Sage Business Cloud Accounting (or Sage Accounting) is cloud-based accounting software that offers solutions for invoicing, expense tracking, and stock management. It lets you create and send invoices, accept and receive payments, and keep an eye on your bookkeeping tasks. Sage Accounting offers two plans that cost $10 and $25 per month. You can try it for free for 30 days with no credit card required.
Pros
- Fairly inexpensive compared to other accounting software
- Extremely easy to set up
- Supports unlimited transactions
- Good full-featured mobile app
- Payroll available via Gusto integration
Cons
- No built-in payroll
- Can’t create recurring purchase invoices
- Lacks some important advanced features, such as income/expense tracker by class and a client portal
- Doesn’t automatically calculate the cost of goods sold (COGS) when inventory is sold
Supported Business Types | Small businesses with little or no inventory |
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Pricing |
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Free Trial | 30 days; no credit card required |
Payroll | Via third-party integration with Gusto (read our Gusto review) |
Standout Features |
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Customer Support | Self-help library, chatbot, live chat, and community page |
- Businesses seeking an alternative to QuickBooks: It’s a great choice for business owners looking for an inexpensive yet flexible and easy-to-use accounting alternative to QuickBooks. For other excellent options, check out our list of the best QuickBooks alternatives.
- Businesses that want to do bookkeeping via a mobile app: Download the Sage Accounting mobile app on Google Play or App Store to create, send, and track invoices and manage your cash flow on the go. If you’re looking into other accounting solutions to manage your finances anytime and anywhere, read our guide to the leading mobile accounting apps.
- You need simple accounting: It is very good at invoicing your clients, tracking bills, and classifying expenses. Starting at only $10 per month, it’s significantly better than free software.
- Businesses with inventory: Sage Accounting doesn’t have strong inventory features to handle inventory costing and tracking. We recommend choosing QuickBooks Online Plus for inventory tracking. Read our QuickBooks Online review to help you decide if the platform fits the bill.
- Construction companies: While it has a built-in project tracker, it doesn’t let you track billable hours and project profitability. If you need a full-featured accounting system for your construction business, see our evaluation of the top construction accounting software.
- Businesses with complex invoicing requirements: There’s no way to track and add hours and expenses to invoices. If you’re looking for a powerful time tracking and invoicing system, we recommend FreshBooks—which you can learn more about through our review of FreshBooks.
Are you looking for something different? Read our guide to the best small business accounting software for additional recommendations.
Visit Sage Business Cloud Accounting
Sage Business Cloud Accounting New Features 2023
Sage Accounting added a few new bulk reporting features that you may find useful:
- Analysis types: You can now import analysis types for customers, suppliers, and products and services. Use analysis types to group records together for enhanced reporting and analysis. Whether you need to analyze sales performance by region, track project profitability by department, or monitor expenses by category, this is a useful new feature.
- Categories: Include categories when importing product and service records, which are a great way to group similar products and services together for more efficient stock management, analysis, and reporting.
- Active and inactive records: Choose to mark records as “Active” or “Inactive.” This helps you keep your lists manageable while also ensuring that you can keep track of records that you no longer need daily.
You can also automate data entry with purchase automation, which creates expense transactions automatically from documents and images you upload. You can create up to 25 transactions at once, saving you time and reducing the risk of errors. You can also create transactions from email attachments by forwarding an email with a vendor invoice or receipt to a provided email address. From there, Sage Accounting will create a corresponding draft transaction for you to review.
Sage Business Cloud Accounting Alternatives
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Best for: Small businesses with inventory | Best for: Small businesses looking for free accounting software | Best for: Invoicing customers and charging billable hours |
Starts at: $30 for one user | Starts at: Always free for unlimited users | Starts at: $17 for one user |
Fit Small Business Case Study
We used the case study method to understand fully how Sage Accounting best fits in small business accounting. In our case study, we highlighted 13 key areas in accounting that are essential for small businesses. Here are the results of our evaluation of Sage Accounting as compared to its direct competitors, QuickBooks Online and FreshBooks.
