FreshBooks vs. Sage 50cloud Accounting

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
FreshBooks
Score 6.3 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
FreshBooks is an accounting service for small businesses. The solution enables users to send and manage invoices, track billable time and collect online payments. The vendor’s value proposition this that their solution provides a straightforward service that simplifies the billing process.
$15
per month
Sage 50cloud Accounting
Score 7.7 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Sage 50cloud Accounting (formerly Sage 50 Accounting) is accounting software designed for small businesses. Sage 50cloud Accounting (formerly Sage 50, and formerly Peachtree) lets businesses invoice customers, pay bills, manage inventory, control costs, and pay employees. The solution includes high-level dashboards and in-depth reports.
$299
per year
Pricing
FreshBooksSage 50cloud Accounting
Editions & Modules
Lite
$15
per month
Plus
$30
per month
Premium
$55
per month
Select
Custom Pricing
Sage 50 Pro Accounting
$299
per year
Sage 50 Premium Accounting
$449
per year
Sage 50 Quantum Accounting 3 User
Starting at $1,499
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreshBooksSage 50cloud Accounting
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAnnual traditional plan with license, monthly, and annual subscription plans available.
More Pricing Information
Features
FreshBooksSage 50cloud Accounting
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
FreshBooks
1.2
32 Ratings
142% below category average
Sage 50cloud Accounting
9.0
10 Ratings
24% above category average
API for custom integration1.327 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Plug-ins1.223 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
FreshBooks
6.4
38 Ratings
20% below category average
Sage 50cloud Accounting
9.0
19 Ratings
14% above category average
Single sign-on capability10.01 Ratings9.017 Ratings
Role-based user permissions2.938 Ratings9.017 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
FreshBooks
4.5
52 Ratings
51% below category average
Sage 50cloud Accounting
9.0
21 Ratings
17% above category average
Dashboards4.652 Ratings9.020 Ratings
Standard reports4.150 Ratings9.021 Ratings
Custom reports4.82 Ratings9.020 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
FreshBooks
4.7
51 Ratings
45% below category average
Sage 50cloud Accounting
8.7
24 Ratings
16% above category average
Accounts payable1.236 Ratings9.023 Ratings
Accounts receivable2.650 Ratings9.022 Ratings
Cash management7.03 Ratings9.022 Ratings
Bank reconciliation7.02 Ratings9.022 Ratings
Expense management3.146 Ratings9.022 Ratings
Time tracking3.739 Ratings9.012 Ratings
Multi-currency support7.01 Ratings8.910 Ratings
Regulations compliance1.218 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Self-service portal9.13 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Fixed asset management00 Ratings9.013 Ratings
Multi-division support00 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Electronic tax filing00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Global Financial Support00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting00 Ratings9.06 Ratings
Localizations00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations00 Ratings9.011 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting00 Ratings9.06 Ratings
Configurable Accounting00 Ratings9.06 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework00 Ratings7.44 Ratings
Standardized Processes00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
FreshBooks
3.9
44 Ratings
62% below category average
Sage 50cloud Accounting
8.4
17 Ratings
12% above category average
Pricing2.434 Ratings9.014 Ratings
Order entry1.334 Ratings9.016 Ratings
Credit card processing2.136 Ratings9.011 Ratings
Cost of goods sold10.01 Ratings9.015 Ratings
Order Orchestration00 Ratings7.85 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility00 Ratings7.45 Ratings
Order exception Resolution00 Ratings7.85 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
FreshBooks
-
Ratings
Sage 50cloud Accounting
9.0
14 Ratings
18% above category average
Pay calculation00 Ratings9.014 Ratings
Benefit plan administration00 Ratings9.011 Ratings
Direct deposit files00 Ratings9.011 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings9.013 Ratings
Reimbursement management00 Ratings9.013 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
FreshBooks
-
Ratings
Sage 50cloud Accounting
9.0
16 Ratings
25% above category average
Inventory tracking00 Ratings9.016 Ratings
Automatic reordering00 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Location management00 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Manufacturing module00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FreshBooksSage 50cloud Accounting
Small Businesses
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Accounting Seed
Accounting Seed
Score 8.3 out of 10
Accounting Seed
Accounting Seed
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 8.2 out of 10
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 8.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreshBooksSage 50cloud Accounting
Likelihood to Recommend
1.4
(70 ratings)
9.0
(34 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.6
(18 ratings)
9.6
(12 ratings)
Usability
4.8
(15 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
4.6
(11 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreshBooksSage 50cloud Accounting
Likelihood to Recommend
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is the perfect tool for businesses who have hundreds of clients and customers whom they invoice regularly. It removes the need to manually send invoices to clients and customers, by streamlining inputted information to create an automated invoicing system which keeps clients and customers up to date with their bills. It is also a great tool for managing expenses, especially for companies with different teams working on varying projects, ensuring these teams do not exceed the budget ceiling.
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Sage
Sage is great for portability and exchange with external accountants as it is widely used and people will be able to read your data in. It's a very good and complete solution for a little business where one person can handle all of the accounting. I doubt that it scales well to large companies with several in-house accountants working at the same time.
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Pros
FreshBooks
  • FreshBooks is pretty intuitive to use. I did have some questions when I first started using the system, but it wasn't a long learning curve.
  • FreshBooks provides more capability than other billing applications such as PaySimple or BlinkSale. FreshBooks does provide an easy invoicing function. It's easy to create invoices that can be sent via email or snail mail to one or more individuals (for example, the decision-maker and the accounting dept). Clients can pay online or send a check and then I note that the payment has been received. If paid by credit card, the system automatically marks the invoice paid. Your business accounts such as bank accounts can be linked to FreshBooks. Then, the system can automatically draw in expenses and will create simple P&L reports, overdue invoices, client history, etc. If you don't have inventory and complex payroll, etc. FreshBooks provides just the right level of capability to make financial tracking simple.
  • FreshBooks integrates with a number of credit card companies. I use Stripe, which has fees similar to Paypal, but much more reliable processing. I can accept all credit cards, including American Express, for a reasonable fee.
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Sage
  • It has the capability of "Single Click" processes that allows you to turn Quotes into orders, instant invoicing and track A/R in the Order Screen
  • I can email Sales Orders directly to my Customer and also remind them of past due from a single screen. I can track Project, Closeouts, Over Seas order by setting up Jobs and clicking the job name in Order Entry.
  • You can use recurring entries and copy and paste on the P&L, using masking for department reporting and budgeting
  • You can use the BI feature and export into Excel in Pivot format and utilize Timeline and Slicer to see the company overall performance by months, day or years
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Cons
FreshBooks
  • I can brand invoices with my business logo, but I might like to change colours of the invoices themselves to match the rest of my business documents. That isn't a major point at all, but it's something that I'd like to see.
  • Freshbooks doesn't remember the categories that similar expenses were previously assigned to. It would be nice if Freshbooks would suggest a category for an already saved vendor, to ensure the consistency of expense reporting.
  • The home page of a Freshbooks account has a great graph display of expenses and income, but it only shows the last 6 months. This is still very useful, but I'd like to be able to see this kind of graph for different periods of time.
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Sage
  • Sage 50 could use some improvement in the Invoicing Module to allow for more flexibility in the design of the Invoice fields. The report customization tools could use some upgrading for easier use.
  • Fixed assets management module needs to be included with unlimited number of fixed assets.
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Likelihood to Renew
FreshBooks
At the current needs of our business, FreshBooks suits us perfectly - it allows online access by our accountant to the system for GST purposes, easy input of expenses and tracking of Profit and Loss statements. FreshBooks customer service is great as well - very understanding and accommodating.
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Sage
I use this rating simply because I have a thriving Sage 50 consulting practice and will continue to keep my expertise in the product. I have consulted on both Sage 50 and QuickBooks for over 25 years so I have to maintain expertise in the solution as well as accounting and verticals.
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Usability
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is very easy to use even for novices. If you're looking for an online accounting software that is full of features, has great aesthetics and is user-friendly, then this is definitely the software for you. I've been using it for several years now and despite being tempted to switch by other vendors, I like the feel of FreshBooks and it's mobile features.
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Sage
Sage delivers what it promises. The whole accounting package is user friendly and can be easily picked up by a novice. The support is second to none. They always keep us abreast of new technologies and/or changes to accounting that would impact us. The range of reports fits both small and large companies.,
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Reliability and Availability
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is easy to use and always works!
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Sage
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
FreshBooks
I think the support level for FreshBooks is on par with a 6 because the folks behind this application do a fairly good job at providing support for their customer base. I still don't think they are at an elite level when it comes to supporting but are getting there although too slow in my opinion.
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Sage
Although I have only needed to call tech support on three occasions through out the entire time of usage, each time my problem was quickly resolved by people who were obviously well trained and easy to understand. Sage 50 Premium Accounting is a reliable and "bug-free" product that is regularly improved upon.
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Implementation Rating
FreshBooks
I haven't changed my mind since my first evaluation. Freshbooks is still meeting my needs, easy to use, etc.
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Sage
Sage 50 is a strong accounting software package. It will work efficiently if it is installed correctly. If one puts garbage in, one will get garbage out. Also it is important to train the staff to use Sage 50 properly. It is also important to set up security for each user.
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Alternatives Considered
FreshBooks
We do not consider other options since our client wants the implementation of this platform in order to use it in the two countries where it has operations.

