Rachel Power for AccountingWeb UK writes: One of the most common questions on AccountingWEB concerns the most suitable accounting software for small businessses. With no prior experience, Rachael Power took the Sage One cloud accounting application for a test drive, under the watchful eye of regular software reviewer Nigel Harris.
I have never used an accounting package in my life. But I was asked to try Sage One as an experiment to see what the software would be like for small business owners when they confront accounting applications for the first time.
Long-time software reviewer and Burton Sweet partner Nigel Harris gave me an initial run-through with Sage One and also showed me Sage 50 Accounts to give me a feel for how traditional accounting packages differ from their online rivals.
Sage One Accounts and Accounts Extra (launched late last year) to support accountants who want to collaborate online with their clients. Certain functions such as journals and editing chart of accounts are only available from the accountant’s version of the app - so Nigel's help was invaluable to see how Sage One would be operated at the accountant's end of the process.
SageOne Accounts and Accounts Extra
Target market Sage One Cashbook caters for sole traders and start-ups, while Accounts and Accounts Extra include extra features for larger businesses. The Accountants Edition allows practitioners to view and administer their clients' Sage One installations.
Cost From £5/month for Cashbook; £10/month for Accounts; and £25/month for Accounts Extra. The Sage One Accountant edition is available for £5 a year(or free to Sage Accountants’ Club members)
Strengths
- Easy-to-use for someone who has never used an accounting package before
- Cloud means no downloads, can be used on multiple devices - not just on Windows, like Sage 50
- 24 hour telephone support lines
- Step-by-step explanation for everything
- Google account integration
Accounts weaknesses - none of the below are applicable to Extra
● Journal entries and changes to the chart of accounts can only be carried out in the Accountants edition
● Inability to post transactions to specific nominal ledger accounts
● Limited reporting; no drill down to transaction detail
What is Sage One?
Sage One comes in a number of varieties. The Sage One Cashbooks module costs £5 per month and presents a steps the user through a simple graphical workflow to get them to enter income and expenses.
For a £10 monthly subscription, the Accounts version offers a fuller set of accounting functions including invoice processing, VAT, banking and bank reconciliation.
For £25 a month, Accounts Extra caters for small businesses that need more from their accounts, including support for export activity, managing more than one business and supporting multiple users.
The Sage One Accountant edition is available for a £250 yearly payment (or free to Sage Accountants’ Club members). This system gives the practitioner with an overview screen for each of their Cashbook and Accounts users, with the ability to access journals for each client to amend entries or generate trial balances.
Sage One Accounts - look and feel
To get started all I had to do was register with Sage and log in with my email address and password within a browser. There are no downloads required.
As a digital native used to new and evolving technology, I found the modular, bright user interface friendly and easy to navigate.
Upon opening up the application, you are presented with with a summary dashboard that includes visuals and charts of various ‘need-to-know’ metrics.
For example, it shows the top five unpaid invoices, the state of your bank balance and how long you have left to file a VAT return.
The unpaid invoices tab is quite useful, for example, because it allows you to click into the invoice immediately and view its details.
The application flows really well and the touches such as pop-up notifications when you successfully create an invoice make it feel similar to using other social applications like Facebook or Twitter - which is a positive for someone like me as I enjoy using those services.
At the top of the screen is a navigation bar containing tabs for: sales, expenses, banking, contacts and more.
Small business users can get started straight away. All you need is a bank balance, debtors and creditors and even then only basic information. Thanks to help from Sage and Nigel, my version of Sage One was already set up with my customers, bank accounts, suppliers and opening balances. As an Accounts user, changes to the chart of accounts and journal entries could only be made from my accountant’s version.
Entering a sale in Sage One Accounts
There are three drop-down tabs under Sales: Sales Invoices, Other Income and Products and Services.
The Invoices dashboard is simple and modular, and even includes an explanation of what an invoice is for newbies like me. Raising an invoice is painless - just click the big green 'Create invoice' button above the chart of invoices and enter the details. It'll then give you the option to email a PDF version to the customer.
While painless, it doesn't appear to allow you to view the invoice until it has been created. But you can customise invoices to include logos, different colour schemes and so on.
Other Income is for anything you don't want to record income when it's paid and not go through the whole invoice rigmarole. Products and services on the other hand, are basically your offerings. You can add new ones in the same way you create a new invoice - click the big green button and follow on from there. Or, if you've got the data in Excel, you can import them from a .CSV file.
Accounts Extra set up
The set-up screen on Accounts Extra is much more detailed and includes four panels of options: setting up Accounts Extra yourself, setting up records, opening balances and figures.