Fit Small Business Case Study
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Sage Accounting
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FreshBooks
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QuickBooks Online
Sage Accounting is Sage’s native cloud accounting software, similar to QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books. However, Sage Accounting is behind its competitors in terms of capabilities and functionality, especially in inventory, reporting, and ease of use. Its strongest suit is pricing because it’s only $25 monthly for unlimited users. Although it’s lagging feature-wise, Sage Accounting is more than enough for small businesses that need to track invoices, bills, and bank transactions.
If you find Sage Accounting lacking in features, we recommend Zoho Books as an alternative since it’s the next most affordable option. Moreover, we recommend QuickBooks Online for assisted bookkeeping since many bookkeepers and certified public accountants (CPAs) in the United States are more acquainted with QuickBooks Online rather than Sage and Zoho Books.
Read our Sage Business Cloud Accounting vs QuickBooks Online comparison to see how the two leading platforms perform side-by-side.
Sage Accounting offers two subscription options, with monthly prices at $10 and $25. If you buy the Sage Accounting tier, you get 70% off for six months. There is no free plan, but you can try the platform for free for 30 days, no credit card required.
Sage Accounting Start | Sage Accounting | |
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Monthly Pricing | $10 | $25 |
Number of Users | 1 | Unlimited |
Invoicing | ✓ | ✓ |
A/P Tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
Bank Linking | ✓ | ✓ |
Real-time Reports | ✕ | ✓ |
Quotes & Estimates | ✕ | ✓ |
Reduce Manual Data Entry With AutoEntry | ✕ | ✓ |
Sage Business Cloud Accounting Features
Sage Accounting offers a different kind of feel and a better interface than its desktop counterpart, Sage 50cloud. As a purely cloud-based accounting software, we see a lot of potential in Sage Accounting.
Setting up accounting data and settings is easy, but it takes considerable time. We recommend setting aside a couple of hours for inputting business data like reporting dates, business data retention period, method of accounting, and document settings. However, we don’t see this as a disadvantage because modifying the settings right before entering transactions will make your experience smoother along the way.
Another interesting feature is Sage Accounting’s Analysis Types. This enables you to set up codes for cost centers, departments, and locations. On the flip side, one of the platform’s shortcomings is that you can’t import a chart of accounts and beginning balance—and it could take you considerable time to get set up since these will have to be entered manually.
The interface for Sage Accounting’s A/P module is clean, organized, and simple. It’s also convenient to view unpaid vendor bills in the A/P module. Moreover, you can immediately create new vendors from within the New Vendor Bill screen, in case you forgot to set up one before. However, we’ve observed some counterproductive navigational flows in expense payment recording—you can’t record expense payments without creating a bill first.
Entering a New Vendor Bill
We’d prefer the option to enter an expense payment directly in cases where no bill is received. For instance, an automatic monthly payment for insurance shouldn’t require a new bill to be entered every time a payment is made. The low overall score of Sage Business Cloud Accounting in this area—as compared to its competitors—is attributable to its ease of use score.
Invoice customization is something that Sage Accounting got on point. We like that users can choose an invoice template, add two logos—one business logo and one accreditation logo, if any—choose a theme color, modify the font style, and set invoice line items.
Just like the A/P module, the A/R module shares the same interface layout by utilizing a tabular presentation. You can also create new customers within the invoice creation screen, record credit memos, and view customer invoices without generating a report.
Entering a New Sales Invoice
A counterproductive issue we found in the A/R module is that you can’t track unbilled expenses by client and automatically add them to invoices. You’ll need to track expenses by client elsewhere and then manually add them to an invoice. Without this feature, there’s a high chance of forgetting to bill customers for expenses incurred as part of the product or service provided.
Sage Accounting has a clean interface that’s easy to understand, and it’s our best bank reconciliation software for automation. Everything is smooth in terms of setting up your bank accounts. You can connect accounts, import bank transactions, and record bank debits and credits not yet recorded in the books, such as bank charges, interest earned, and interest paid. However, the bank reconciliation “report” doesn’t list outstanding transactions, which limits the report’s usefulness.
Sage Accounting lets you create quotes and estimates easily, and you can assign costs and inventory to projects when creating bills and invoices. However, It doesn’t allow you to assign estimates to projects. A major disadvantage of not being able to do so is you can’t compare budget-to-actual results. For project-based businesses, a comparison report of budgeted vs actual costs is vital for evaluating performance. If this is important to your business, consider Zoho Books, which you can learn about through our Zoho Books review.
