Sage Accounting Review: Is It Right for Your Business?

Sage is a good accounting software package for small businesses – especially those that prioritise keeping a unified brand image and need a high level of invoice customisation. It also has great inventory management tools, and invoice templates designed for product sales, making it well-suited to businesses that deal with physical products.

That said, we found Sage a little tricky to use, and its expense management tools are quite poor compared to competitors. For this reason, it’s not software we’d recommend to novice users, or businesses with employees that need to frequently claim expenses.

In this review, we’ll go over our experience using Sage, and assess its accounting features and pricing. We’ll also let you know what types of businesses Sage is best for.

Sage Accounting Review: Summary

Here’s a quick summary of our thoughts on Sage Accounting:

Who is Sage Accounting best for?

Sage’s high level of invoice customisation makes Sage the best accounting software tool for customer-facing businesses that need to stay on brand. Although Sage has tools to accommodate both product and service-based businesses, its strong inventory management tools make it particularly suited to businesses that sell physical products.

Additionally, Sage’s suite of customised reporting tools and financial planning and budgeting tools make it suitable for established businesses looking to grow, and it’s one of the few accounting platforms to offer scalable payroll and HR software tools.

Sage isn’t the best option for new businesses, or freelancers looking for a basic accounting tool since it can be tricky to use, and its self-help centre isn’t very up-to-date. Plus, Sage doesn’t have a time tracking tool, so isn’t geared to project-based freelancers on contract businesses.

For the best accounting platforms for the self-employed, see our recommendations.

Our experience using Sage Accounting

Sage was a bit of a mixed bag when it came to usability.

We found the platform very visually appealing and were generally impressed by the quote and invoice creation process. We liked that we could choose between different invoice templates, such as services and product templates, and found it easy to customise them with logos and layout changes. Competitors like FreshBooks didn’t have the same variety of templates and offered limited layout customisation.

Another highlight was the way Sage presented data. We found its data visualisation dashboards and its pre-built reports, such as the profit and loss report, very clear and easy to interpret. In fact, the way Sage presented data was on a par with QuickBooks, our top pick for reporting.

That said, we had a lot of difficulty locating core accounting features, such as payment reminders, currency settings, and expense logging. This was mainly due to vague signposting, and very unclear self-help resources. The fact that expenses were hard to locate and hard to log (the process is very long and convoluted) was especially frustrating, since this is a common task, and was very easy to complete on most competitors’ platforms that we tested.

Sage Accounting: Key Features

Sage offers highly customisable invoices and a great set of reporting and inventory management tools. However, its expense management tools are a little weak, and it doesn’t have any time-tracking tools for creating billable hours.

Invoices and quotes

Sage has a strong set of quoting and invoicing features. Although users only get access to quote-sending from the £30 per month Accounting Standard plan, unlimited invoice sends are available from the £15 per month starting plan.

We were particularly impressed by the variety of invoice templates Sage offered, with separate templates for services and product sales, not something offered by competitors. Quotes and invoices were also easily customisable in terms of layout and logo position options, making it easy for businesses to maintain a strong brand image.

The one downside to Sage is that it’s not possible to set up payment reminders for invoices, a feature most competitors offer. However, users are notified when clients open and pay invoices, and they can set up recurring invoices and automated sending. Sage also supports multi-currency invoicing from its £59 per month Accounting Plus plan, a feature not available with rival FreshBooks.

Expense management

While Sage provides tools for tracking expenses and bills, we found the process overly complicated, which isn’t great for businesses that track frequent expenses.

One factor that makes expense tracking time-consuming is that Sage doesn’t have many options for automating the process. Unlike competitors QuickBooks and Xero, expenses can’t be fed into Sage’s system and categorised via bank feed integration. It is, however, possible to upload and categorise expenses via receipt data capture, but there’s a 30 to 100-per-month cap on the number of times you can do this (depending on the plan). Any use of the automation after that costs £0.20 per expense capture.

Additionally, we found it quite hard to find where to log expenses manually in Sage, since this was classified under the vague title of “other payments”. We also found that it took more time to log an expense on Sage compared with other platforms because of the number of fields to amend.

That said, we appreciated the fact that, when logging an expense, Sage had a notification letting us know whether we had enough funds to afford the expense. This isn’t something other accounting platforms do, and is useful for effectively managing company finances.

Inventory management

Sage offers a great set of inventory management tools, making it highly suitable for small businesses that sell products.

From the £59 per month Accounting Plus plan, businesses get access to detailed stock management. Sage can track stock levels and provide users with out-of-stock warnings. Users can also set stock reorder levels, specifying quantity, to minimise the chance of running out of a certain item.

We also appreciated the level of detail Sage allows users to assign to items. It’s possible to set different prices for the same item, such as purchase or wholesale price, and categorise items into categories and subcategories.

Additionally, Sage allows businesses three types of sale items, physical products where stock levels are relevant, one-off physical products where stock levels don’t need to be tracked, and services.

The one downside to Sage’s inventory tracking tools is that the software isn’t capable of the software automatically calculating and updating asset values, accounting for depreciation or amortisation over time. For businesses that deal with a lot of non-perishable goods, this can somewhat limit their ability to plan out their finances.

Tax preparation

Sage offers a standard set of tools for managing tax.

