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Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online are both cloud-based accounting solutions for small businesses. Their features aren’t so different, but the pricing tells a different story: Sage is $20 cheaper per month with no free trial period.
Sage 50cloud is a cloud accounting software that is used by small businesses. QuickBooks Online, on the other hand, is a desktop accounting software for individuals and small business owners. Xero is an online accounting software that offers company-wide financial management to companies of all sizes. Read more in detail here: sage vs quickbooks vs xero.
Many of the features of Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online, two of today’s most popular accounting applications, are identical. Both provide a variety of options that are priced on a monthly or yearly subscription basis and provide small companies with cost-effective entry-level solutions. The biggest difference between these two software packages, however, is that we believe Sage 50cloud to be more complex and difficult to use than QuickBooks Online.
When Should You Use Sage 50cloud?
Sage 50cloud (previously Peachtree Software) is a feature-rich online accounting system for small and medium-sized enterprises that includes tax, inventory, budgeting, cash flow, and invoicing.
Sage 50cloud Is The Best Option For
- Experienced bookkeepers: Sage 50cloud has a lot of great features, but it’s also quite difficult to use. Sage 50cloud will be difficult to master for small company owners and managers. Only use Sage 50cloud if you have a professional bookkeeper on staff to assist you keep track of your finances.
- Project accounting: Even if the user interface is tough to understand, Sage 50cloud’s project accounting functions are superb. You may build projects, allocate project expenses, and provide budget-to-actual comparisons for monitoring using Sage 50cloud.
- Accounting for many companies: Sage 50cloud is a fantastic option for integrating several businesses. You may create consolidated financial statements, with intercompany accounts and transactions handled by Sage 50cloud. If Sage 50cloud isn’t the right fit for you, have a look at our list of the best multicompany accounting software for other ideas.
Sage 50cloud may be found on the internet.
When Should QuickBooks Online Be Used?
QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based accounting software for bookkeepers, accountants, and small companies. For more than two decades, it has been the global leader in financial management software, with more than 29 million firms worldwide, 80 percent of which are small businesses in the United States.
QuickBooks Is The Most Effective For
- DIY entrepreneurs: QuickBooks Online has a user-friendly interface designed for small company accounting. Even if you’re a first-time user, you won’t find QuickBooks Online difficult to use if you’re a company owner or management wanting to handle the books on your own. QuickBooks Online is more user-friendly than Sage 50cloud, albeit it may take some time to get used to. Check out our top selections for the finest small company accounting software for do-it-yourself (DIY) accounting for more possibilities.
- QuickBooks Online’s mobile app isn’t the greatest on the market right now, but it’s a lot better than Sage 50cloud’s. The software allows you to send invoices, collect payments, record receipts, allocate expenditures, and see reports. QuickBooks Online is one of our top picks for the finest mobile accounting software because of this.
- For freelancers paying sales tax or scanning receipts, we recommended QuickBooks Online as our top accounting software. Because it’s ideal for a single person and has a lot of useful options for freelancer accounting requirements, QuickBooks Online Simple Start is the most recommended plan for freelancers.
Go to the QuickBooks Online website.
When to Use a Substitute
Despite the fact that Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online have a lot of fantastic features, we believe that these two software packages aren’t appropriate for:
- Wave is our top option for best free accounting software since its accounting and invoicing capabilities are both free. We also suggest Wave to businesses that have never used accounting software before. For novices, Wave is an excellent stepping stone.
- Outstanding client service: In terms of customer service, FreshBooks is one of the finest. You may phone their customer service number or have them call you. FreshBooks offers a chatbot that can give rapid information from the support page if you need it.
- If you have a big accounting staff, Xero is our top suggestion since it allows you to add an infinite number of users without incurring extra expenses. You may add an unlimited number of users to Xero at no extra charge. Because of its affordable price point and superb inventory capabilities that match QuickBooks, we recommend Xero as the best overall QuickBooks alternative.
Case Study of a Fit Small Business
To evaluate the performance of Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online, we built a case study. We outline 11 critical features that an accounting software application for small company accounting should include in our case study. Here are the findings of our research:
In 11 key areas, the FSB Case Study compares Sage 50cloud vs QuickBooks Online.
At a Glance: Sage 50cloud vs. QuickBooks Online
Pricing for Sage 50cloud vs. QuickBooks Online
Both Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks include monthly and yearly billing options. The cost is determined by the number of users and the features that are needed.
Pricing for Sage 50cloud
Sage 50cloud has three distinct price options, each of which is invoiced monthly:
- For one user, Pro Accounting costs $56.08 per month.
- Premium Accounting costs $87.58 for one user and $201.58 for five users per month.
- Quantum Accounting costs $145.17 per month for one user and $371.08 for ten. For groups of 11 or more people, custom pricing is available.
