Sage 50 vs QuickBooks: Compare Features & Pricing for 2021

Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online are two of the most popular small business accounting software, and they have many similarities. Both offer multiple plans that are priced on a monthly or annual subscription basis and supply entry-level solutions for small businesses that are affordable and easy to use. Overall, Sage 50 is best for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and users keeping books for multiple companies, while QuickBooks is best for e-commerce retailers and property management companies.

When to Use Sage 50

Sage 50cloud (formerly Peachtree Software) is a robust online accounting solution for SMBs that offers features like taxes, inventory, budgeting, cash flow, and invoicing. It is a great alternative to QuickBooks, and there is a wide range of add-ons for credit card processing, payroll, and more.

The software is unique in that it is a desktop-based accounting tool that provides built-in anytime, anywhere cloud applications. So, it’s basically a hybrid―a desktop app that has a cloud component for data access and storage. It integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Office 365, allowing you to work anywhere using Microsoft tools. Also, premium features, such as detailed profitability tracking, cash flow forecasting, and custom reporting, come standard with this software.

Available at three different price points, Sage 50cloud offers something for every company―no matter the size or industry. Its high scalability makes it ideal for almost all small businesses or individual users who have plans to expand their operations in the near future. Sage also offers more tailored industry-specific business management options like construction and real estate, manufacturing, and wholesale distribution. It is ideal for businesses that require that type of complexity and whose remote employees need access to some of the software’s data.

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When to Use QuickBooks

QuickBooks Online is a web-based accounting solution that caters to bookkeepers, accountants, and small businesses. An international leader of the financial management software industry for more than two decades, it is used by nearly 30 million businesses, 80% of which are small business operations in the United States. QuickBooks Online can be tailored to any industry, and its user-friendly interface makes it ideal for any type of small business. The software is an ideal solution for people who need a management tool to help them run their SMBs more easily and efficiently.

The features and benefits that you experience with QuickBooks will vary depending on the edition you choose to work in. Overall, the most appealing features are its ease of use, customizable financial reports, and invoicing capabilities. QuickBooks is also ideal for businesses that want to track transactions by class and location as well as apply custom tags to transactions. QuickBooks will also calculate the sales tax rate to apply based on the customer’s address automatically, which is a huge benefit for e-commerce companies.

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Sage 50 vs QuickBooks at a Glance

Sage 50 vs QuickBooks: Pricing

Both Sage 50 and QuickBooks are billed on a monthly or annual basis. The price is dependent upon the number of users and the features required.

Sage 50 Pricing

Sage 50 offers three different pricing plans, which are billed on a monthly basis:

• Pro Accounting: $56.08 per month for one user
• Premium Accounting: $84.58 per month for one user to $194.75 per month for five users
• Quantum Accounting: $139.58 per month for one user to $356.83 per month for 10 users and custom pricing for more than 10 users

All Sage 50cloud plans include core vendor, inventory, and job management functionality. The Premium adds advanced budgeting tools and industry-specific functions for construction, manufacturing, and distribution. The Quantum plan also includes the ability to manage multiple companies.

Also included in each plan is a service that allows you to store your data in the cloud through a Sage server. When activated, you and your accountant or team members can access your data from any device with Sage 50cloud installed.

Sage 50cloud also offers full-service payroll services as an add-on for each subscription level. The cost of your payroll plan varies with your 50cloud accounting plan and the number of users for your accounting plan.

• Sage 50cloud Pro: $91.08 per month for one user and 10 employees to $117.08 per month for one user and 40 employees
• Sage 50cloud Premium: $119.58 per month for one user and 10 employees to $255.75 per month for five users with 40 employees
• Sage 50cloud Quantum: $174.58 per month for one user and 10 employees to $417.83 per month for 10 users and 40 employees

QuickBooks Pricing

QuickBooks offers a choice of five different plans, which range from the most basic of services with the Self-Employed option to the Advanced option, which is intended for businesses with a large number of users. Below are the prices for each:

• Self-Employed: $15 per month for one user
• Simple Start: $25 per month for one user
• Essentials: $40 per month, which includes three users
• Plus: $70 per month, which includes five users
• Advanced: $150 per month, which includes 25 users
• QuickBooks Live: The cost of QuickBooks Live is in addition to the cost of the software:
  – Low volume: $200 per month for up to $25,000 in monthly expenses
  – Medium volume: $400 per month for up to $150,000 in monthly expenses
  – High volume: $600 per month for more than $150,000 in monthly expenses

QuickBooks Live is a virtual bookkeeping service that connects you with a certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor who will work one-one-one with your company and help you to streamline your processes. There are three levels of service, which depend on your business’ volume of bookkeeping. Once the bookkeeper gets your books cleaned up, they will maintain them on a monthly basis and also help you to prepare for year-end taxes.

All QuickBooks Pro plans include the ability to track income and expenses, send custom invoices and quotes, and download transactions from your bank. The Essentials adds insights and reports and the ability to manage employees. The Plus plan also includes the ability to track inventory and manage budgets.

