How many of you have ever heard of Sage Accounting Software? Seriously, how many of you have ever heard of Sage? They make some of the best accounting software on the planet, but their marketing has been ineffective. Just think about how many non-franchise small businesses there are with 0-25 employees in the USA alone. What is your guess, 5 hundred thousand, 1 million, more? Sage has over 6 million customers worldwide, but so far only 10,000 businesses have signed up for Sage One, the latest Sage offering targetted specifically for small businesses. .
Sage One is based on what was called Peachtree and now called Sage 50, but it is now simpler and easier to use than Peachtree ever was. Sage One is targeted for small businesses with 0-10 employees predominantly.
Sage is using “Agile Development” to produce a regular stream of improvements every two weeks or so. They have already added pay by mobile phone apps and integration with 10,000 banks. This means you can download bank statements directly from bank and used that information in Sage One to help you do reconciliations. These are huge benefits to small businesses, who often a) lose their bank statements, b) let reconciliation slide for a few periods. Q4 of 2013 will see a Sage One Accountants edition for use by in house and off site accountants. The ability to “remote in” will be free. This is competitive with Quickbooks online. Q4 of 2013 will also see the release of the Canadian version of Sage One with full integration with Canadian banks and a French/English bilingual program.
It also integrates with Sage Payment Solutions which allows businesses to take credit cards in the accounting program and performs processing functions as well. Sage is very smart to provide this integration because it provides user convenience and vendor profit (on the processing fees).
In 2014, Sage will release Sage One Basic and Sage One Extra. Basic will have streamlined online invoicing and payment applications and will come with a lower price of $24/month. Extra will be a “true multi-user system” that should appeal strongly to those small businesses with 10-25 employees. Extra will have enhanced features such as improved inventory management and, with the addition of Sage One Payroll, also due for 2014 release, should prove very appealing and facile for “larger” small businesses. SMB's typically want to outsource payroll, because it is very easy to make mistakes and incur large tax penalties. Outsourcing it to Sage makes for user convenience and vendor profits.
The standard Sage one accounting model is very good, easy to understand and to use, has an excellent Project Management module (unique among SMB online offerings), and comes with a very reasonable $29/month price tag (cloud based accounting software). If you are larger than 25 employees, do not fear, Sage 50, Sage One’s big sister, was designed specifically for you. Sage 50 has all the “ease of use” that Sage One has, but it is designed for the “largest” of the small business range with a very superior inventory control module. Sage Payroll Solutions is extra with every flavor of Sage 50, but packaging them together can reduce overall cost.
I have downloaded a 6 month free trial of Sage One standard and I am very happy to say this accounting software has an ease of use that I quite frankly have never encountered before. It is module based and these modules are brilliant in execution. You do not need Sage certification or back-to-school brainiac classes to understand and use this software. Anyone with an accounting background (Read debits and credits) can figure Sage One out in minutes. Those without this should have no trouble as “practice makes perfect” with this program. The more you use it, the more intuitive the program becomes.
We will be providing you with a link and a code word to get a six month free trial of Sage One. Spread the word people, this one is a winner.
Please fill out the form which you get from clicking the link below to get your code word. We will update this posting once we determine the code word is inactive.
