QuickBooks Online vs. Sage Accounting

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.

Incentivized

VAT returns are so simple to do. Just a click of a button and it produces a report for the period in concern. Submitting the return is then just a single click. The only thing I wish it would do is remind me when my VAT submissions are coming up so that I can avoid penalties.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• Traceability - where you are spending. I started with a spreadsheet which had a column for 'electronics & computing' this captured everything from monthly software subscriptions to hardware and from light bulbs to dash cams. Sage has helped me streamline the spending.
• MTD - I am MTD compliant, although I do not need to be as my accountant is and they complete my HMRC submissions. It does mean that I have a contingency plan if I have to change this service.
• Debtor's - It is easy to be a busy fool and not realise that accounts are overdue. For a small business, the restriction in cash flow due to late paying clients is a killer. The dashboard feature helps with this.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• I find it difficult to record journals in cloud accounting. Maybe I just don’t have the knowledge.
• It’s important to export all unrecorded sync bank transactions to Excel to send to clients to explain the payment receipts before being posted. This function is not available on the cloud and makes life harder, having to call out the transactions to clients over the phone.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I could not live without Sage Accounting, it has become an integral part of my everyday. The more I have used Sage Accounting the more I have fallen in love with it. I am excited to be part of this ever-evolving accounting system that has grown from strength to strength, making life easier is something Sage does so well.

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.

Incentivized

Sage Accounting is built for the business owner/user and not the accountant, it therefore guides the user and thus detailed accounting knowledge and experience is not a necessarily a prerequisite . It offers a monthly price and therefore no significant up front spend and it tailorable to your business with useful dashboards that again you can tailor to instantly see what's important to you.

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.

Incentivized

Sage Accounting availability is generally very good. They post messages which appear on users screen time to time, highlighting where functionality in a particular area is undergoing maintenance. More often than not, maintenance is completed in a timescale quicker than initially estimated by Sage. Where significant maintenance is required, Sage usually perform it overnight.

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.

Incentivized

Sage Accounting work quickly and performs well, I have never had an issue with it running slow. It integrates with other software swiftly, so no waiting for the screen to load. Error messages are only something I have had when I have done something wrong.

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.

The support is world class - never ever during 30 plus years in business I have received such helpful, knowledgeable and genuine support as I have from Sage. At Sage people matter and i can chat to someone safe in the knowledge that they will actually listen and assist. This also backed up by huge online portfolio of help and resources

Staff are always friendly, and patient, always work at a speed that suits you. You are never rushed, and In only a short time they seem to be able to help you make great strides. It has been a pleasure not a chore, learning how SAGE Accounting works and benefits me and the company.

I find the online training was very informative and they answered all my questions. I am also certified in Sage One and provided online training in the program which I have set up several people on and they love how it keeps them organized.

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

Incentivized

The clients' business owner worked with Sage on implementation before I began working for them. After consultation with them it is clear the process was quickly performed and without complication. The key takeaway was that Sage is seen as a partner to the business. That said, it was always necessary to engage with an accountant such as myself to extract the best out of the software.

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.

Incentivized

Sage Accounting is a simpler, more streamlined version of the more complex Sage 50cloud Accounting. For a small, simpler company Sage Accounting is a much more cost-effective option. There are a few features that Sage 50cloud Accounting has that Sage Accounting does not have (such as making e-payments and a few reports are unavailable) but it is still a very good product.

The pricing structure is fair and offers good value for money. The billing is done through their online system and you can access your bills at any time. Most contacts only require 30 days' notice, so no need to feel tied in, although I can't imagine why you would want to leave Sage.

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

Incentivized

I do not consider Sage Accounting to be Sage's best product for scaling up business as its functionality for doing so is limited. Sage 50 Accounts or Sage Intaact are far more suited for this. I would evaluate very carefully the possible need in the future for scalability in the first instance before selecting software.

Sage has always been extremely professional, and they continue to be professional in their dealings with me.

• 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.

• Sage One has allowed us to provided better customer service to all our clients. It has allowed us to provide a reasonable price accounting product to our customer who typically just have handwritten invoices, or Excel spreadsheets.
• Sage One has reduced the manual data entry that my team does on a monthly basis, which in turn allows us to have more time for our customers.