QuickBooks also offers full-service payroll services as an add-on for each subscription level:

• Payroll Core: $45 + $4 per employee, per month
• Payroll Premium: $75 + $8 per employee, per month
• Payroll Elite: $125 + $10 per employee, per month

Takeaway: While Sage 50 offers three different pricing plans, QuickBooks gives users a choice of five subscription levels and the added support of QuickBooks Live, an assisted bookkeeping service. Comparing the prices for each, QuickBooks Online is much less expensive than Sage 50cloud, especially for multiple users. It is important to note that QuickBooks Self-Employed cannot be upgraded to any other edition of QuickBooks Online.

Sage 50 vs QuickBooks: Features

Sage 50 Features Table

QuickBooks Features Table

Takeaway: Sage 50 offers many of the same features as QuickBooks. However, while Sage offers the ability to create sales orders, QuickBooks Online offers better income and expense tracking with classes, locations, and custom tags.

Sage 50 vs. QuickBooks: Ease of Use

Neither Sage 50 nor QuickBooks are terribly difficult to learn if you have some knowledge of accounting because of the fact that they both use standard software navigation conventions. There is also more than one way to get to each task for both programs. Both Sage 50 and QuickBooks offer similar features, but Sage 50 has more extensive capabilities.

Sage 50 Ease of Use

For all of its benefits, depending on your prior bookkeeping experience, you might feel that Sage 50 has a learning curve, and its large number of features may be overwhelming at first. Our review of Sage 50cloud has more information about its capabilities. However, with time it will become more user-friendly. It is only available for Windows.

An appealing aspect of Sage 50cloud is that it has built-in accounting and compliance controls that maintain accuracy and prevent common errors. This is especially beneficial because mistakes are made often without even realizing it. Security functions include suspicious transaction flagging, audit trails, and user access settings. Data can be backed up locally or to the cloud.

View of the Sage 50 dashboard.

Your dashboard allows a quick view of five important reports, which are accessed by clicking on Business Status: Account Balances, Revenue, Vendors to Pay, Customers Who Owe Money, and Aged Receivables.

1. Business Status: Click here to display your dashboard shown above.
2. Account Balances: View the balances of all of your accounts here.
3. Revenue: Year to Date: View your company’s revenue, which summarizes total revenue, cost of sales, gross profit, and expenses. This report can be customized.
4. Vendors to Pay: A list of bills that are currently due is shown here, with the vendor name, amount due, and due date listed for each.
5. Customers Who Owe Money: View a list of amounts due for each customer, which shows due dates for each invoice.
6. Aged Receivables: View a graph that illustrates your accounts receivable data.

You can also click on the tabs at the top to navigate to various functions, such as accessing the chart of accounts, invoicing customers, generating and customizing reports, and creating journal entries. Here’s a screenshot that shows how you can quickly initiate transactions using shortcuts in the menu bar. In this case, you can access the Invoice Time and Expenses feature under the Tasks shortcut:

Sage 50 menu bar shortcuts.

Sage 50 doesn’t offer assisted bookkeeping services per se, but Sage Expert Services is designed to help you obtain maximum performance from the software. Available exclusively to Sage customers, these services are conducted by senior analysts that have advanced technical knowledge of Sage 50. The fee-based services include installation and upgrades, customization services, year-end walkthroughs, and data services.

QuickBooks Ease of Use

Our review of QuickBooks Online details the software’s best features and how easy they are to use as well as the types of businesses that it would qualify as the best fit.

Similar to Sage 50, QuickBooks Online opens to a dashboard with useful reports. Below is a snapshot of the QuickBooks Online Dashboard with a description of what you will find there:

Sample QuickBooks Online Dashboard.

1. Left menu bar: Create invoices, generate reports, and track mileage from this menu bar.
2. Cash flow: Fully customizable and shown in graph form, this gives you a snapshot of your income, cost of goods sold, and expenses.
3. Invoices: Access customer invoices that have been paid and are awaiting payment and view your accounts receivable report.
4. Expenses: Shown in chart form, you can view your top three categories of expenses here.
5. Profit & loss: Access your income statement here, which can be customized for a certain time period.
6. Bank accounts: Check your available bank balances directly from the dashboard. Once QuickBooks is connected to your online accounts, you can access both the bank and QuickBooks balances.

The quickest way to add a new transaction is to click on the New button above the left menu bar. Here’s an example:

Add new transactions in QuickBooks Online.

QuickBooks also offers assisted bookkeeping services in the form of QuickBooks Live. A network of QuickBooks-certified virtual bookkeepers, these professionals will work with you to clean up your books and maintain them on a monthly basis. However, this is not a substitute for someone who can handle day-to-day bookkeeping tasks like sending invoices, processing accounts payable and receivable, and managing inventory.

Takeaway: Both Sage 50 and QuickBooks offer an intuitive user interface with the ability to access accounting functions in multiple ways. Although the vocabulary may be different, they both offer a left navigation bar, with Sage 50’s Business Status page being similar to QuickBooks Online’s Dashboard.

