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Sage 50cloud Accounting

Sage 50cloud Accounting
Formerly Sage 50 Accounting

Overview

What is Sage 50cloud Accounting?

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…

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Recent Reviews

Sage 50 is nifty!

10 out of 10
March 03, 2020
Incentivized
My office uses Sage 50cloud Accounting (formerly Sage 50 Accounting) every day for our business and invoicing needs. We do our A/P, A/R, …
Continue reading

Stay Away From Sage

1 out of 10
February 22, 2020
Incentivized
We initially picked Sage (back in 2011) to help us track inventory-level COGs. As a manufacturer, it's necessary to match revenues and …
Continue reading

Great software!

9 out of 10
January 28, 2020
Incentivized
We use Sage 50 throughout our company in the U.S. We use it for general accounting purposes as well as reporting. We do not utilize the …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 44 features
  • Bank reconciliation (22)
    9.0
    90%
  • Accounts payable (23)
    9.0
    90%
  • Accounts receivable (22)
    9.0
    90%
  • Cash management (22)
    9.0
    90%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
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Pricing

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Sage 50 Pro Accounting

$299

On Premise
per year

Sage 50 Premium Accounting

$449

On Premise
per year

Sage 50 Quantum Accounting 3 User

Starting at $1,499

On Premise
per year

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Features

Payroll Management

Provides for pay calculation and benefit plan administration, in addition to managing direct deposit, salary revisions and payroll tracking.

9
Avg 7.5

Customization

This addresses a company’s ability to configure the software to fit its specific use case and workflow.

9
Avg 7.0

Security

This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.

9
Avg 7.9

Reporting & Analytics

Users can report on and analyze usage, performance, ROI, and/or other metrics of success.

9
Avg 7.6

General Ledger and Configurable Accounting

Financial management solution, including capabilities for general ledger and configurable accounting

8.7
Avg 7.4

Inventory Management

The ability to track and manage the flow of goods or materials into and out of an inventory.

9
Avg 7.0

Order Management

The ability to process orders, and track them from quote to cash.

8.4
Avg 7.4
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Product Details

What is Sage 50cloud Accounting?

Sage 50cloud Accounting (formerly Sage 50 Accounting, and formerly Peachtree), is an accounting software designed for small businesses. Sage 50cloud Accounting includes expense management, payroll, reporting, invoicing, and sales optimization features. It also enables cloud backup and integration with Microsoft Office Premium. The product can also integrate with other Sage products, including Payroll and Payment Solutions. It is sold on an annual or monthly basis.

Sage 50cloud Accounting Features

  • Supported: Get paid fast. Create quotes and sales orders, invoice customers and make sure they pay on time. Process credit cards to get paid even faster.
  • Supported: Keep control of expenses. Record bills, write checks and keep track of credits and returns. Analyze vendors to negotiate the best prices and reduce costs.
  • Supported: Be smart about managing money. Forecast cash needs now and into the future. Run ñwhat ifî scenarios and adjust cash in and cash out to cover upcoming expenses.
  • Supported: Plan and track inventory. Keep track of on-hands, issue automatic POs when inventory drops, and track performance of products and services.
  • Supported: Manage jobs and projects. Break large jobs into phases, tracks costs by the phase and cost code, and bill as the job progresses.
  • Supported: Add more users and controls whenever your growing business is ready.

Sage 50cloud Accounting Integrations

Sage 50cloud Accounting Competitors

Sage 50cloud Accounting Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS
Supported CountriesUnited States of America
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Priority AccountEdge are common alternatives for Sage 50cloud Accounting.

Reviewers rate Pay calculation and Benefit plan administration and Direct deposit files highest, with a score of 9.

The most common users of Sage 50cloud Accounting are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).

