Sage 50cloud Accounting Review, Pricing & Features for 2023
Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content.
Eric is a staff writer at Fit Small Business and CPA focusing on accounting content. He spends most of his time researching and studying to give the best answer to everyone.
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
Sage 50cloud Accounting is a scalable, on-premise accounting software program that helps you automate administrative tasks, such as invoicing, payments, and inventory management. Its features include a cash flow manager, bank reconciliation, job costing, payroll, and reporting. Prices start at $56.08 per month for a single user.
Sign up for its 30-day test drive program and get access to a cloud-hosted version with free sample data. You don’t need to provide your credit card information when signing up.
Since our last update:
Sage 50cloud backs up all data in a cloud storage service called Remote Data Access (formerly Sage Drive).
Overall Score:
3.30 / 5
What We Like
- Connected to the cloud with option to choose Remote Data Access or Microsoft OneDrive
- Consolidate parent and subsidiary companies
- Strong inventory management capability
- Comprehensive reporting tools
- Accessible customer support
What's Missing
- Can’t access all features remotely
- Must download and install on your computer
- Difficult for nonprofessional bookkeepers to use
- Expensive for multiple users
- Mobile app is only for capturing receipts
Are you looking for something different? Read our guide to the best small business accounting software and check out our top picks.
Sage 50cloud Accounting Deciding Factors
Supported Business Types | Established businesses with experienced bookkeepers or accountants |
Pricing |
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Free Trial | None, but you may test drive the platform using sample data. |
Payroll | Included in the subscription is an integrated do-it-yourself payroll module |
Standout Features |
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Customer Support | Live chat, email, and self-help library |
Sage 50cloud Accounting New Feature for 2023
For an additional $150 per year, you can integrate Microsoft 365 with Sage 50cloud. There are automatic backups of accounting data through Cloud Backup. This process runs in the background, and all Sage data is backed up in Microsoft OneDrive. All customer and vendor information are also forwarded to Outlook for convenience.
Sage 50cloud Accounting Alternatives
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
Best for: Most small businesses looking for truly cloud-based accounting software | Best for: Freelancers or small businesses with limited inventory | Best for: Businesses looking for unlimited users |
From $30 per month | From $17 per month | From $22 per month |
Read our FreshBooks review | Read our Xero review |
Fit Small Business Case Study
We developed a case study to help us evaluate accounting software services across 11 key areas. We believe that testing the software is the only way to assess its capabilities and suitability for your small business.
Sage 50Cloud vs Competitors FSB Case Study
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Sage 50cloud Accounting $56.08 for 1 user
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QuickBooks Online Starts at $30, $85 as tested
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QuickBooks Desktop Premier $799 per year
In our case study, Sage 50cloud ranked fairly well compared to its direct competitors, QuickBooks Online Plus and QuickBooks Desktop Premier. Sage 50cloud’s strengths lie in project accounting and reporting, while it scored low in banking and inventory management when compared to its competitors. While its features are comparable to QuickBooks, we found it more difficult to use.
Sage 50cloud Accounting has three plans available at either a monthly or annual billing option. As of this writing, it offers new customers 40% off on all plans for one year’s subscription.
Pricing & Features | Pro Accounting | Premium Accounting | Quantum Accounting |
|---|---|---|---|
Monthly Pricing ($/Month) | $57.18 | $92 to $211.67 | $152.42 to $389.67 |
Annual Pricing ($/Year) | $578 | $924 to $2,116 | $1,533 to $3,912 |
Number of Users | 1 | 1 to 5 | 1 to 10 (custom price for 11+ users) |
Bank Reconciliation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Expense Management | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Remote Data Access | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Job Costing by Phase & Cost Level | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Advanced Budgeting Tools | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Multicompany Support | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
Other add-ons include AutoEntry integration, Sage Invoice Payments, and Microsoft 365. You can visit the provider’s website to learn more about its add-ons.
Sage 50cloud Accounting Features
Sage 50cloud Accounting offers a wide range of features designed to help users automate, streamline, and manage their accounting duties. Its features are scalable for individual users, and its most expensive plan is an ideal fit for managing multiple companies. It can handle bank reconciliations, invoicing, banking and payments, and inventory management.
Let’s take a closer look at some of its top features.
You can input basic company information and other useful information like entity type and fiscal year-end. You can also import or modify the chart of accounts and create user restrictions. Sage 50cloud’s interface reminds us of QuickBooks Desktop. We think that first-time users will have a hard time understanding the flow of the software.
Sage 50cloud Accounting General Features Video
Sage 50cloud A/P module
The A/P module of Sage 50cloud is full of great features, but it can be overwhelming. It lets you create vendors, expenses, purchase orders (POs), billings, and service items. You can also set costs of service items if you have standard costs for services. Sage 50cloud deserves recognition, if only for its A/P features. However, its ease of use isn’t what we would hope for in a small business accounting application.
The interface is crowded, and navigation flows use too many popup windows. We see Sage 50cloud as a software product for accounting professionals and not for small business managers or owners as it can be difficult for those with little to no knowledge of accounting software and accounting principles.
The A/R module of Sage 50cloud features certain elements found in competitors’ software, but they’re not as dazzling and modern. Sage 50cloud’s invoice management lets you generate PDF invoices from records, issue receipts and credit memos, and view customer accounts. The only missing feature is the ability to issue checks for customers with credit balances.