Sage Accounting’s inventory accounting lacks the important features we’d like to see. Even though you can create and add inventory items in invoices, the program doesn’t calculate and record COGS automatically after creating an invoice for the sale of inventory.
We find that very odd since it does calculate the average cost per unit for your inventory but then doesn’t use that information to make the necessary entry when the inventory is sold. Because of this, we can’t recommend Sage Accounting if you’re a merchandising business. You’d be better off choosing QuickBooks Online because of its exemplary inventory features—and to help you pick a tier, read our comparison of QuickBooks Online’s plans.
The inventory features are evaluated along with A/R and A/P in the prior videos.
Reports in Sage Business Cloud Accounting exclude some important reports for small business use.
Comparative Balance Sheet | ✓ (But not comparative) |
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Comparative Profit and Loss (P&L) Statement | ✓ (But not comparative) |
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 (GL) | ✓ |
Trial Balance | ✓ |
Contacting support can only be done through chatbots, live chat person, email, and checking self-help information. There’s no way to call a representative by phone or ask them to call you. Hence, the fastest way to get answers is through Sage Accounting’s resource center. However, on review websites, many users noted that Sage Accounting’s onboarding process is excellent and helpful.
Viewing sales data on Sage Accounting dashboard
The mobile app functionality of Sage Accounting is on par with QuickBooks Online. You can send invoices, receive payments, enter bills, capture receipts, and enter bill payments. If you find the app functionality limited, you should consider Zoho Books. Aside from the functions mentioned above, Zoho Books’ app can also assign expenses to projects or customers, categorize bank feed transactions, record time worked, assign billable time to customers or projects, and view reports.
Viewing main transactions and contacts with Sage Business Cloud’s mobile app
Integrations
Sage Accounting can integrate with 41 third-party applications through the Sage US Marketplace. You can connect to these apps once you get your login credentials and subscription. Here are some of the well-known apps that can integrate with Sage Accounting:
- Zapier for expanded integration opportunities
- Gusto for payroll processing and human resources (HR) tools
- Stripe Invoice Payments for accepting payments
- Epos Now for point-of-sale (POS) systems
- Combidesk for Shopify to connect your Sage account with Shopify
Those who left a Sage Business Cloud Accounting review said that Sage has been helpful with onboarding and setting up their accounts. Other reviewers praised it for having given them excellent customer assistance. However, those who left negative feedback mentioned that it lacks important features like the ability to track income and expenses by class and a built-in payroll integration.
On third-party review websites, Sage Accounting received these scores:
- Trustpilot1: 4.5 out of 5 based on nearly 17,000 reviews
- Software Advice2: 4.13 out of 5 based on about 275 reviews
- G2.com3: 4.2 out of 5 based on more than 50 reviews
Sage Business Cloud Accounting Assisted Bookkeeping Options
Sage certifies accountants as Sage Accounting Advisors. While there are Sage Advisors in the US, they generally support Sage 50cloud instead of Sage Accounting—but since there are similarities in the programs, you might find an advisor willing to work with you. However, if an expert network of advisors is important to you, QuickBooks Online has an enormous network of advisors.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes. All of Sage’s accounting and finance products for small and medium businesses are formerly known as Sage One. The company changed its name to Sage Business Cloud, which includes Sage Accounting, Sage 50cloud, and Sage Intacct.
Yes, Sage Accounting, the cloud-based product of Sage Business Cloud, is easier to use than its counterparts. We tested the software, and first-time users can get acquainted easily.
Sage Business Cloud offers a choice of two subscription plans. Sage Accounting Start is $10 per month and allows for one user, while Sage Accounting is $25 per month and allows for unlimited seats.
Yes, the Sage Business Cloud allows you to send invoices, receive payments, capture receipts, and enter bill payments. You cannot, however, view reports or categorize bank feed transactions.
Bottom Line
Sage Business Cloud Accounting isn’t as powerful as other accounting systems, but it offers a selection of helpful features to tackle basic accounting. For small and growing businesses, its affordability, simplicity, and ease of use make it worth checking out. There are a few areas where it could improve, but it’s gradually evolving with the occasional addition of features. If you’re a small business owner needing a straightforward accounting program, Sage Accounting is for you.
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