New to accounting? Sage is your new best friend, giving you plenty of support as your start out in business. This accounting software is simple to navigate and understand.
We’ve tested Sage Business Cloud Accounting’s features to see how they match up against other accounting software. We have all the information you need to decide for yourself whether Sage is right for you and your business.
Who is Sage best suited for? Perfect if you are new to accounting and need plenty of support when starting out.
Pros
+ Great customer service
+ Highly advanced reporting
Cons
- Less automation than competitors
Sage Business Cloud Accounting Review Summary
Hailing from Newcastle in the UK, Sage was founded in 1981 to create estimating and accounting software for small businesses. In 2011, Sage launched the cloud-based, online version of the software, Sage Business Cloud Accounting, in addition to the Sage Business Cloud Payroll service.
Is Sage right for your startup or small business? Read our impartial, honest review to find out.
What is Sage Business Cloud Accounting?
Sage is online accounting software made to make life easier for small business owners, startups and freelancers. It provides the functions needed to take care of daily business admin and finance.
Users can create and send professional quotes, invoices, track income as well as expenses. Every Sage Business Cloud Accounting subscription includes unlimited access to support, a huge plus point, as well as automatic product updates.
How long does it take to learn Sage accounting?
Although Sage has plenty of great qualities and is fairly easy to use compared to other similar online cloud-based accounting solutions, it isn’t quite as intuitive.
Though it’s highly functional software, those with prior experience of using the Sage offline accounting software or any other prior software beforehand will probably be able to get to grips with Sage Business Cloud Accounting more quickly than those who are using it for the first time or who have no prior accounting experience.
Getting started with Sage
In terms of setup, you can find everything you need to set up your account in the ‘Getting Started’ tab, which will be presented to you at the beginning of your cloud accounting journey.
Although everything is right there for you to input, it’s quite a long onboarding process and less intuitive than other cloud accounting platforms’ set-up processes. The last way in which Sage’s ease of use isn’t quite up to scratch with its competitors is that there aren’t quite many opportunities to automate processes.
Sage offers UK-based 24/7 customer support both online through a live chat and over the phone. In terms of additional support and human-led help, Sage has a leg up on its competitors. The platform has a comprehensive ‘help’ section with instructions, guides and videos to aid you with every step of your cloud-accounting journey.
So, while Sage might not be as intuitive as other cloud-based accounting software, they do have the help and support to counteract this.
Sage Interface
Sage’s user interface is a little dated compared to its competitors although in terms of features and ease of navigation it's just as good.
Allowing you to browse tabs pertaining to;
Sales
Expenses
Contacts
Products
Services
Banking,
Journals
Reporting
Settings
Sage accounting software displays clear, easy-to-understand data and graphs that highlight the important trends in your data and accounts.
What features does Sage offer and how good are they for small businesses?
Sage offers an impressive, comprehensive range of accounting features that are reliable and offer great value for money.
Banking
It’s easy to connect your business’ bank account to your Sage account, all you have to do is navigate to ‘banking’, click ‘connect bank’ and type in the name of your bank account.
Sage is compatible with a ton of banks, especially those based in the UK including; Barclays, Halifax, HSBC, Natwest, Tide, American Express, Danske Bank and more, a complete list of which can be found on the Sage website.
Once you’re connected, your transactions are synched with your Sage Business Cloud Accounting interface and match automatically to your invoices.
You can categorise your transactions yourself into categories, setting up rules to allow Sage to automatically group your transactions for you, based on the reference code or value. Doing this right at the beginning of your Sage cloud-accounting journey will save you an enormous amount of time long term.
Can I do a VAT return on Sage?
Yes! It’s easy to report VAT returns to HMRC with Sage, a necessity for businesses earning over a certain amount per year.
You can simply navigate to ‘reporting’, where you’ll be provided with a ‘create VAT return’ option under the ‘VAT returns’ tab. You’ll then be presented with your VAT report to approve, which you can then submit to HMRC via Sage.
Send personalised invoices with no time wasted!
Invoicing
Sadly, invoicing with Sage isn’t quite as seamless a process as their banking functionality. You can create a new invoice by navigating to the top right corner of Sage’s UI where you’ll see a red plus, which you can press to create either an estimate or an invoice.
You will be unable to customise your invoice after clicking ‘create’, you have to edit your invoice settings, specifically, your logo and document template settings before you create your invoice.
