QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued) vs. Sage 50

QuickBooks is a great tool for new SoleTraders that need basic accounting software and require digital invoicing for their clients to send via email and access key features via a mobile app on the go. QuickBooks is a straightforward tool to use with a simple design and learning curve for business owners that are not very tech-savvy. For businesses that operate on a larger scale and need to provide access to other users on their team, QuickBooks is limited. This type of business may also require more insights into the business outside of accounting, and QuickBooks won't be able to supply insights outside of that.

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

• Tracking expenses is as simple as swiping left and right, it couldn't be easier.
• Running invoices through QuickBooks is simple and effective.
• Allowing clients to pay by card or check allows you to get paid faster and give the clients multiple ways of paying invoices, which helps everyone.
• Automatically tracking estimated quarterly taxes is very helpful and it keeps it top-of mind for each month.

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

• There are a number of unnecessary and ongoing prompts to do small tasks, like creating a rule for certain transactions. I could do without those.
• There are also occasional glitches with bank setup that produce duplicate transactions which can be a pain to deal with. I also haven't been able to find a way to effectively edit transactions.
• I also wish that QBSE integrated with software like Freshbooks, Tripit and Expensify.

• 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 have been using this software for several years now and it has always put out my data in beautiful generated reports that I can use for verification purposes with my financial institute and the IRS. It has all the tools I need to run my business without loosing track of anything

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

I have never faced any difficulties that required me to contact QuickBooks customer service. QuickBooks has plenty of online tutorials, blog posts, and helpful tips and advice for almost any issues you may face using the desktop or app version of the software. Even if you can not find the right answer on the QuickBooks webpages, there are loads of YouTube videos from experts.

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

To be honest, I haven't shopped around for a bookkeeping package. I've been using TurboTax for well over a decade, and adding on QuickBooks Self-Employed (once I made the switch to freelancing) was a no-brainer. I probably could have used the program to help me keep track of employee expenses as I was working for others in the past.

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.

• A positive impact on my business is, of course, keeping track of income and expenses, and approximate quarterly taxes. QuickBooks is a little better at this than Quicken, I think.
• By using QuickBooks (and Quicken) it saves me having to spend money on an accountant. (At least up to this point.)
• However, the time I spend on daily or weekly entries takes billable time away from other things.

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