Brightpearl by Sage vs. QuickBooks Online

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Brightpearl
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Brightpearl’s retail operations platform is designed to handle peak trading, integrates with the full retail tech ecosystem, and is omni-channel native. Additionally, the vendor says their solution is the system of record for key trading data, provides real-time trading insights and is automated so users can stay in control and manage by exception. According to the vendor key differentiators include: Software and Service. Service is an integral part of Brightpearl's offer. The…N/A
QuickBooks Online
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
QuickBooks Online is a SaaS version of the QuickBooks product. It contains all of the features found in the local version. Higher-priced plans include greater automation, payment management, inventory and time tracking, and analytics features.
$15
per month
Pricing
Brightpearl by SageQuickBooks Online
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Self-Employed
$15
per month
Simple Start
$25
per month
Plus
$75
per month
Advanced
$150
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BrightpearlQuickBooks Online
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsBrightpearl is for merchants trading $1M or above, or those that expect to be in the next 12 months. Pricing is designed to suit the needs of fast-growth and larger merchants.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Brightpearl by SageQuickBooks Online
Considered Both Products
Brightpearl
Chose Brightpearl by Sage
[Brightpearl is] The worst.
Chose Brightpearl by Sage
We liked Brightpearl because of its retail-centric orientation and ease of use.
Chose Brightpearl by Sage
QuickBooks is better for basic accounting but does necessarily have a strong third party inventory management connection.
Chose Brightpearl by Sage
We did not get to use QuickBooks, because Brightpearl seemed to be a good fit for what we needed.
Chose Brightpearl by Sage
More robust and the ability to have multiple sales channels more streamlined. Better reporting.
QuickBooks Online

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Brightpearl by SageQuickBooks Online
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
3.1
78 Ratings
83% below category average
Pay calculation00 Ratings4.269 Ratings
Benefit plan administration00 Ratings3.732 Ratings
Direct deposit files00 Ratings4.765 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings1.744 Ratings
Reimbursement management00 Ratings1.446 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
2.6
68 Ratings
92% below category average
API for custom integration00 Ratings1.354 Ratings
Plug-ins00 Ratings3.857 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
3.7
108 Ratings
72% below category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings3.081 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings4.5102 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
5.4
132 Ratings
34% below category average
Dashboards00 Ratings4.7124 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings5.4128 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings6.0116 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
3.8
143 Ratings
64% below category average
Accounts payable00 Ratings5.4122 Ratings
Accounts receivable00 Ratings6.0131 Ratings
Cash management00 Ratings6.2120 Ratings
Bank reconciliation00 Ratings6.3137 Ratings
Expense management00 Ratings5.5123 Ratings
Time tracking00 Ratings1.856 Ratings
Fixed asset management00 Ratings5.353 Ratings
Multi-currency support00 Ratings1.423 Ratings
Multi-division support00 Ratings1.542 Ratings
Regulations compliance00 Ratings1.738 Ratings
Electronic tax filing00 Ratings5.266 Ratings
Self-service portal00 Ratings2.666 Ratings
Global Financial Support00 Ratings1.416 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers00 Ratings3.535 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting00 Ratings4.929 Ratings
Localizations00 Ratings4.121 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations00 Ratings5.274 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting00 Ratings1.825 Ratings
Configurable Accounting00 Ratings2.138 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework00 Ratings2.924 Ratings
Standardized Processes00 Ratings4.048 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
1.3
47 Ratings
138% below category average
Inventory tracking00 Ratings1.345 Ratings
Automatic reordering00 Ratings1.222 Ratings
Location management00 Ratings1.321 Ratings
Manufacturing module00 Ratings1.317 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
3.7
86 Ratings
67% below category average
Pricing00 Ratings4.755 Ratings
Order entry00 Ratings4.753 Ratings
Credit card processing00 Ratings2.463 Ratings
Cost of goods sold00 Ratings3.968 Ratings
Order Orchestration00 Ratings4.621 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility00 Ratings4.620 Ratings
Order exception Resolution00 Ratings1.218 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Brightpearl by SageQuickBooks Online
Small Businesses
Lightspeed Retail
Lightspeed Retail
Score 6.2 out of 10
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Epicor Eagle
Epicor Eagle
Score 8.3 out of 10
Accounting Seed
Accounting Seed
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 8.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
Brightpearl by SageQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(158 ratings)
4.2
(161 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(12 ratings)
2.5
(24 ratings)
Usability
4.7
(8 ratings)
4.1
(76 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
2.1
(5 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
1.1
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(135 ratings)
2.2
(68 ratings)
In-Person Training
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.5
(104 ratings)
3.0
(6 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(1 ratings)
1.4
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.9
(5 ratings)
1.1
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
1.1
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
1.1
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Brightpearl by SageQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl is very well suited for small-medium companies that are growing quickly and need a way to improve their operational systems and functionality to handle increasing volume of orders. Particularly if you use multiple SKUs, sales channels, and/or warehouses, the features offered by Brightpearl are excellently well suited to handle these types of needs. I don't believe Brightpearl would be very applicable for very small companies with a small number of SKUs, as many of the features offered would be unnecessary and underutilized.