Sage 50cloud Accounting Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)90%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)10%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)0%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(151)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 34)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Sage 50Cloud Accounting is used on a daily basis to manage our company's finances for accounting and payroll. The system is user friendly and enables us to drive the business forward with having access to up to date and precise reports. Sage enables us to have a clear overview of the company's current financial state.
  • Invoicing
  • Reporting
  • Forecasting
  • More user ability to amend templates
  • Clearer help on the more complicated tasks
  • Differing levels of reports for users who are from non-accounting backgrounds
Sage enables us to get paid quicker by the use of their PAY NOW Button facility. The ability to duplicate invoices or use the recurring invoice section is time saving for our regular clients who are on renewals. The reports can be amended to reflect the information we require for different departments.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Sage for all out JE's for our organization. It is the foundation of our accounting and impacts every aspect of our business. It's critical to maintain integrity in our accounting and finance departments so we rely on it. It meets our every need from building out our chart of accounts to booking entries.
  • Updates JE fairly quickly
  • Reporting tools work really well
  • I can't think of anything, this product meets all our needs
We are a public company and we are required to maintain preparer and reviewer controls for SOX compliance. Sage allows us to create these checks and balances not only in the user access levels but also in customizing the access types. We recommend this accounting software to all industries and company sizes.
Priya Sadasivam | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for all accounting purposes. To record our time-keeping and submitting expense reports.
It serves as one tool and go to place for both time cards, expenses and access of both.
  • One stop tool
  • Less clicks and ease of access, website is user friendly
  • Simplicity to review for accounting details, everything is available for the profile on a single page
  • Dont see anything for now
Can be used for extreme accounting methods, access to a profile when they've updated their details. You can set up notifications as such to remind you of deadlines
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use sage 50 in our smaller or less complicated business. It addresses the need for a simple, well known system that we can implement quickly.
  • Simple and straightforward to use
  • Common system so many people are already familiar with it
  • Allows remote access
  • Remote access can sometimes fall over
  • Help desk has very long wait times
  • Stock is not integrated automatically into p&l
It is very well suited to slightly lower volumes of transactions in simpler businesses. It does not cope with more complex requirements such as p&l by customer. Remote access from sage drive is also good where people work in different locations
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Sage 50 Accounting is being used by our entire accounting team consisting of AP, AR, and our outside accountants. We have a total of 5 users. We use it for a variety of tasks such as payables, receivables and general audits.
  • Easy invoice entry - with a few clicks you can enter an invoice for payment and then find it when it's time to pay.
  • Easy reporting - finding financial reports is quick, easy, and accurate!
  • Printing checks is simple - you can do a batch payment in a matter of minutes.
  • Only checks can be received into Sage - credit card payments cannot be taken.
  • Entering a credit from a vendor or customer can be cumbersome.
For a small business, Sage is well-suited as it can handle a few hundred customers and accounts as things can be handled a lot more manually in Sage. However, if you were a big corporation, I don't believe Sage would be the best software for your accounting needs or wants.
March 03, 2020

Sage 50 is nifty!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My office uses Sage 50cloud Accounting (formerly Sage 50 Accounting) every day for our business and invoicing needs. We do our A/P, A/R, Banking, and all other business need using Sage 50cloud Accounting (formerly Sage 50 Accounting).
  • Easy to navigation
  • Easy to teach someone to use
  • It has lots of different screens to navigate through to get the correct info put in.
  • Maybe the cost for renewing license
  • I honestly love using Sage 50cloud Accounting (formerly Sage 50 Accounting).
  • I have used MAS90 in the past and have found that Sage 50cloud Accounting (formerly Sage 50 Accounting) is so much easier to use. I can quickly navigate to where I need to be for data entry and all other aspects of everyday business.
  • I have found that if I want to delete a customer that I will no longer use, I can't do that because once I invoice that customer, they stay in my system. If I only invoice one time, I cannot delete it.
Herm Harrison | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a small manufacturer and utilize Sage 50 across the organization for all accounting functions. AP, AR. GL, Inventory, etc. Sage 50 when properly implemented allows us to track costs, keep track of receivables and payables, employee records, and job cost. We do not utilize the cloud function as our database is too large.
  • Accounts payable.
  • Accounts receivable.
  • Better job costing.
  • Multiple dates for sales orders and purchase orders.
Sage 50cloud Accounting is a pretty good option for a small business. It has a robust feature set, but the cloud functionality is limited to a very small size, and only being able to edit data over a two year period is a shortcoming. Sage 50 bridges the gap between QuickBooks and a larger more robust manufacturing package.
February 22, 2020

