1. Home
  2. Accounting Software
  3. Sage 50cloud Accounting Reviews
  4. User Review of Sage 50cloud Accounting
The Pros and Cons of Sage 50
Updated February 25, 2015

The Pros and Cons of Sage 50

Art Stumpp | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Sage 50 Complete Accounting

Overall Satisfaction with Sage 50

I use Sage 50 software in my company St. Louis Accounting Services. It helps businesses and organizations with their reporting requirements. It helps in the following areas: taxes, banking, and management. Our mission at St. Louis Accounting Services is to help businesses and organizations create better information about their financial activities. Sage 50 helps us accomplish this task.
  • Sage 50 is a very sound accounting software package. One can create levels of security for individuals in an organization. One can retrieve prior year files in the software. Sage 50 actually closes out the income and expenses at the end of the year. One can not make changes to a prior accounting period in the current accounting period.
  • Sage 50 has a very strong reporting function. It can produce monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reports, such as the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement. It can produce comparison financial statements comparing two different time periods, for example two months, two quarters, and two years. One can create custom reports from Sage 50 information using Excel and Crystal Reports.
  • Sage 50 allows an organization to customize the information that it collects from their customers, vendors, and employees. One can create an Accounts Receivable invoice or an Accounts Payable invoice to use 90% of the time. One can also alter the A/R and/or A/P invoice for a specific customer or vendor when it is required. The employee information can be customized in a similar way. One can keep track of employee's birthdays.
  • Sage 50 has a strong inventory reporting system. Inventory is an important area for a business. Once the inventory is setup properly, one can get several useful inventory reports.
  • Sage 50 should emphasize that a business or organization should find a local Sage 50 expert that they like. Sage 50 is very powerful accounting software. It can be hard to set up when one looks at all the common areas for the business or organization. These areas are the chart of accounts, customers, vendors, employees, jobs and/or services, banking, and reports. One should engage an expert to get the most out of Sage 50 for their business or organization.
  • Users that are not accountants tend to have a hard time navigating in the Sage 50 software. Sage 50 training should improve.
  • The job costing feature is too complicated in Sage 50. Between raw materials, work in process, finished goods, job phases, and actual and estimated income and expenses, it is easy to get confused.
  • When one opens up Sage 50 the home page can easily become cluttered and imposing. Of course, one can customize it to see what they consider important. I think very few Sage 50 users are aware that the home page can be customized.
  • Sage 50 has helped St. Louis Accounting Services perform their mission statement. It is to help businesses and organizations create better information about their financial activities.
  • It increases my efficiency in accounting, reporting, and analyzing the financial activities for businesses and organizations.
  • It also helps me serve businesses and organizations in all shapes and sizes.
QuickBooks accounting software is a main competitor of Sage 50. Both accounting software packages are complete accounting solutions for businesses and organizations. I prefer Sage 50 over QuickBooks software because Sage 50 actually closes out the income and expense accounts from a previous year before it begins a new year. If non-accountants make changes to prior year statements, it tends to drive the accountants crazy. One can get to previous years' statements in a company archived file in Sage 50.
Sage 50 is a very powerful software package. It has different versions for different levels of financial activity. One should be sure the cost of Sage 50 fits their budget. One should discuss with a local Sage 50 expert what one wants from an accounting software package. One should also look at the setup costs of Sage 50. Is one going to hire a local expert to help with the setup? Finally, one should get an accounting software package that can grow with their business needs.
After considering all of the above factors, one should pick the correct Sage 50 package that fits their needs. Sage 50 will perform very efficiently.

Using Sage 50

Sage 50 helps small businesses and organizations create better information about their financial activities. Sage 50 is a very strong accounting software package. If Sage 50 is correctly setup then it can serve one's business needs for a long time. It can also grow with the needs of the business or organization.

Sage 50 Implementation

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.
  • Implemented in-house
Change management was minimal
  • How accurate is the financial information going into Sage 50?
  • What information do we need from Sage 50 from our customers, vendors, employees, banking, and reports?
  • How much time should I put in to train on Sage 50?