Pricing for QuickBooks Online
There are four distinct QuickBooks plans to choose from:
- $25 a month for one user is a good place to start.
- $50 per month for the essentials, which covers three users.
- Plus, for $80 per month, you get five users.
- Advanced: $180 per month for a total of 25 users.
- QuickBooks Live: The cost of QuickBooks Live is separate from the software cost:
- Low volume: $200 per month for monthly costs of up to $25,000
- $400 per month for up to $150,000 in monthly spending (medium volume).
- High volume: $600 per month for monthly spending totaling more than $150,000
QuickBooks Live is a virtual accounting service that pairs you with a qualified QuickBooks ProAdvisor who will work with your business one-on-one to help you optimize your operations. There are three tiers of service available, depending on the amount of accounting your company requires. After the bookkeeper cleans up your records, they’ll keep them up to date on a monthly basis and assist you with year-end tax preparation.
For each subscription level, QuickBooks also provides full-service payroll services as an add-on:
- Payroll Core: $45 per month + $4 per employee
- Monthly Payroll Premium: $75 plus $8 per employee
- Payroll Elite: $125 per month + $10 per employee
Takeaway: While Sage 50cloud provides three distinct price options, QuickBooks offers five membership tiers as well as QuickBooks Live, an accounting assistance service. When comparing the costs of the two, QuickBooks Online is much less costly than Sage 50cloud, particularly when several users are involved.
Features of Sage 50cloud vs. QuickBooks Online
Sage 50cloud comes with a table.
Table of Features for QuickBooks Online
Banking and Cash Management: Sage 50cloud vs. QuickBooks Online
Sage 50cloud has a lot of financial functions, however it lacks a few small ones. You can set up bank feeds and reconcile bank statements with Sage 50cloud. What we liked most is that during reconciling, Sage 50cloud displays the balances for bank reconciling items like deposits in transit and outstanding checks. This is useful because it allows users to keep track of unresolved discrepancies.
You can set up bank feeds, reconcile bank statements, create checks, and handle cash transactions with QuickBooks Online’s banking module, which is simple to use. Because of QuickBooks Online’s user-friendly design, business owners and managers can simply handle cash and banking activities.
Takeaway: Because of its simplicity, we suggest QuickBooks Online for banking and cash management. Experienced bookkeepers, on the other hand, may use Sage 50cloud.
Accounts Receivable: Sage 50cloud vs. QuickBooks Online
The accounts receivable (A/R) module in Sage 50cloud has a lot of important capabilities. You may create recurring invoices, sales receipts, customer accounts, and credit notes, among other things. For non-accountants, however, Sage 50cloud’s AR feature might be daunting and complex. The user interface is outdated, and the navigation flow is convoluted.
The AR module in QuickBooks Online has a user interface that is simple and intuitive, especially for non-accountants. You can generate customized invoices in QuickBooks Online, something you can’t do with Sage 50cloud, as well as check customer accounts and manage bills.
Takeaway: When it comes to functionality, Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online are almost identical. Sage 50cloud, on the other hand, is more difficult to use for non-accountants. If you wish to do the books yourself, we can’t suggest it. Instead, we advise you to use QuickBooks Online.
Accounts Payable: Sage 50cloud vs. QuickBooks Online
A powerful accounts payable (A/P) module is included in Sage 50cloud. Vendors can be created, expenses can be tracked, purchase orders can be converted to bills, recurring expenses can be set up, and e-payments can be tracked. We enjoy Sage 50cloud’s AP capabilities since they have all you need to handle your payables. The module, on the other hand, is overwhelming and difficult to use.
Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online have comparable features. You can set up regular spending and even track vendor credits. In terms of functionality, Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online are tied, but QuickBooks Online has a more user-friendly interface that DIY company owners may use for bookkeeping.
Takeaway: In terms of AP features, Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online are on par. Non-accountants, on the other hand, should avoid Sage 50cloud because to its complicated interface. If you’re doing your own accounting, we recommend QuickBooks Online, and if you use a bookkeeper, Sage 50cloud.
Project Accounting using Sage 50cloud vs. QuickBooks Online
The project accounting tools in Sage 50cloud are excellent and comprehensive. It has functions such as estimating and planning projects, invoicing expenditures to projects, and allocating charges to projects. The ability to construct a budget-to-actual report for labor and inventory is the most essential feature here.
All of the capabilities stated above for Sage 50cloud are available in QuickBooks Online, with the exception of the ability to construct a budget-to-actual report for labor and inventory. Budget-to-actual reports are critical for project accounting, therefore this is a big mistake for QuickBooks Online.
Takeaway: Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online both provide excellent project accounting capabilities. While both can help you manage projects, Sage 50cloud stands out for its budgeting capabilities, particularly the actual-to-budget capability. This function comes in handy while making decisions and managing a small company.