Stay Away From Sage

Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We initially picked Sage (back in 2011) to help us track inventory-level COGs. As a manufacturer, it's necessary to match revenues and expenses, and using the manufacturing edition is the way to go. It's used across the whole organization.
  • It's a legacy system (we've been using it for 10 years now).
  • Bad customer service.
  • Buggy software. It's completely crashed 6 times in 6 months. We finally learned that it was because we were trying to use Dropbox. That was fine in the old, Sage legacy system we had, but when we 'upgraded' to 2020, it became highly unstable. We learned that it was unstable because Sage wants customers to use their cloud service and pay for what we have done for free for years (use dropbox to save our backups).
I would strongly recommend anything else but Sage. It's been the most awful experience ever.
January 28, 2020

Great software!

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Sage 50 throughout our company in the U.S. We use it for general accounting purposes as well as reporting. We do not utilize the payroll function because we use an outside firm for payroll. Sage 50 is user-friendly and easy to train new employees on using it.
  • Sage 50 provides great month-end reporting.
  • Easy to use interface.
  • Great layout of program.
  • Inventory Assemblies
  • Reporting to include any data needed
Sage 50 is a great program for us. It fits our accounting needs. It is user-friendly as well. We have three people that use it in our office and a person that uses it is Japan. It is great that we can export the data and send it between us.
Adrian Takacs | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We support many small and medium sized businesses that use Sage 50cloud Accounting, from older versions to the latest release. It is a complete accounting solution that makes it easy for businesses to manage their cash flows, to invoice and record their sales.
  • The product support and help you can find online is amazing.
  • Very simple and fast to navigate interface.
  • When it is crashing it is hard to find the root cause as the logs lack useful information.
  • More expensive than other products, making user more likely to stick with an older version of Sage.
Great and very powerful software if you are an experienced accountant. Robust and always improving.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Sage 50 is used by our entire church to take care of all the needs of the church. This includes entering all expenses and income, and also to produce payroll. This allows us to have a system in place to monitor our income and expenses and be able to report to the CRA and also to our church members how we are doing as a church financially.
  • Easy way to enter the income from church giving.
  • Very easy to manage and maintain all the expenses for the church and pay them and report on them.
  • Their good Payroll system makes it easy to pay employees.
  • It would be nice to be able to add departments and accounts without closing all the open windows. It's not a big deal, but sometimes when you are doing things it would be nice to keep a screen up.
I think that Sage 50 is suitable for most small businesses. The secure way you maintain the transactions by doing reversals and modifications means that you have a nice audit trail if it's ever needed. The system is fast and easy to use and you can manage it quite easily. It may not scale up for large uses, with the restrictions of having to close everything to create an account or department, but those functions could be scheduled for a specific time frame when all the users could be off the system, etc. Overall a very good product.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Sage 50 Accounting for our day to day accounting. We have a small consulting firm and not a whole lot of accounting needs. Sage allows us to track invoices and bills and consolidate the accounting with the bank statement. The use of Sage allows us fairly straight forward logging of the information that our external accountants need. Twice a year, we send them our Sage 50 Accounting info for review.
  • We can build "templates" for recurrent charges/invoices. This saves some time and also ensures that we always use the right accounting rubric.
  • A lot of additional information can be filled out such as client information (name, address, ...) which makes the software a little more complete.
  • If you don't need an updated version every year (my case) then the software is not too expensive. The pro version that I'm using was just a little over $300.