However, using all of these features isn’t as convenient as what we’ve experienced while reviewing Sage 50cloud’s competitors. The interface and overall layout design are old and quite similar to the Windows 97 menu bars, drop-down menus, and popup windows. We find it a bit flustering that almost every click gives birth to more windows. But feature-wise, Sage 50cloud won’t disappoint.
Sage 50cloud’s banking features are convenient because you can connect them to your bank accounts, which is useful for reconciliation purposes. However, if you prefer to not give Sage access to your bank account, you can import your banking activity by uploading a bank statement. We also like that bank connection isn’t a prerequisite for performing bank reconciliations.
When reconciling book and bank balances, we’re satisfied with how it shows the balances for outstanding checks, deposits in transit, adjusted balance, and any unreconciled differences. However, we can’t seem to combine checks and cash into a single deposit, which makes it difficult to match deposits in your check register to deposits on your bank statement. Overall, Sage 50cloud’s reconciliation is what we want to see.
Sage 50cloud is a great program for project accounting. Although its interface isn’t pleasant as with other accounting software, the project accounting features cover everything from creating projects to assigning project costs and setting project estimates. We’d like to emphasize that Sage 50cloud can compare actual to estimated project costs, something QuickBooks Online cannot do. We’re happy to see this feature because it’s vital for project management and monitoring.
Tax tracking on Sage 50cloud is basic and straightforward. It has the same limitations as QuickBooks, such as the inability to file and pay sales tax liability directly through the software. However, they share good features, such as tracking sales taxes through the sales tax liability account and setting up tax rates. There’s no walkthrough video for this section since this part is already integrated within A/R, A/P, and general features.
Sage 50cloud falls behind QuickBooks in terms of inventory. However, it doesn’t miss on the most important features, like automatic accounting for the cost of goods sold (COGS) and the computation of the cost of ending inventories. We think that Sage 50cloud is still a worthy choice even if recording the partial receipt of inventory on POs is problematic and viewing the total cost of inventory on hand has limited functionality. Our evaluation of inventory is also part of A/R and A/P, so there’s no video for this.
You can generate many different kinds of reports on Sage 50cloud. However, our case study covers only the necessary reports for small business accounting. Here are the reports we look for in small business accounting software that Sage 50cloud can generate:
- Comparative balance sheet
- Comparative profit and loss (P&L) statement
- Statement of cash flows
- A/R aging
- A/P aging
- Income/loss by month
- Income/loss by customer
- Income/loss by class
- Income/loss by location
- Income/loss by project
- Unbilled charges
- Unbilled time
- Transaction list by customer
- Expenses by vendor
- General ledger
- Trial balance
Sage 50cloud’s customer service is average compared to other accounting software services. We like that users can contact the team by email or live chat or chatbot. You can also submit support tickets. The company also has robust self-help information. If this concerns you, we recommend choosing Zoho Books because it’s one of the applications with the best customer service.
Using Sage 50cloud won’t be an easy experience for DIY business owners or mom-and-pop shops. We can’t recommend it to you if you’re planning to do DIY bookkeeping as it’s hard to use for business owners without accounting software experience.
In this area, we want to see a mobile app that can help users maintain their books even if not using the desktop version. We wish Sage 50cloud had more basic accounting features in its app, but it’s very limited. Sage 50cloud Capture can only capture receipts and cannot send invoices, categorize expenses, and other essential mobile app functions. We recommend choosing FreshBooks or Zoho Books for a great mobile app.
Positive Sage 50cloud Accounting reviews revolve around the solution’s excellent accounting functions and controls. However, some find it expensive and difficult to use.
- Software Advice: 3.78 out of 5 stars based on about 280 reviews
- G2.com: 3.8 out of 5 stars based on about 125 reviews
Assisted Bookkeeping Options
We’re unaware of any online bookkeeping services that support Sage 50cloud. While Sage does certify accountants as Sage 50cloud experts, it can be very difficult to find a certified consultant in the United States. Your best option for support in the US will be to find an independent bookkeeper with some Sage 50cloud experience.
Integrations
Sage 50cloud integrates with 115 various third-party applications spread across categories, such as data entry, ecommerce, and time tracking, with the most famous integration being Microsoft 365. For an additional $150 per year, you get the premium features of Microsoft 365—including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook. You also get 1TB of online storage in OneDrive.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What’s the difference between Sage Business Cloud Accounting and Sage 50cloud?
Sage Business Cloud Accounting is purely cloud-based accounting software, while Sage 50cloud is a desktop application with cloud features, so you need to download and install Sage 50cloud. In terms of functionality, Sage 50cloud has more robust accounting features than Sage Business Cloud Accounting.
Does Sage 50cloud need a server?
No, it doesn’t, and you can share data without a server. With Sage 50cloud, remote sharing of data is included in the subscription.
Bottom Line
Sage 50cloud Accounting offers many great features for small businesses. However, it isn’t right for small business owners and managers because it can be difficult for users without experience in accounting and accounting software programs. What’s more, it can be difficult to find assistance in the US. However, a professional accountant can learn the platform and master it, so we recommend using Sage 50cloud if you have an experienced bookkeeper or accountant managing your books. Otherwise, go with our alternative above.