At the moment, full integration was not possible and we still share the information with a Mexican system to complete everything necessary.
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Sage
As we did the conversion almost 10 years ago it is hard to answer this question. At the time it was the ease of being able to produce both cash and accrual financial statements and reporting that led us to pick Sage
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Scalability
FreshBooks
No answers on this topic
Sage
I define scalable from two perspectives; 1) the scalability to handle more bookkeepers/accountants using the product, and 2) the scalability to handle increasing customer/vendor/employee and transactional data. Sage 50 does a good job on both fronts. From the single users operating a micro-business accounting for customer invoices and bill payments only, to the multi-staff, multi-location, multi-departmental complex transactional operation. Although Sage 50 is quite expensive for that smallest user, it is quite inexpensive for the larger business entity. So, for the new enterprise expecting rapid growth, Sage 50 is the application of choice.
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Return on Investment
FreshBooks
  • Freshbooks saves me time compared to when I managed to invoice without an app.
  • Freshbooks make keeping my invoices organized which saves me time.
  • Freshbooks helps me to know who is late on payments. When I was doing this by hand, some invoices would get lost in the clutter and I would not find out I haven't been paid until much later.
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Sage
  • Sage definitely needs to do a better job with customer service. I have had to use them only a handful of times and it was not a great experience but not the worse I've seen. They didn't make us a priority and I felt that they didn't have a sense of urgency. They did address my lack of satisfaction and I can see that they are at least aware of the issues and they are trying to correct them.
  • Sage is exactly what we need in my current organization and I wouldn't change it for another system. I have used quite a few in my lifetime and I would say that it fits our needs.
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ScreenShots

FreshBooks Screenshots

Screenshot of DashboardScreenshot of Invoice OverviewScreenshot of Beautiful, Customizable InvoicesScreenshot of Invoice seamlessly across devicesScreenshot of ExpensesScreenshot of Time Tracking