Review by W. Munro

I’ve used Quickbooks primarily over the last 10 years+, so I was excited to try out Sage 50 for my wife’s new small business accounting.

Overall, I really like the fact that Sage 50 puts much more information on the screen at one time. For example, when you go to the employees section, you can easily see all the employee-related tasks available, the full list of employees, recent reports, etc. In Quickbooks, much more information is hidden underneath multiple layers, and there is a lot more cross-linking between functions, so it is actually really hard to find what you want again.

As a small business owner who works directly with end-consumers and consumer product design … I really have to say to the Sage 50 folks … PLEASE hire a real UI designer (preferably from an A+ firm in Silicon Valley.) Seriously, the UI of your product is pretty much equivalent with that of Windows 95 … that’s 18 years ago!nnIf you are a small business owner looking to use Sage 50 for your own business, here are some things I’d suggest considering.

1) Other Users - Be sure to think ahead about who else you will need to access your accounting software. (Business partner, accountant, etc.) The multi-user licensing of the desktop software can get VERY expensive. Be sure so compare with using an online hosted version (such as Sage One), where you can have multiple users much more cheaply (or for no extra cost, if you are willing to share account credentials.)nn2) Remote Access - Do you need to access your reports, data, or even generate checks or payroll remotely? Be sure to understand the limitations of the desktop version. The online version provides remote access by default.

3) Accounting Knowledge - Do you have a strong understanding of accounting basics (e.g. chart of accounts, journal entries, debits/credits, etc)? If you are a novice here or it’s been a while, I found that Quickbooks does a MUCH better job of easing you into things with suggested default choices, wizards, and overall just a more simplified approach (though you will still need to understand the basic accounting concepts.)