  • I really like the banking statement consolidation which allows you to ensure you got the right information registered.
  • The software uses a server service in addition to the software itself. Both of these are quite demanding on a lower end workstation. Most of the time, when booting up the PC, the server service would not start and I would have to start it manually. I changed the laptops main hard drive for an SSD one and didn't get any problems since. Just don't expect that software to be light, it's quite demanding on the system.
  • Not having an accounting background, I find myself often lost in the interface. I never know exactly where to input the information that I need to. To be fair, I would probably have the same problems with any accounting software.
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.
Jay Barwick | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Sage Accounting for managing all of our needs for the company. We manage our A/R and A/P, write checks and calculate our payroll. We do not use it for credit card payments or direct deposits. It has been a very good fit for our company for quite some time.
  • Manage general ledger accounts.
  • Manage A/P.
  • Provide in-depth reporting.
  • Manage balances on multiple purchase orders within a company.
  • Load time. The application itself is slow to load.
Ease of use and fast customer service/tech support make it well-suited to manage any size SMB.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is an accountant's type of accounting program. It helps me with financial reporting, payroll, billing, payables, credit card processing, etc. It makes it much easier to take care of our clients.
  • Financial statements that address the needs of government contracting, insurance audits, management.
  • Payroll interface with the online timesheet program simplifies payroll and gives me labor reports for billing and project reporting in an excel spreadsheet (from the Sage time sheet program).
  • Clients need to pay by credit card. It's processed inside the Sage 50 program so there is only one function to do instead of doing it online and then in the accounting program.
  • Large purchase orders can be done so that billing is a snap! It will remember your transactions so you can use it to create a new PO or have it remember a vendor and repeat the billing each month automatically.
  • Want to have an online Sage 50 so I can access it online from any computer without having to log into my work computer. Or make it compatible with Apple OS so it can be used on that format.
  • It's upgrade and service fees are expensive for a very small business.
The Sage 50 software we use is appropriate for a service industry that requires reporting to government agencies. It's not as good with income tax programs but is improving. POS type business have other software that works best for that type of business that can be supported on the management/tax level by Sage 50 or similar program.
Reno M. Borgognoni, CPA, CIA, CGMA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I use Sage 50 for the accounting and finance departments in the companies I support. Sage works very well on a terminal server style hosted setup, the way most company's IT is structured these days. With several user access and a good security system to control who can see and edit which modules, it works well with a company with various departments. Sage 50, like many other accounting software, is necessary to properly and accurately document business activity. Sage 50 has a reporting program and business intelligence module that can handle every flavor or report needed for business activities from the small, mid-sized to even a fairly large entity.
  • Sage 50 is superior in the basic reporting suite. From the point and click general ledger and other accounting reports, transaction research and error correction and reviews a very easy.
  • Sage 50 allows for customization on most reports, including Invoices, Customer Statements and Report Forms. The less expensive programs won't let you do much more than just add your logo.
  • Detailed Inventory. You have to be a major enterprise to not be well suited by Sage50's inventory intelligence.
  • Job Tracking. Super easy as adding a job code when desired, brings to like a full suite of job costing reports and analysis.
  • Chart of Accounts segment masking. Multiple division, multiple departments, and so forth are built right in.
  • 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.