The summary dashboard is different to the Accounts edition. Instead, you get two tab menus within the window. The top tabs are Summary, Sales, Purchases, Contacts, Products and Services, Banking, Journals and Reporting. The inner tab menu includes accounts extra's additional functionality: Getting Started, Sales, Purchases, Cash flow statement and Cash flow forecast.
The extra dashboard includes detailed, but very aesthetically pleasing pie-charts and graphs, especially under the 'sales' section. This includes quotes - including how many you've 'won over', lost or are pending.
You've got your top five customers, and top five debtors as well as a big, wide graph on top of the page that shows net sales, other receipts and invoices. The Purchases summary dashboard is similar, and cash flow statements and forecast sections are pleasingly graphed out as you tab across.
Altogether very well presented visually, with most, if not all, the information a business owner would need at their fingertips.
The Sales screen in Extra is not as visual as the basic verions and includes additional options such as 'Refine', which lets you pick out unpaid, void or draft sales, for example. It also gives you the option to create credit notes.
You've also got a quick entries option, which lets you create batch sales transactions, without producing a physical invoice or credit note.
Quotes is another feature beneath the sales tab which is quite useful. You can create quotes, view their status and from this, email it to the potential customer. When the customer accepts/declines/queries, this, you can go back into 'edit quote' and amend it, create an invoice or set it as declined.
Unlike Accounts, Extra offers a separate tab for products and services. In addition to what Accounts offers under this section, you can also view and set the product/service's rate, rate frequency, sale and cost prices - as well as the ledger account they get entered into.
Entering expenses in Sage One Accounts
There are two tabs here - Purchase Invoices and Expenses.
Recording invoices from suppliers is as painless as invoices from customers. However, I was initially confused as to how to switch the 'paid' and 'unpaid' status. I resolved this by setting the invoice date to a future period.
Entering general expenses is also fairly straightforward, but could perhaps benefit from a notes section, which might be handy in explaining an unusual expense to your accountant. Similarly, there's nothing to say what is or isn't allowed - but perhaps these can be approved by the accountant at the other end?
Banking
I really liked this tab - it almost eliminates the need to log in to internet banking. You can add new accounts, switch between old ones, check balances in Sage and transfer money between accounts. The only additional function in the Accounts Extra banking module is a facility to create a payment or receipt. Extra can support payments on account, part payments and allocation of payments can be made over multiple transactions.
Managing contacts
The Contacts view is basically an information list of contacts and suppliers. Once you populate this with a list of names, they appear automatically elsewhere when you search for them - for example when raising in invoice. Importing and creating contacts is very straightforward and simple from this menu.
LIf you use the Accounts Extra version, there are drop down menus for customers and suppliers. In addition to their name and basic contact information, you can also view their reference, balance due and balance owed.
Reporting and VAT
Under the More section in Accounts, there are two drop-down tabs, Reports and VAT returns. Business users can print off P&L reports, trial balance, outstanding invoices and purchase invoices and balance sheet reports - which means you still have to rely on your account to provide you with reports such as the aged creditors/debtors' reports.
Reports can be downloaded in both PDF and .CSV files.
The VAT Returns section brings you to a returns wizard that runs you through four stages to create a report for HMRC.
Rather than being called 'More' in 'Extra', the tab is called 'Reporting', an effective way of signposting where you can print reports off to non-accounting users. It also boasts a much wider selection of reports to chose from, including aged debtors, audit trail, periodic trial balance and cash flow forecast and statement reports.
The VAT wizard is also much different. You can (or have already have) set the frequency in which you file, the scheme you're under and VAT period. All you have to do from there is push the 'calculate' button, et viola. The next stages are to print, submit online or save it and submit it later (probably the best option, if you want your accountant to check it first).
The verdict:
My first time wrangling with accounting software was far less painful than I'd originally expected it to be and actually (I hate to admit this) quite enjoyable in a nerdy way - most of all thanks to my tutor, Nigel Harris.
As I mentioned in my introduction, Harris showed me the ropes in Sage 50 before getting to grips with One. To be honest, that did daunt me somewhat as an application. It looked and felt like a serious piece of software, and indeed it's the one Harris favours as an accountant - citing its expanded functionality and 'feel' as reasons why.
But as a newbie and a first-timer to the accounting software world, I have to admit - as a 20-something-year-old familiar with modular, snappy interfaces, cloud and interactivity or 'collaboration', I much prefer what Sage One had to offer.
Comments
Reviews in general
Reviews are only meaningful if they are compared with something. Sage always looks good, but scratch the surface . . .
I have recently had the misfortune to use Sage One and it suffers terribly in comparison with other cloud systems in terms of functionality and reporting.