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Intuit
It seems Intuit is more interested in generating revenue than taking care of their customers. After only 28 (working) days using it, I've had to call for Help 23 times, and, in my experience, only spoken to 2 people who had an understanding of basic accounting practices and the ramifications of some of their suggested fixes on the General Ledger.
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Pros
Brightpearl by Sage
  • Brightpearl tracks order changes and communications very well. It documents all activity in a feed that anyone can see, including status changes, notes made, emails sent, etc.
  • Brightpearl makes it incredibly easy to find orders fitting certain criteria through the use of statuses that you can customize. For example, as a multichannel seller, we can easily create statuses for each channel that we sell from, where our orders will (oftentimes automatically) land in. We also deal often with things like back ordered items; we can also create statuses for certain brands, so that when we expect a shipment in from that company, our back order specialist can easily sort through her orders that are waiting on that shipment.
  • Brightpearl makes it easy to take orders over the phone. Everything I need is right there on one screen; not often do I find myself needing to deviate to other tabs. The steps I take (from "new order" to finish) are straightforward and understandable, and go in steps that make sense.
Read full review
Intuit
  • It enables me to do a P&L for each specific program as requested by the county for the grant money that they give us.
  • It enables me to do [an] organizational budget as well as a budget for each specific program
  • It enables the accountant and the auditor access at any time for transparency
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Cons
Brightpearl by Sage
  • Supports only a small number of marketplaces and in a limited way only. When I signed up with Brightpearl they claimed that you could list directly onto eBay from within Brightpearl but this turned out to be untrue as Brightpearl did not support eBay postage policies (eBay's semi literate way of saying shipping tables).
  • Not only can you not list directly onto eBay, you cannot list directly from within Brightpearl to any marketplaces whatsoever. With other software you can list directly to all the marketplaces they integrate with.
  • Brightpearl is abysmal at VAT. Brightpearl calculates VAT on Channel Islands and Canary Islands orders even though there is no Vat in either of them. So when you pay HMRC you will be paying them a bit extra unless you check all your orders which makes the software somewhat redundant.
  • When I signed up they advertised Brightpearl as the software to automate your online selling. But it didn't really do that. A couple of years later at considerable extra cost they released an add-on app called Brightpearl Automation that does seem to deliver on automation. However other software offers that at no extra cost.
  • Brightpearl claims that it integrates with Amazon, but this is only partially true as they have completely ignored the new marketplaces that Amazon have opened. If you list on those marketplaces you have to input the orders manually and Brightpearl will not update the stock, putting you at risk of negative feedback. Other software integrates fully with all Amazon marketplaces.
  • Now that I am leaving it was suggested that I might benefit from read-only access so that we could easily double check things like warranty claims. They offered me a year's read-only access for £10,080 which is more than double my yearly contract for full use of the software. Now, if that isn't taking the mickey, I don't know what is!!!
Read full review
Intuit
  • The budgets feature leaves a lot be desired - difficult and clunky to populate and maintain.
  • Reporting for Budget vs Actual is available but the ability to reforecast based on updated data is not.
  • The rules function to default common types of expenses isn't perfect and will get confused if like amounts or a number of similar items present.
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Likelihood to Renew
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl has proved to work out for our company and we have no need or intention to let it go. Rather we intend to build on what we've accomplished and it will no doubt help us scale our business and meet our ambitions.
Read full review
Intuit
It like the product 'right out of the box' and I trust Intuit will continually improve it over the years based on my experience with their desktop products. The large providers of Apps makes customizing the entire package relatively easy and seamless for a wide variety of business types.
Read full review
Usability
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl can be a little confusing to begin with, there are a lot of options to look through and working out the intricacies takes some time depending on what you would like to be able to do on it and what your account is set up to do. It is however very thorough and once you can work your way around it most of the functions are fairly simple to use and very detailed.