Will this be a single user application? For a single user, micro-business, Sage 50 is priced out of their reach.

If multi-user, will remote access be necessary? Sage 50 is superior than most of its competitors on client server/hosted networks.

Do you do you own payroll? For companies that DO perform their own payroll, Sage 50 bubbles to the top of the list for in-house payroll programs.

Do your financial statements need material customizations? Sage 50 is well suited for modified report formats.

jeffrey burgess | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Sage 50 is utilized at G & E to maximize efficiency for our raw inventory into manufactured parts. The built in Sage payment solutions are a seamless way to receive money from our daily transactions and web based transactions.
  • Inventory control - plenty of information at your fingertips
  • Sage payment Solutions - ease of integration with payment systems
  • Reporting - Ease of getting crucial information quicky and efficiently
  • The images take awhile to upload in the inventory.
  • Never tried to run the Crystal Reports.
  • Had a problem with Sage forms on initial order for checks took awhile.
[You'll be ] very happy with product if you want a lot of information at your finger tips. Information has to be compiled to make use of the benefits of this software. Suits the small to medium business that requires on demand information.
August 19, 2015

Sage 50 Rules!

Marsha Kimball | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
All accounting functions including payroll are processed through Sage 50.
  • Great job of integrating all modules.
  • Tax reports are easy to produce with most of the info already input.
  • Although Federal Payroll support is extra, I have never had any problems with accuracy. It's easy to run credit cards through the system.
  • I want the ability to print out Payable Invoices.
  • I would like cost analysis to be more integrated.
Are you setup for cloud storage or is that extra?
August 19, 2015

Happy and easy

Michelle M. Martin | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use the product for our accounts payable and company financial statements. We currently use parts of some of the other functions such as maintaining employee info in the payroll sections. It is used by only a few people that require they use it to complete their jobs. It is extremely easy to use and we have been very happy with it since installed.
  • Being able to produce financial statements in both cash and accrual basis with ease.
  • Ease of use.
  • The ability to export reports and data to Excel and/or Adobe. Especially useful for some reports and being able to manipulate the data.
  • The ability to have more than one company and can have more than one company open at a time.
  • Small issues with reports. When we do an upgrade to the system sometimes we lose some of our custom reports and have to go out and find them. We eventually recover them. Also have a small issue with the headers on the reports sometimes.
  • The ability to change a closed year if you have to go back and restate something.
I personally think it is a very good package as a whole. It is easy to use and when I have had to train a new employee or someone who is jumping in to help out they pick it up very quickly. Up until you close out a year it is very easy to go back and make a change or correction if required. Although you cannot make changes you still have access to your archived years and can go back and run reports or look up anything. That is a plus. Make sure that it can produce the kinds or type of reports you want; ones that give you the information you need.
Karen Rollins | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
It is being used for Finance, Day to Day operation, Projects, Specialized Reporting and Departmentalized Budgeting. It is being used by the Finance department that reviews the company on a whole. It allows the company to have real-time visibility of the company and how it is performing as well as monitor each department
  • 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
  • I would like them to add to Purchase ordering the "Single Click" feature in order to received a PO complete rather than line by line receiving
It easy to train employees to use the software and it can be used for small to midsize for monitoring company and department performance. It allows for customized reporting and the BI function allows for company visibility, forecasting and numerical and visual graphical illustration for management meeting. Add that to the great price and awesome Customer and Technical Service and you definitely get a "BANG" for your money
August 19, 2015

Sage 50 Bookkeeping

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Sage 50 is being used mostly by the bookkeepers in the accounting firm with managers and supervisors using the product to make adjustments for tax return preparation.
  • It does not allow changes to prior period beginning balances. This is important when we receive information from clients. Thus when we make changes to tie to our prepared tax returns, the client is unable to make any change that will cause us additional work in future years.
  • The reports are easy to read which should assist clients in managing their finances.
  • I believe that training on the system should be provided as the system is sophisticated and not as user friendly as some other accounting software packages.
  • There should be some additional flexibility in the reports to allow users to retrieve the information they need.
I think you need a sophisticated bookkeeper to handle the accounting in this program.
May 21, 2015