Sage offers nine templates, three of which are quite basic. Three are templates for producing invoices and three are service invoices, all of which can be customised to change theme colour, add your company logo, add accreditation logos, customise headings and more.
Although this method of designing new invoices is a little more inconvenient, once you’re used to Sage this won’t really present a problem anymore.
More than this, Sage has a couple of automation features to make invoicing less time-consuming, such as the ability to create recurring invoices in addition to single invoices. You can also send invoices in bulk with the ‘quick entries’ functionality, rather than sending them to each individual customer or client.
You can also track and view when invoices have been seen by customers, check which customers owe you money and when customers made payments. Moreover, if you have international customers, with the Accounting Plus plan you can ensure that exchange rates, adjustments and charges are dealt with automatically so you don’t have to manually spend time converting currencies.
All invoices can be created and sent via the desktop or mobile version of the Sage cloud accounting software.
Reporting
With all payment plans, Sage offers standard reporting covering:
Profit and loss
Balance sheets
Aged debtors/creditors
Cash flow statement and forecast
Profit analysis
Sales revenue
VAT return
Once you upgrade to the more advanced payment plans, you can gain access to Sage Intelligence, which allows you to see really detailed insight into your business.
Sage incorporates these reports into a set of interactive dashboards, charts and tables, which you can click through to investigate the finer details of the reports.
Cloud based accounting solutions for small - medium businesses
Integrations
The Sage Business Cloud Accounting software integrates with over 200 different apps, allowing you to assimilate your business’ accounting and finances. These apps include cash flow tracking, e-commerce, inventory, invoice, payroll HR, reporting, forecasting and more.
Sage pricing
Compare Sage's pricing plans
Sage offers some of the most competitive pricing of any cloud-based accounting platform, and they often run special deals.
In addition to being split into three pricing plans; start, standard and plus, Sage provides the opportunity to take online payments through stripe, or easily add payroll services to your Sage account, for an extra fee.
Start
Sage ‘Start’ users can create and send invoices, track what they’re owed, enjoy automatic bank reconciliation, and calculate and submit VAT. However, only one user can access and manage your business’ Sage account.
Standard
Sage ‘Standard’ users gain access to all of the features offered with the ‘Start’ plan, plus the ability to manage and submit CIS, run advanced reports (make use of Sage Intelligence), send quotes and estimates, forecast cash flow, manage purchase invoices and snap receipts with AutoEntry.
‘Standard’ plan customers are able to have an unlimited number of people access and manage your business’ Sage account.
Plus
Sage ‘Plus’ customers are able to enjoy all of the features provided in the ‘Start’ and ‘Standard’ plans, plus the ability to invoice in multiple currencies, in addition to inventory management functionalities.
Who is Sage best suited for?
Sage Business Cloud Accounting, formerly Sage One, is ideal accounting software for Startups, small businesses, freelancers and the self-employed who are just starting out working independently and need assistance navigating the complexities of self-employed finances.
Why Sage is the best
Designed with small businesses in mind, Sage makes its software and application relatively simple to navigate and understand. Sage is still an incredibly good accounting solution, with quick, smart banking reconciliation and highly advanced reporting in the ‘Standard’ and ‘Plus’ plans.
Why Sage is not so good
The design and interface are slightly outdated and there are definitely fewer automated processes available to use than other accounting software competitors.
Another drawback to Sage is the ability to track billable hours and add billable expenses to invoices. You can manually enter billable time and expenses to invoices, but there isn't a built-in feature that streamlines these tasks, and you can't attach receipts to invoices.
Sage verdict?
Although there are some definite weaknesses of Sage compared with its cloud-based accounting competitors, Sage is still an incredibly good accounting solution. Where Sage outdoes its competitors, the Sage Business Cloud Accounting software offers some of the most inexpensive pricing plans on the market for the reliable, comprehensive range of accounting features offered.
So, if aesthetics and efficiency (a.k.a. as little admin as possible) matter most to you, then the Sage cloud-based accounting solution might not be your ideal choice. However, if your business prioritises cutting costs where possible while sacrificing none of the quality of the service, then Sage might be a perfect choice.
Can you allocate a customer payment on an account in Sage?
Yes, from Contacts, select the relevant customer or supplier. From the Manage drop-down, choose Account Allocation. Select the payments on account or credit notes you want to use. Finally, just select the invoices you want to pay.
How much does Sage accounting cost the UK?
Like many software solutions, Sage Accounting pricing is based on a monthly subscription fee. We have detailed this in the above article.
