FreeAgent vs. Sage Intacct

For micro and small business it is a great solution. The new requirements for MTD for landlords could also be met with this software. Groups and more complex businesses could not use the accounts and tax returns features, however they still could use it for bookkeeping and then export the data to other tax and accounts production software.

It depends on the scale and nature of the organisation, but for a business like ours, i.e. a medium sized business with several entities operating in more than one location with different currencies, I think it is a very good fit. It is relatively easy to get to grips with and provides a good level of functionality.

Incentivized

• Recurring invoices with automated follow-up is fantastic for helping to get paid on time
• Automated bank transfers are the easiest way to ensure that I can reconcile my accounts with ease
• Support is fantastic
• Built-in Time tracking for projects/tasks (integration with Basecamp to get this info) is fantastic, it allows us to accurately track what we are working on and get paid for it!

• Custom, real-time financial reporting. I am able to streamline my reporting to pull in various account groups and calculations which save me time from having to do it in Excel.
• Out of the box standard reports for clients who don't require as custom of reporting or even as a great starting point to build out reports.
• Integrations with other platforms, such as Airbase, various banks, Rippling, etc.
• The dashboard module is extremely helpful in my monthly review of various entities.

Incentivized

• Reporting on financials, time tracking and project status is a little poor. It's adequate for what what we need, but would be great to see more advanced features.
• API is quite closed so cannot integrate with our other project management tools.

Incentivized

• The budgeting module is archaic. It needs to have more application features, including tracking changes made throughout the year.
• The creation of reports is complicated and lacks sufficient filtering options during the process.
• The Purchasing module should be more flexible, allowing users to add change orders to an existing PO rather than creating a new one.

Incentivized

We have used Freeagent for many years now and it serves us well for our needs. To change it would mean a lot of work, and this would most likely only happen if the cost became prohibitive to us.

Incentivized

Sage Intacct continues to well-satisfy our needs and is an easy-to-use product. Service reliability has been excellent. The ability to integrate Sage Intacct with best-in-class companion products that handle expense reporting, budgeting, etc... makes Sage Intacct an excellent value. We continue to be extremely well-satisfied with the results and performance of our experience using Sage Intacct.

Incentivized

It is a great software that does everything we need for small business clients. It allows to keep the books in a cloud from bookkeeping to accounts production and tax returns, all in one software. There are no major drawbacks and I would highly recommend it for most of our clients.

Incentivized

The ease of use as a seasoned user is wonderful; however, new users struggle to adapt to the program efficiently. Better training videos--all in one location--would be beneficial. The use of a "sandbox" environment is a great tool for new employees or for the fiscal department to test certain journal entries or other transactions to verify accuracy of data.

Incentivized

Based in a cloud and never had any issues with down time. I can access from any device

There has only been one occurrence where Sage Intacct was not available to me, however I had already been working a number of hours trying to get a project completed. It honestly allowed me to step back and take a much needed break.

Incentivized

As fas as integration is concerned I don't feel this slows Sage Intacct down at all. However, sometimes I do feel it takes some larger reports more time to load due to all the detail. As well as, I "move very fast" in my motions so sometimes I double click on fuctions too quickly and the system seems to think that I have a duplicate request.

Incentivized

I have never personally used support

Incentivized

Only a few times have we had to reach out to support, and every time we did, we received a relatively quick response and a solution was found fairly quickly. Only once was there an issue that took longer than a week to resolve, but it still did eventually get solved.

Incentivized

I have taken in person training classes at several of the annual Sage Intacct user conferences. It is very interactive and the trainers are very easy to follow and understand. They are great at getting everyone in the class involved. They also make sure everyone has learned to task before moving to a new one.

Incentivized

The free training is very minimal. For what we pay for the service, I would like more training. We end up training new users in-house because the provided free training is not nearly comprehensive enough. That being said, the training provided, for the material covered, was adequate and relevant for the given topics.

Incentivized

Did not participate

Incentivized

I would not use a thrid party administrator to implement your system, especially if you are going to be modifying the system at all. Use Intacct implementors as they will be able to better support you on any issues that come up after you go live.

Incentivized

I used Fresh Books for about three years prior to switching to FreeAgent. It was the accounting functionality that made the difference - in the past two years I've not regretted the switch. Fresh Books is good, but its the UK accounting features that make FreeAgent indispensable to my business.

We felt the 2nd best alternative to Sage Intacct was Aplos, then Blackbaud. However, there were some issues: > Overall functionality - All of our initial business requirements were fully met with Sage Intacct, which was mostly similar to other offerings. Where Sage Intacct distinguished itself was in its business model, what we would end up with after implementation that would stream-line our organization. > Open architecture - APIs for our other specific software tools were already part of Sage Intacct and others did not have the robust existing offerings and did not make clear how we would build such hooks. > Pricing - Sage Intacct ended up the best price, with the software and implementation support bundled into one annual price. Our multi-year agreement was also the best price, through negotiations / iterations. > References - We contacted references for each vendor in consideration. Church/non-profit Sage Intacct users spoke and understood "our language" and were incredibly positive about their experience with Sage Intacct. References provided by other vendors missed the mark in terms of a business match, which doesn't bode well if those are what is offered.

Incentivized

There is so much that we have yet to learn with and about Sage Intacct, I am excited for the future.

Incentivized

• Has freed up a lot of time based on my previous system of managing my invoicing and accounts through Word and Excel
• I have an accurate day to day handle on the financial position of my business so I can manage my cashflow better
• The inbuilt time recording against projects has saved time in creating the invoices but also tracks my profitability on the work I do

Incentivized

• Positive - It runs better than our old software when we all work together, rather than having to sign off on each other and deal with syncing issues.
• Negative - It's not as easy to go back to fix an amount, a date, etc. Sometimes, a very small mistake needs to be corrected by voiding and redoing the entire transaction.
• We can successfully sync other software we use with Intacct! It reduces workload when things are automated.

Incentivized