Sage 50 Review

Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Several of our clients use Sage 50 Accounting; we use it to access their accounting records and print various reports we need in order to prepare income tax returns and provide consulting services.
  • Year end / period end closing
  • Account reconciliation
  • Report presentation
  • Ease of use for beginners
  • Easy access to detail of transactions
  • Wait times for certain functions
Sage 50 is better suited for someone who already has a moderate understanding of bookkeeping and needs a slightly more robust software.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Sage 50 Accounting for several clients and have great success. It is great for running custom reports that are more easily adjusted than QuickBooks and other accounting packages. There is more of a learning curve, but still not difficult. It is definitely worth the minimal training involved to become competent with the package. It is also easy to export reports in any format that you might need which comes in handy as the outside auditors. If a client is willing to put in slightly more time to learn the product, I would recommend it over Quickbooks.
  • Running reports
  • Exporting reports
  • Drilling down is simple
  • Sometimes the screens are busy which can make it easy to get lost
  • While the reports are great, you need to know where to look
  • Some areas could be more intuitive.
If a client is the right size with the appropriate personnel, I would definitely recommend Sage 50 Accounting. Sometimes if the staff is unable to understand basic accounting, QuickBooks might work better. But if there is a competent person willing to learn, then it goes much further than being a sophisticated check writing system.
Clay Boykin | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
As the General Manager for Drake Industries it is critical for me to have an on-demand snapshot of our business. We are a fast-paced, high turns, durable custom products printer with hundreds of jobs running through our production floor each month. To manage this, I need on-demand access to sales data, customer history, shipments, WIP, aged backlog, product history, etc. The benefit of Sage 50 is that I have all this tied in with our financial reporting which enables me to have a snapshot of the business whenever I need it. But the real benefit is that it’s user friendly, quick and easy to use.
  • Rapid access to current backlog and history information.
  • A wide range of custom reports as well as downloading into Excel for additional analysis.
  • Customer, sales, shipment data all tied directly with the financials.
  • More customization as to levels of access to data.
  • A bit more simplified custom report builder.
Leanne Borden, CPB | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As the owner of a bookkeeping and accounting firm, I recommend Sage 50 to all of my clients and am a Bronze Certified Sage 50 Consultant. We install, implement, train and support Sage 50 exclusively for small business clients. I have looked at many other accounting software packages in the past, including Quickbooks and continue to do so. This remains the only one that I truly trust completely. It is also the software we use in house.
  • It is flexible - Sage 50 allows the user to customize the setup and functionality to suit their purposes
  • It is stable - I have been using Sage 50 for 20 years and have found in that time that it is built on a solid foundation and you can rely on it keeping your data intact.
  • It has an audit trail - this means that Sage 50 is not only doing proper double sided accounting in the background, but that the history of every transaction you make remains in the system and it makes it MUCH easier to find what you are looking for down the road.
  • It has built in safety features - as the software is used by non-accounting people, it protects the integrity of your data by preventing entries to improper accounts and dates, something that lead users of other software, including QuickBooks, to make bad decisions off of unreliable financial statements.
  • It needs better functionality with regards to customer refunds and credit notes
  • The price of the payroll subscription is too high
I highly recommend it for any small business, though the basic format of invoicing is limited and may not suit certain business who require multiple subtotals for progress billing.
Emily Dykema | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our small business uses Sage 50 Premium Accounting to process all accounting and finance reporting:

  1. Payroll / Employee Time Sheets
  2. Tax Reporting
  3. Tracking Accounts Payable / Vendor Disbursements
  4. Tracking Accounts Receivable / Customer Payments
  5. Banking Reconciliation
  6. Budgeting
  7. Job Profitability
The one feature we do not use is the Inventory, because we are a service oriented business, without products to sell.
We have one administrator, but have the ability to install the program for other employees with limited access, so that as our business grows we can add other employees to handle some responsibilities.
  • I like the automated guides to set up complex features of payroll formulas.
  • The business intelligence reporting seems very comprehensive, so that one could really "crunch the data" and analyze different aspects of their business.
  • Sage annually improves the performance and features of their program.
  • Being a small business with small margin for profit, we have to be extremely careful with controlling expenses. Sage is quite expensive for a small business that may not need all the "bells and whistles" of their product.
  • Even though we are a small business, I get regular notices that our use of Sage 50 is close to exceeding the "optimum data storage", and encourages upgrading to their much more expensive Quantum product. This is irritating and if the data storage is truly in danger (probably due to not making old accounts "inactive"), then Sage should increase the data storage for their Sage 50 product.
  • I would like to see more learning programs listed for Sage University that are free and always accessible. After purchasing the Sage 50 Premium subscription for hundreds of dollars every year, the learning programs AND certification should be free.
I indicated a neutral rating due to the fact that I really haven't used other accounting programs, so I cannot compare it to others fairly. I have enjoyed using Sage 50 Premium Accounting for 20 years, but perhaps there are other programs that are very similar, but less expensive. A small, service based business, that does not utilize the inventory or assembly features probably could find another useful accounting product that is more cost effective. However, if the business wants to track detailed inventories, complex and progressive jobs, and has complex payroll needs ... then Sage 50 Premium Accounting is definitely worth the investment. Also, I have always experienced very good technical support service when needed.
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