Which software is better for you?

Intuit QuickBooks is the best-known accounting software in the world — but it has some drawbacks, including a very high starting price. As a result, many businesses are considering switching to an alternative such as Sage Accounting, another popular accounting software for small businesses.

To help you decide which is right for your needs, we’ll compare Sage Business Cloud Accounting and QuickBooks Online in this review.

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What is a monk?

Sage makes accounting and business management software for businesses of all sizes. Sage technically offers three different accounting products: Sage Business Cloud Accounting Service, Sage 50 “cloud-enabled” desktop products and Sage Intact enterprise accounting software. For the purposes of this review, we will compare Sage Business Cloud Accounting to QuickBooks Online to provide the most accurate comparison.

What is QuickBooks?

Intuit QuickBooks is a business accounting software company that provides bookkeeping software and other accounting and finance solutions, including payroll. Similar to Sage, QuickBooks also offers several accounting products: QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. It also offers an optional payroll add-on called QuickBooks Payroll. While the payroll tool is beyond the scope of this comparison, you can learn more about it in our QuickBooks Payroll review.

Sage vs QuickBooks: Comparison Table

Sage vs QuickBooks: Pricing

sage pricing

There are only two plans for Sage Business Cloud Accounting:

• sage accounting startup: Costs $10 per month and includes access for one user.
• sage account: Costs $25 per month and supports unlimited users.

Sage usually offers a 30-day free trial. It also has frequent sales that only apply to its more advanced plan. The discount can be up to 70% for six months, reducing the annual SEZ accounting price by more than $100.

quickbooks pricing

QuickBooks Online offers four different pricing tiers to choose from:

• QuickBooks Simple Start: Costs $30 per month with access for one user.
• QuickBooks EssentialsCost: $55 per month with access to three users.
• QuickBooks Plus: Cost per month is $85 with access to five users.
• quickbooks advanced: Cost is $200 per month with access for up to 25 users.

As a first-time QuickBooks customer, you can choose to explore QuickBooks without a plan by signing up for a free 30-day trial. You can even skip the free trial in favor of locking in a 50% discount for your first three months – but you can’t choose both.

Sage vs QuickBooks: Feature Comparison

Invoice Management

In QuickBooks, you can create custom invoices (picture a) with a logo and colors that match your business branding. You can set up recurring invoices to automatically send every day, week, month or year so you don’t have to generate them from scratch. Once you submit invoices, QuickBooks tracks when your customers viewed, paid, and submitted them.

picture a

Sage Accounting also allows you to create customizable invoices (picture b) and set up recurring invoices. You can convert quotes to invoices with just one click and also give reminders about outstanding invoices to slow paying customers. Plus, Sage Accounting connects with your bank and other systems so everything runs together seamlessly.

picture b

bill payment

QuickBooks offers three solutions for bill pay: QuickBooks Bill Pay, Bill Pay powered by Melio, and Bill Pay powered by Bill.com. Depending on which one you have, you can schedule full and partial bill payments (picture c) and view or edit your vendor payment information. Your vendors will be notified when you schedule bill payments so they know when the money is coming.

picture c

Sage’s bill pay functions allow you to pay invoices or vendors directly, enter prepayments, and update job cost expenses. Connected banking and automated data capture drastically reduces paperwork and hectic work and makes it easy to flag a dispute or create a credit note. The cash flow report lets you see at a glance how much money is going in and out.

inventory tracking

QuickBooks Plus and Advanced plans offer inventory tracking (picture d) so that you can see in time what items and materials you have. QuickBooks will alert you when it’s time to restock and provide analytical insight on what you buy and sell. You can also add services or non-inventory items so that everything is centralized in one system.

picture d

Sage’s inventory management tool provides both real-time visibility and forecasting so you can see the status of your stock now and in the future. And with barcodes, you can reduce the time spent tracking inventory, while reporting helps you make better business decisions about which products and quantities to stock.

business reporting

QuickBooks is known for its excellent reports, and even the entry-level plan comes with over 50 report templates for you to use. The dashboard includes all the high-level stats you’ll want to check on a regular basis, while individual reports let you delve deeper into specific topics. Reports can be customized to show exactly the data you need, and you can keep your accountants and other stakeholders up to date with email updates.

Sage Dashboard (picture e) also keeps essential information like cash flow and balance sheet data in one easy-to-read place. Quickly share reports and summaries with your accountant or team to keep them up to date. Sage Business Accounting includes about 20 pre-built report templates, which is a good number but not quite on par with QuickBooks.

picture e

sage pros and cons

qualities of a monk

• More affordable than QuickBooks.
• Support for many different currencies.
• Excellent inventory tracking.
• Unlimited users on the Sage Accounting plan.

Cons of Sage

• No basic mileage or time tracking features.
• Could use more integrations.
• One has to upgrade to SEZ account and get AutoEntry add-on for receipt capture.

Advantages and Disadvantages of QuickBooks

Advantages of QuickBooks

• Over 750 integrations.
• 50+ reports on the entry level plan alone.
• Sharing information with your accountant is very easy.
• Receipt tracking is available on all plans.

Cons of QuickBooks

• SEZ accounting and more expensive than most competitors.
• Each plan limits the number of users.
• The learning curve can be frustrating.

procedure

To compare Sage Business Cloud Accounting and QuickBooks Online, we considered features such as invoicing, accounts payable and receivable, inventory tracking, and reporting templates. We also considered factors such as pricing, ease of use, and customer support accessibility. While writing this review, we consulted product documentation, read user reviews, and watched demo videos.

Should Your Organization Use Sage or QuickBooks?

Both Sage and QuickBooks are some of the best accounting software options on the market, but each software has its own list of advantages and disadvantages.

If you’re a small business and looking for a budget-conscious option—and you don’t need advanced features like time and mileage tracking—then Rishi Accounts is the right choice for you. We also like that Sage offers unlimited users on all plans, so you won’t be forced to upgrade to a more expensive plan just because you need more seats. You get to take advantage of the free trial and whatever introductory offer is going on, while QuickBooks forces you to choose one or the other.

If you need that more advanced functionality, quickbooks It is a better option because of its more comprehensive feature set. However, you have to be ready to pay for those extra features especially if you need a lot of users to access the software. QuickBooks’ most expensive plan costs more than eight times the cost of Sage’s most expensive plan, and the QuickBooks Advanced plan still limits you to 25 users.

Still not convinced that Sage Accounting or QuickBooks is right for your needs? Check out our list of the best accounting software for small businesses to see what other options are out there.