Sage Business Cloud Accounting Review: Features and Pricing in 2023

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.

Sage Accounting General Features Video

Entering a New Vendor Bill

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.

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.

Sage Accounting A/P Features Video

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.

Entering a New Sales Invoice

Just like the A/P module, the accounts receivable (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.

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 A/R Features Video

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 Banking & Cash Management Features Video

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.

Sage Accounting Project Accounting Features Video

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.

The inventory features are evaluated along with A/R and A/P in the prior videos.

Reports in Sage Business Cloud Accounting don’t include some important reports for small business use.

Contacting support can only be done through chatbots, live chat person, email, and by 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.

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.

Sage Accounting received an excellent rating from Trustpilot, with 85% of the reviews being five-star ratings. Most reviewers claim that Sage has been helpful in onboarding new clients and setting up their Sage profile. Some users also praise Sage for giving them excellent customer assistance for problems.

• Trustpilot: 4.5 out of 5 based on more than 16,500 reviews
• Software Advice: 4.12 out of 5 based on more than 260 reviews
• G2.com: 4.2 out of 5 based on more than 50 reviews