Ease of Use: Sage 50cloud vs. QuickBooks Online
Learning Sage 50cloud is more difficult than learning QuickBooks Online. In both apps, there are several ways to complete each assignment. Both Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks have comparable functionality, however Sage 50cloud offers a larger feature set.
Ease of Use with Sage 50cloud
Despite its many advantages, depending on your previous accounting experience, you may find Sage 50cloud to have a high learning curve and its enormous amount of functions to be intimidating at first. It will, however, grow more user-friendly over time. More information on Sage 50cloud’s features may be found in our review. It’s only compatible with Windows.
Sage 50cloud includes built-in accounting and compliance controls that preserve accuracy and avoid typical mistakes, which is one of its most enticing features. This is particularly useful since errors are sometimes committed without even recognizing it. Suspicious transaction flags, audit trails, and user access settings are all security features. Local or cloud backups are both possible:
The Sage 50 Dashboard is seen in this image.
Account Balances, Revenue, Vendors to Pay, Customers Who Owe Money, and Aged Receivables are the five crucial reports that may be obtained by clicking on Business Status on your dashboard.
- Business Status: Click here to see your dashboard, which is shown above.
- Account Balances: This is where you can see the balances of all of your accounts.
- Year-to-date revenue: View the revenue for your business, which includes total income, cost of sales, gross profit, and costs. This report may be tailored to your needs.
- Vendors to Pay: This section displays a list of bills that are now due, along with the vendor name, amount owed, and due date for each.
- Customers Who Owe Money: View a list of amounts owed to each client, along with invoice due dates.
- View a graph that depicts your aged receivables data.
You may also browse to other functions by clicking on the tabs at the top, such as viewing the chart of accounts, invoicing customers, producing and modifying reports, and entering journal entries. Here’s an example of how you can use shortcuts in the menu bar to swiftly launch transactions. In this scenario, the Invoice Time and Expenses function is accessible through the Tasks shortcut:
Shortcuts for the Sage 50cloud Menu Bar
Although Sage 50cloud does not provide supported bookkeeping services, Sage Expert Services is meant to help you get the most out of the program. These services are only available to Sage clients and are provided by experienced analysts with deep technical understanding of Sage 50. Installation and updates, customisation services, year-end walkthroughs, and data services are among the fee-based services.
The Ease of Using QuickBooks Online
Our QuickBooks Online review discusses the software’s finest features and how simple they are to use, as well as the sorts of companies that would be a good match for it.
QuickBooks Online opens to a dashboard with handy reports, similar to Sage 50. A screenshot of the QuickBooks Online dashboard is shown below, along with a summary of everything you’ll find there:
A screenshot of a QuickBooks Online Dashboard
- From the left menu bar, you may create invoices, produce reports, and track distance.
- Cash flow: This fully configurable and graphed view of your revenue, cost of products sold, and costs offers you a picture of your business.
- Bills: View your A/R report and access client invoices that have been paid or are pending payment.
- Expenses: Here you may see your top three spending categories in a chart format.
- Profit & loss: Access your income statement here, which can be customized for a certain time period.
- Bank accounts: From the dashboard, you may check your available bank balances. You may check both your bank and QuickBooks balances after QuickBooks is linked to your online accounts.
Clicking the New button above the left menu bar is the easiest method to create a new transaction. Here’s an illustration:
In QuickBooks Online, create new transactions.
QuickBooks Live is an assisted bookkeeping service offered by QuickBooks. These specialists will work with you to clean up your books and manage them on a regular basis as part of a network of QuickBooks-certified virtual bookkeepers. This isn’t a replacement for someone who can manage day-to-day accounting activities like issuing invoices, processing A/P and A/R, and keeping track of inventory.
You may engage hundreds of independent QuickBooks ProAdvisors to help you with your QuickBooks accounting in addition to QuickBooks Live.
Takeaway: When compared to QuickBooks Online, Sage 50cloud is more difficult to utilize. Only small firms with a skilled bookkeeper may benefit from Sage 50cloud. Aside from that, QuickBooks Online is the preferable option.
Integrations between Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks Online
73 integrations are available for Sage 50cloud, compared to 825 for QuickBooks. While Sage 50’s connectors are mostly focused on Microsoft 365 applications, QuickBooks provides a diverse set of options, including QuickBooks Payroll, Shopify by OneSaas, Service Trade, and Fathom.
Integrations with Sage 50cloud
Sage 50cloud makes your data available over the cloud and a variety of linked applications by using the power of Microsoft 365. It works with Microsoft 365 Business Standard and the rest of the Microsoft Small Business Productivity Suite, allowing you to save time and money while increasing productivity.
Here’s a selection of the Sage 50cloud integrations that are presently available:
- Microsoft365, Microsoft OneDrive, MileIQ, One Drive, SharePoint, Teams, and Outlook Customer Manager are some of the Microsoft applications available.