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Intuit
While QuickBooks Online is generally easy to navigate, there are some features and functions that often require a Google search in order to find out where they are actually hidden. Additionally, there are some simple customization features that are surprisingly not available for an otherwise advanced program (e.g. only having a pool of 4 fonts to choose from, only having 4 very limited templates for invoicing, not color selection, etc). While I would say that about 75% of users shouldn't have a problem finding their way around with basic functions, there is a learning curve if you want to be able to dive into some of the more useful features, almost to the point that you need to have a dedicated account manager in order to use QuickBooks Online most effectively.
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Reliability and Availability
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl is always easily accessibly anywhere that you can find an internet source. I have checked our stock levels when we have been off site at Ham Rally's at home and on my way home or to work if needs be. That is probably one of the best features of this system.
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Intuit
We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.
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Performance
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl performs very well and integrates very well with our Metapak packing and despatch system. IT also intergrates very well with Amazon and we have used Ebay although there have been complications with Ebay and stock levels. We use Ebay mostly for second hand items of which we only have one so have skipped using Brighpearl for these products.
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Intuit
There are tab issues. When I tab the field doesn't highlight and I have to backspace or delete what is in the field. Happens on the memo field and sometimes other fields. Very time consuming.
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Support Rating
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl was ALWAYS great at responding to us. Their customer service was quick and responsive. Unfortunately, the responses were often that "engineers were working on it" but nothing seemed to ever come of that. I realize that Brightpearl is a large company that a lot of businesses rely on. But when you can't hit "enter" when trying to search in the front-end POS, that type of behavior should be changed very quickly and it never was. Admittedly, small things, but those annoyances tend to ultimately affect the overall experience.
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Intuit
Support is great, all incidents been resolved. Quickbooks Online forum is very well organized and helpful. I like the fact that they let the community contribute in resolving issues. Most or many of your answers can be found online. You can also get help on YouTube, but the easiest way to get assistance is through their chat system.
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In-Person Training
Brightpearl by Sage
No in house training was given.
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Intuit
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Brightpearl by Sage
The online training was very helpful in the areas we were shown and was implemented very well via a Skype call and an presentation done via the internet. However it was not thorough enough for all of our needs in certain areas. More training in person on site would have been very helpful.
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Intuit
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Brightpearl by Sage
Implementation was generally perfect, but if you are coming across from Sage I personally would recommend doing this as baby steps.
We tried to import our entire Sage history in one batch and that was a bad idea hence the 9/10. That was mainly our fault and nothing on Brightpearl.
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Intuit
The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations
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Alternatives Considered
Brightpearl by Sage
Initially we went with Brightpearl because it was an all in one solution. Salesforce CRM capabilities right out of the box far surpass Brightpearl's, but there's no inventory or accounting system pre-built in. We are currently moving away from Brightpearl for both CRM and accounting functions however.
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Intuit
I have used Wave Accounting for another business. I selected QuickBooks Online over Wave because of the features available from QuickBooks. Wave is great since it is free, but I feel that paying for QuickBooks Online is worth it for the features. In addition there is such a robust support network and training available for QuickBooks.
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Scalability
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl's ability to increase or expand its capacity and retain its performance levels to accommodate growth were acceptable but not fantastic. The program was constantly making changes which can be useful, but was also confusing & hard to keep up with since we were never updated that changes were about to be made or had been made.
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Intuit
As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere
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Return on Investment
Brightpearl by Sage
  • It's really difficult to say. While everything is now in one place, we've spent a ton of time with support and figuring things out on our own.
  • We've also had to spend a ton of money with our CPAs fixing our financials every month.
  • However, the sales piece has streamlined our process for shipping orders out in a timely basis.
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Intuit
  • It has created a lot of cost and in-efficiency whenever we need to talk to support.
  • I spent a lot of time setting up their automatic reminders for past due invoices and it worked for a couple of months and then it stopped. It's currently being worked on by their tech team but it has been months and it is still not working. It would have saved me a lot of time.
  • Their multi-currency saves time in sending invoices abroad but it's limiting when a customer wants an invoice in USD instead of a foreign currency so I have to set up different customer accounts for different currencies.
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ScreenShots

Brightpearl Screenshots

Screenshot of Customer timeline giving you insight into pending orders, previous purchases and potential marketing opportunitiesScreenshot of Deep insight in your customers, product and sales channel through Brightpearl's Minubo integrationScreenshot of Fully integrated POS for access to all product inventory information at the tillScreenshot of Managing suppliers and purchasing inventory is quick and easy, says the vendorScreenshot of Provide top-notch service by having access to your customers’ full interaction history and personalize your marketing communication with product-interest tagging.Screenshot of Brightpearl’s flexible inventory management has all of the features you need to stay in control of your inventory and make fast, effective business decisions. Redistribute your staff towards growth strategies and reduce the time spent on costly admin overheads.