Clearbooks vs. Sage 50

Larger companies, multi-currency. Clearbooks is in a competitive environment with Xero, SageOne, FreeAgent, Intuit etc., etc.

Incentivized

Sage is great for portability and exchange with external accountants as it is widely used and people will be able to read your data in. It's a very good and complete solution for a little business where one person can handle all of the accounting. I doubt that it scales well to large companies with several in-house accountants working at the same time.

Incentivized

• SaaS, so accessible by anyone, anywhere in the world via a browser
• Clear and straight forward navigation
• Good choice of management reports

Incentivized

• I like the automated guides to set up complex features of payroll formulas.
• The business intelligence reporting seems very comprehensive, so that one could really "crunch the data" and analyze different aspects of their business.
• Sage annually improves the performance and features of their program.

Incentivized

• Like any SaaS product, Clearbooks is continuously evolving and being improved
• Some of the reports still need some work

Incentivized

• The out of the box reports are not appealing and take a bit to clean up during the end of the month. The set up of the reports can be quite tedious and not very intuitive. They need to do a better job of adding the drop and drag tool in a more visible way so that it is easy for the end user.
• Sage needs to add the ability for the users (in a controlled environment) to manipulate the look and feel of the input screens. It gives you minimal options to add fields to certain areas.
• The help feature does not have the "google" type of intelligence that allows you to search on phrases. If it is not exact, it does not do a very good job of filtering through items that you really don not need. I have used more of the internet searches to figure out my problem because it wasn't easy to pull up the help option in Sage.

I use this rating simply because I have a thriving Sage 50 consulting practice and will continue to keep my expertise in the product. I have consulted on both Sage 50 and QuickBooks for over 25 years so I have to maintain expertise in the solution as well as accounting and verticals.

Incentivized

I think Sage 50 is a trusted product and is reliable from a product delivery and support perspective. They have deep domain expertise in the non-profit space and should be a consideration for new non-profit startups or existing non-profits looking to migrate from other platforms. Overall, I believe that Sage 50 does many things well with few limitations.

Incentivized

The support from Sage is quick, easy to understand and always relevant. They are very responsive to queries and this enables us to have very little down time if the product does fail for whatever reason. Having someone on the end of the phone who can solve your issues is invaluable.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Clearbooks was chosen 5 years ago as our accountant recommended it. There is an element of inertia in moving accounts packages.

Incentivized

Sage Accounting is better suited for smaller organisations with fewer transactions. The invoicing system of this piece of software is a superior tool, however. Sage HR is more commonly used for employees to access payslips and record things such as annual leave or overtime. Sage Intacct is likely a more practical solution for a larger organisation with a higher volume of transactions.

Incentivized

I define scalable from two perspectives; 1) the scalability to handle more bookkeepers/accountants using the product, and 2) the scalability to handle increasing customer/vendor/employee and transactional data. Sage 50 does a good job on both fronts. From the single users operating a micro-business accounting for customer invoices and bill payments only, to the multi-staff, multi-location, multi-departmental complex transactional operation. Although Sage 50 is quite expensive for that smallest user, it is quite inexpensive for the larger business entity. So, for the new enterprise expecting rapid growth, Sage 50 is the application of choice.

• I am not sure that ROI is an appropriate measure for an accounts package. The cost is around £250/year, which is a tiny fraction of the cost of a bookkeeper/finance controller/finance director/CFO.

Incentivized

• It has allowed for more emphasis on sales than data entry which has allowed the Wholesale division to grow
• The "On Screen" credit status on the Sales Order feature has given the capability to free up inventory for paying Customers which increased Turnover, while keeping Past Due to a minimum
• The Reporting has allowed for yearly, prior year and Budget Variance Reporting for the Sales Reps so they can stay or target
• The Inventory Reporting and Receiving keeps a grasp on damaged based on Lots received which helps to notify the Parent company of production issues and monitor shrinkage
• The Credit with Job and RGA capability give a clear view of which Customer are having warehouse issues or if we are having Freight Carrier issues