong (balances of unrestricted funds and restricted funds) and we have to manually adjust them - something our Auditors are not keen on and we have to get additional checks done in order for our accounts to be signed off. This has been looked at several times but SAGE support, and our data submitted to them for review, but they cannot resolve for us. Very frustrating and a huge admin task for us at year end when we are already busy.

Alternatives Considered

Xero

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

NFP not as good as Sage 50 - we needed the Gift Aid functionality

Pros

I find navigating the site quite easy. Invoicing is easy.

Cons

I find it hard to find help in the help centre. If you don’t put in the phrase it likes it can be quite difficult to find the answer to your question

Pros

The product is has a country version specific to Ireland. The payroll and accounting are linked.

Cons

Editing after payments is not allowed and when reconciling, if a payment for the next month is reconciled, you can’t roll back to the end of the last month to do a reconciliation to follow your printed monthly bank statements, and the bank column shows transactions but no balance column.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Online and Xero

Reasons for Choosing Sage Accounting

Quickbooks Pro Desktop was discontinued in the UK, and do not tailor payroll to Ireland

Switched From

QuickBooks Desktop

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

Perception of reliability, initial phone supports, specific Irish tax accounting function

Pros

Its very to use and very thorough, it also has helpful cues if you get stuck.

Cons

Not everything makesnit through to the bank reconciliation page.

Pros

Sage helps my business and I don't need to worry about downloading updates

Cons

Some features I asked for have not been added

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

More fitting for my business. I also did my accountancy exam using Sage

Pros

The online nature of the sftware makes it easily accessible to multiple members of staff from multiple locations. Also, being able to see live data is a big help

Cons

The software is not particularly friendly for accountants to use. The lack of an option to input opening balances does require several work arounds

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Online

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

The functionality is better for many aspects, especially from an accountants perspective

Pros

Fairly Easy to use. The Software obviously has a lot of capability.

Cons

Multiple invoice payment...not sure if it can grab a selected range to pay instead of typing them in one by one.

Pros

Easy to use for accounting and payroll. Like the feature of being able to upload purchase ledger invoices on the system to save us keeping paper work

Cons

Sometimes take a while to sort out issues

Pros

The interface is very user friendly and straightforward. New user is easy to pick up the use of software. It also provide comprehensive features like invoicing, payroll and inventory management.

Cons

Even the tool is user friendly, some features could be complex for users without accounting backgrounds.

Pros

Installation and implementation are easy. I like that the features are easy to use even for non-accounting persons. It enables real time sharing of files with clients and colleagues which saves on time and eliminates the need to direct email invoices. This makes debtor management easy and less costly. Accessibility from a mobile device is a huge plus when one is on the move. The software is also affordable and has a free trial. Sage has good customer support.

Cons

Since the software can only be accessed online, it is difficult to work with when internet speeds are slow or when there is no connection at all. Sometimes bank sync feed is slow and the handling of foreign currency bank transactions could do with some improvements.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Online

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

Sage is user friendly even to persons with no book keeping knowledge while Quickbooks Online requires so basic book keeping knowhow. Sage has better customer support compared to Quickbooks Online. Considering our business needs, Sage seemed more affordable for us.

Pros

We have used the software version of sage products such as Sage Business Works and Sage 50 so the product and company are familiar to us. The ability to login to the software from anywhere and to no longer have to have client/server environment is great. The software was easy to signup for and was relatively easy to implement.

Cons

There are 2 large cons to this software in comparison to it's direct competitors.
Con #1: The package has no ability to custom group GL accounts. So for example, if you have a section on your income statement for sales and you want to group sales by category and have a sub-total for that sales section you cannot do that. There is really no ability to edit the income statement layout or the balance sheet layout to add in sections and sub totals so you are stuck with the canned version of the software.

Con #2: In an environment where you have multiple small companies, you look after you cannot have one userid and password to access all the companies. You have to setup each company with it's own userid an password then invite another user via an email link to join.

Alternatives Considered

Xero

Reasons for Choosing Sage Accounting

We made the switch as we wanted to get away from a client/server based software solution and wanted a cloud based solution.

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

Our thought was to stay with the same company thinking that the transition would be easier and we had been happy with their other product offerings in the past. The user interface also was easy to understand and utilize in comparison to quick books an xero accounting as we were already familiar with how Sage products work overall.

Pros

Very easy to use. Intuitive. On the rare occasions I have needed to contact customer services they have been very helpful and always sort my query.