From the £15 per month Accounting Start plan, businesses get access to VAT calculations and submissions, while CIS (Construction Industry Scheme) support is available from the £30 per month Accounting Standard plan. Sage is also compliant with the MTD (Making Tax Digital) scheme, which means businesses can submit returns to HMRC directly through Sage’s portal.

Sage also offers cashflow management tools that show how much VAT businesses owe and are owed, something most competitors don’t offer. This is great for planning ahead and avoiding nasty surprises when submitting returns.

That said, unlike competitors Xero or FreeAgent, Sage’s software doesn’t automatically update tax when regulations change, so it’s up to businesses to ensure they’re using the correct rate.

Reporting and analysis

Sage has impressive reporting and analysis tools and allows for a level of customisation not offered by all competitors.

On top of letting users build custom reports from scratch, Sage also lets users modify existing report templates and save them for easy access to data. Sage’s array of preexisting reports includes key financial statements such as income statements, cashflow statements, and balance sheets, as well as reports for assessing cashflow, such as profit and loss.

Sage also has tools to help businesses with financial planning. It has a cashflow projection tool that takes into account outgoings and incomings, and users can set budgets for projects.

It is missing a few extra tools, such as a “what-if” scenario creator, available with competitors QuickBooks and FreeAgent, but what Sage does offer should be enough to help small businesses effectively plan for the future.

Native integrations

One advantage of using Sage Accounting is that it allows for easy integration with Sage’s other native software, namely its payroll and HR software.

Sage offers several payroll and HR solutions that can accommodate a variety of business sizes. This includes Sage Payroll (£10-£35 per month) and Sage HR (from £4.60 per employee), separate software solutions for small businesses with clear pricing and employee limits, and Sage 200, an integrated global payroll and HR platform for growing businesses with custom pricing.

While competitors QuickBooks and FreeAgent also offer native payroll software, their payroll software can only handle small businesses, whereas Sage’s payroll software is more scalable.

Tools for accountants

Businesses can invite their accountant to collaborate with them on all Sage plans, including the £15 Accounting Start plan.

Accountants should feel right at home since Sage offers double-entry accounting, a chart of accounts, and journal entries. That said, the best way for accountants to work with clients who use Sage is by signing up for Sage for Accountants. There’s a free version of this software which can work for freelance or self-employed accountants with small portfolios.

Sage Accounting: Pricing

Sage Accounting’s pricing ranges from £15 to £59 per month, with three plans in total:

Is Sage Accounting expensive?

Sage occupies a middle ground when it comes to price. It isn’t the cheapest accounting software on the market, but it isn’t the most expensive either.

Its starting price of £15 per month is in the same range as competitors FreshBooks and Xero, although more expensive than QuickBooks and Zoho Books’ £10 starting price.

At £59 per month, Sage’s most expensive plan costs the same as Xero’s and is cheaper than the maximum pricing at QuickBooks, which is £115. However, competitors FreeAgent, FreshBooks and Clear Books have a maximum price of less than £40 per month.

Does Sage have a free plan or discounts?

Sage doesn’t have a free plan, nor does it offer discounted pricing for customers who pay for the year upfront, something most competitors offer.

The one discount available is that new users can have the first three months free, which is effectively a three-month trial period, however, this does require you to enter your card details. Competitors such as QuickBooks and FreshBooks don’t require card details for users to enter a free trial period.

Sage Accounting: Help and Support Options

Sage’s customer support team is easily reachable and widely available, however, its self-help resources need improvement.

Users can access live support over the phone or via live chat, with phone lines open from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday, and live chat agents available from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday, and from 9am to 5pm on the weekends.

The only support channel Sage is missing is an email address, which can be useful for non-urgent issues. That said, the fact that Sage offers weekend support still puts it ahead of competitors such as Zoho Books, which only offers weekday live support.

Sage’s self-help resources are a little less impressive. While it does have a knowledge centre with guides and a user forum, we weren’t impressed by them. We found that some of Sage’s guides, such as ones to set up payment reminders or log expenses, had irrelevant information, and didn’t help figure out tasks.

Sage Accounting: Alternatives

If you’ve decided Sage isn’t the right accounting software for you, here are some alternatives to consider:

• Zoho Books: If you like Sage’s strong inventory management and reporting features, but want a platform that’s easier to use, we recommend Zoho Books.
• QuickBooks: If you’re looking for an accounting platform with an emphasis on reporting and financial planning tools, but that also has a dedicated plan for the self-employed, we recommend QuickBooks.
• Xero: If you’re an established business that wishes Sage had better expense management tools, then Xero is a great alternative. It offers detailed tracking and recording of invoices, expenses, and clients, and it’s well-known among accountants, which makes working with one easy.
• FreeAgent: If you want something that’s slightly cheaper than Sage, and easier to use, FreeAgent is your answer. It’s one of the most affordable accounting software platforms on the market and is free for businesses with a bank account at select banks. It’s also got powerful reporting and financial planning tools making it a great value choice.
• FreshBooks: If you’re self-employed, such as a sole trader or freelancer, and need a simple accounting platform for basic bookkeeping, we recommend FreshBooks since it’s very easy to use and affordable. Read our FreshBooks review for more.
• Clear Books: If you need an accounting tool that can support a wide variety of different tax types, and offers a lot of guidance come tax time, we recommend Clear Books.

Methodology: How We Reviewed Sage Accounting