Sage 50 vs QuickBooks: Integrations

Sage 50 has 73 integrations available as compared to 825 for QuickBooks. While Sage 50’s integrations are mainly focused on the apps associated with Microsoft 365, QuickBooks offers a wide range of integrations, including QuickBooks Payroll, Shopify by OneSaas, Service Trade, and Fathom.

Sage 50 Integrations

Sage 50cloud leverages the power of Microsoft 365 to make your data accessible via the cloud and a range of integrated apps. It integrates with Microsoft 365 Business Standard and the full Microsoft Small Business Productivity Suite, which will save time and money while also boosting productivity.

Here’s a sample of the integrations that are currently available for Sage 50:

• Microsoft apps: Microsoft365, Microsoft OneDrive, MileIQ, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Outlook Customer Manager
• Time tracking: Sage Timeslips, Journyx
• Manage expenses: SnapAP
• Process payroll: PayClock
• E-commerce and brick & mortar stores: ProShop, Shopfront
• Payment management: Sage Payment Solutions, Credit Hound, Stripe, PayPal

QuickBooks Integrations

For businesses with employees or the need to track time, you can access QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Time directly through QuickBooks. There are also many third-party apps that integrate with the software:

• QuickBooks Payroll: Click on QuickBooks Payroll from within QuickBooks and access full payroll functionality.
• QuickBooks Time: Use the mobile app to track time and then bill it to customers or use it for payroll within QuickBooks Online. Time has many advanced features, which include GPS tracking of employees and timeclock terminals with facial recognition.

Here is a sample of the integrations that are currently available for QuickBooks Online:

• Time tracking: QuickBooks Time, ClockShark, and eBillity
• Inventory tracking: eBay by OneSaas, Shopify by OneSaas, Amazon Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), Seller Fulfilled Accounting by Entriwise, and Katana Inventory and Manufacturing
• Pay bills and receive payments: Bill.com, Deluxe eChecks, Plooto, and Veem
• Manage customers: Method:CRM, Insightly CRM, WORKetc, and Capsule CRM
• Manage projects: BigTime, Service Trade, Jobber, Corecon, and Knowify for Contractors
• Perform analytics: Syft Analytics, Qvinci, Fathom, and LivePlan
• Process payroll: QuickBooks Payroll, Gusto, ADP, and Paychex

Takeaway: With many more integrations than its counterpart, QuickBooks Online offers solutions that can be accessed through the software and third-party apps. The most appealing feature of Sage 50 is its ability to integrate with Microsoft 365, giving users access to a wide range of Microsoft products.

Sage 50 vs QuickBooks Mobile App

Sage 50 has a mobile app called Sage Capture that is available for both iOS and Android devices. It is limited to capturing receipts and entering transactions and is updated in real-time across all devices, enabling immediate access to your dashboard.

With the QuickBooks Online mobile app, all of your financial data is at your fingertips. You can use your device to enter transactions, record expenses, and send reports. It backs up the data to the cloud automatically and syncs it across all of your devices.

Takeaway: Both Sage 50 and QuickBooks offer mobile solutions that enable you to manage your bookkeeping functions while on the go. While the QuickBooks Accounting app offers the full range of features, such as tracking miles, creating invoices, and managing contacts, the Sage 50 app is more limited, offering only the ability to record receipts and enter transactions.

Sage 50 vs QuickBooks: Customer Support

Both Sage 50 and QuickBooks have various options for customers seeking support, including an extensive array of online resources that can provide assistance with basic questions. These support options include articles, videos, online chat, telephone, or in the case of QuickBooks, paid assistance by a QuickBooks ProAdvisor.

Sage 50 Customer Support

With more than 3 million customers worldwide and more than 35 years of business expertise, Sage has put together a knowledge base of resources that is available to all of its customers. These resources include Q&A Live, a virtual meeting room where Sage analysts answer questions on specific topics in real-time. You can also chat via phone or live with an expert, submit an online case, or connect with Sage Expert Services.

QuickBooks Customer Support

QuickBooks offers a variety of customer support options depending on the complexity of your needs. You can visit the Learn and Support page, which includes articles and videos on frequently asked questions. You can also email the support team if the answer is not immediately apparent, and questions usually are addressed within 48 hours.

Customer service representatives are also available via online chat or telephone, although it is not possible to call QuickBooks Support directly. Instead, you must submit a call request online. For a complicated issue, you may wish to hire a QuickBooks ProAdvisor. Certified by Intuit, these financial professionals must pass an exam to certify that they are proficient with QuickBooks.

Takeaway: Sage 50 and QuickBooks have similar levels of customer support options, with QuickBooks being a little more accessible. The ability to contact a QuickBooks ProAdvisor if needed is also an attractive option.

Bottom Line

If you’re looking for a complete, desktop-based small business accounting solution with a strong feature set and exceptional customizability (especially in terms of inventory management), then Sage 50cloud is a terrific option. With its thorough customer support options and ability to scale as your business grows, it incorporates comprehensive financial tools and integration with Microsoft 365.

The completely cloud-centric QuickBooks Online is a state-of-the-art accounting app whose features are accessible to a wide variety of users but also fully customizable for your business. It provides online access so accountants can collaborate, as well as integrates with hundreds of third-party apps designed to boost business productivity.