- Sage Timeslips and Journyx are two tools for keeping track of time.
- SnapAP helps you keep track of your costs.
- Payroll processing: PayClock
- E-commerce and brick & mortar stores: ProShop, Shopfront
- Sage Payment Solutions, Credit Hound, Stripe, and PayPal are examples of payment management software.
Integrations with QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Time are available directly via QuickBooks for companies with workers or the need to monitor time. Many third-party applications are also compatible with the program.
- QuickBooks Payroll: From inside QuickBooks, click on QuickBooks Payroll to obtain complete payroll features.
- QuickBooks Time: Track time with the mobile app and bill it to customers or use it for payroll in QuickBooks Online. Time provides a number of innovative features, like staff GPS tracking and timeclock terminals with face recognition.
Here’s a sampling of the QuickBooks Online integrations that are presently available:
- QuickBooks Time, ClockShark, and eBillity are all good options for time monitoring.
- OneSaas’ eBay, Shopify’s OneSaas, Amazon Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), Entriwise’s Seller Fulfilled Accounting, and Katana Inventory and Manufacturing’s Katana Inventory and Manufacturing
- Bill.com, Deluxe eChecks, Plooto, and Veem are some of the sites where you may pay bills and receive payments.
- Customers to manage: Method:CRM, Insightly CRM, WORKetc, and Capsule CRM are examples of CRM software.
- Contractors may use BigTime, Service Trade, Jobber, Corecon, and Knowify to manage projects.
- Syft Analytics, Qvinci, Fathom, and LivePlan are some of the analytics tools available.
- Payroll processing software includes QuickBooks Payroll, Gusto, ADP, and Paychex.
Takeaway: QuickBooks Online provides solutions that can be accessible via the program and third-party applications, and it has a lot more connectors than its desktop cousin. The ability of Sage 50cloud to interact with Microsoft 365, allowing customers access to a broad variety of Microsoft products, is its most enticing feature.
QuickBooks Online Mobile App vs. Sage 50cloud
Sage Capture, a mobile app for iOS and Android smartphones, is available through Sage 50cloud. It’s just for taking receipts and recording transactions, and it’s updated in real time across all platforms, allowing you to go to your dashboard right away.
All of your financial data is at your fingertips with the QuickBooks Online mobile app. Your smartphone may be used to enter transactions, keep track of spending, and send reports. It automatically backs up your data to the cloud and syncs it across all of your devices.
Takeaway: You can handle your bookkeeping duties while on the road with both Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks’ mobile applications. The Sage 50cloud app is limited, with only the ability to record receipts and enter transactions. While the QuickBooks Accounting app has all of the features, such as tracking miles, creating invoices, and managing contacts, the Sage 50cloud app only has the ability to record receipts and enter transactions.
Customer Support: Sage 50cloud vs. QuickBooks Online
Customers seeking help from Sage 50cloud and QuickBooks have a variety of choices, including a broad selection of online tools that may answer simple issues. Articles, videos, online chat, phone support, and, in the case of QuickBooks, paid assistance from a QuickBooks ProAdvisor are all available as support options.
Customer Service for Sage 50cloud
With over three million customers worldwide and over 35 years of business expertise, Sage has put together a wealth of resources that are available to all of its customers. These resources include Q&A Live, a virtual meeting room where Sage analysts answer questions on specific topics in real-time. You can also talk with an expert online or by phone, submit an online case, or connect with Sage Expert Services. Users can also contact customer support through a chatbot or a live chat person. Otherwise, they can email Sage for inquiries.
Customer Service for QuickBooks Online
Depending on the complexity of your demands, QuickBooks provides a range of customer assistance solutions. You may find articles and videos on commonly asked issues on the Learn and Support website. If the solution isn’t obvious, you may contact the support staff, and inquiries are generally answered within 48 hours.
Customer care experts are also accessible by online chat or phone, albeit you must make a call request online rather than calling QuickBooks Support directly. You may want to engage a QuickBooks ProAdvisor if you have a difficult problem. These Intuit-certified financial experts must pass a test to prove their knowledge of QuickBooks.
Takeaway: In the United States, Sage does not provide supported accounting services. If you intend to engage a local bookkeeper to help you with your bookkeeping, we strongly suggest QuickBooks.
Conclusion
Sage 50cloud is an excellent accounting software application with many useful features. The complexity of utilizing Sage 50cloud, on the other hand, is a barrier to entry for small firms who want to do their own bookkeeping. Only experienced bookkeepers should use Sage 50cloud. Otherwise, for small company accounting, we recommend QuickBooks Online.
Sage 50cloud is a cloud-based accounting software that can be used by businesses of all sizes. QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based accounting software that is made for small to medium sized businesses. The two products have many similarities and differences in their features, pricing and functionality. Reference: sage accounting software.
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