Cons

When integrating from sage 50 accounts product quantities did nit integrate.

Pros

Easy to use and to explain to clients jhow to use

Cons

Bank feeds that do not work on certain banks

Pros

Standard procedures necessary for a small business.

Cons

See comments above. It is impossible to communicate by e-mail. Have wanted to send details of Sage invoice payments to Credit and Collection Department but without success. They have threatened cancellation because of perceived non payment of a couple of pounds.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Online and Xero

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

Did not want North Americanisation. Thought it was a good idea at the time.

Pros

the robustness of the software, it does not save locally any file, is connecting to the server for every query.

Cons

the price is very high, the company need to be bigger to be able to pay this software, the customer service is not very good in the it section, they are accountants.

Alternatives Considered

MNprogram

Reasons for Choosing Sage Accounting

because we needed better support

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

because mn program was not able to start the fiscal year in june as we need, it only accepts january december accounting period.

Pros

The ease of the setup and use of the software. It was written so that anyone can use it. Very simple, yet poewerful.

Cons

Some of the features that were advertised when pitched to us aren't available. The customer and supplier age analysis reports should have totals.

Alternatives Considered

Xero

Reasons for Choosing Sage Accounting

We wanted to go cloud based

Reasons for Switching to Sage Accounting

At that stage Xero did not have a lot of support in SA.

Pros

Sage provides a one stop cloud based solution with the power to tackle the most complex clients and the ease of use to mean that using it is not a chore - its well laid out, graphically pleasing and the menus have a logical and intuitive structure - it is easy to gain proficiency in its use and deployment and its advanced functionality is attainable without too much head scratching. Customer service is world class - and support features such as Sage University and Sage Champions are second to none - all in all its a mid-price point software package that does it all as well as anyone and often a great deal better backed than any of the competition, and it is backed up by the best aftermarket support package, customer service structure in the marketplace - with Sage you are never alone - they back you 100% in supporting you and your business and that alone is priceless in this day and age. Put simply - Sage is pivotal to our success and without them we could not do what we do.

Cons

No - I say no because Sage are good enough to listen to improvement suggestions from end users, log them and incorporate the key ones in their roadmap - again the transparency of Sage and the inclusivity means that any teething problems are documented and supported until they are untimely resolved.

Pros

Banking helps so much, reconcile is easy to do. Invoices help keep up to date on payments

Cons

Having to put all the customers in with all there details,

Pros

The cloud deployment makes it a perfect solution

Cons

Adoption of multi factor authentication before users can login

Alternatives Considered

Sage 300cloud, Sage 50cloud Accounting and QuickBooks Online

Switched From

Sage 50cloud Accounting and Microsoft Excel

Pros

The sage logo hinted that it may be similar to their line 50 product. Oh, how wrong I was.
There is quite literally nothing good I can say about this software, their customer support nor their accounts and billing team.,

Cons

It falls way short of functional. It couldn't be further behind the competition if they did nothing.
Essential features like repeating invoices were missing.
You can't pay with or receive into the director's loan account.
You are restricted in the number and type of bank/cash accounts you can have.
Fixing anything is a mammoth task
and even then, it doesn't actually fic the issues.

Pros

For someone that has never used accounting software before, I was up and running within 30 minutes and had my first invoice wnging its merry way to teh client to be paid. With very helpful customer service checking in on me in the initial period, I was able to get the rest of the package set up quite easily, including being able to do my VAT returns easily. Great software that does everything that a small business needs!

Cons

To be honest, y grumbles have been few and minor. The big things it does well, but sometimes I just confused by the numbers it displays but that is more often than not finger trouble in displaying sort orders of the date column.

Pros

It is easy to set up and use. Because it is an online system it can be accessed anywhere anytime.

Cons

They do have some issues with slow or degradation but have been working on this. Also billing department is not easy to contact so have had issues there

Pros

Allows you to set up accounts at ease with easy to review financial reports allowing users to understand where their business stands at any point in time.

Cons

Once you have filed your VAT returns you cannot go back and update/edit the previous entry

Pros

The most incredible things about this software is it's phenomenal features that tracks all the expenses in an awesome way.All financial reports are arranged perfect.And if billing is what you love most then this software is your missing piece.invoive processing is simple, successful and enjoyable while using Sage Business Cloud Accounting.

Cons

It has really been effective on my work.its user friendly sono struggles customizing anything.Right choice so I have no problem with this versatile software.