NetSuite ERP vs. Sage 50

Best suited for mid-market to lower scale enterprises (under 2,000 employees) especially if migrating from Quickbooks or another fragmented small business system. Also, multi-entity and global operational businesses are very well suited as there is robust functionality around multi-subsidiary, multi-currency and multi-tax controls. Finally, businesses with inventory & supply chain heavy businesses would find the functionality very useful as the system allows warehouse management, lot/batch tracking, fulfillment, etc. Not well suited for startups (a lot of functionality not needed) or very small businesses (under $3mm in revenues). Overkill in complexity and cost and implementation leg-work is necessary relative to the underlying operations of the business. Also, companies with a heavy manufacturing business (shop floor execution) lacks depth with true manufacturing ERPs like Epicor, Infor, etc. and companies expecting consumer grade UX feels like the interface isn't modern or very intuitive right out of the box.

Incentivized

Sage 50 Accounts is well-suited for small to medium-sized enterprises, where there is a moderate number of expenses and invoices that need processing, typically by a company with a smaller finance team. Sage 50 is probably less suitable for a large organisation that needs to handle a higher volume of transactions and manage significant stock levels.

Incentivized

• It gives high flexibility to maintain different kind of financial data with ease. It also support 606 standard.
• Customisation is a key, whereas we can do as many customisation based on our critical financial need.
• It is cloud based and easily scalable.

Incentivized

• We can build "templates" for recurrent charges/invoices. This saves some time and also ensures that we always use the right accounting rubric.
• A lot of additional information can be filled out such as client information (name, address, ...) which makes the software a little more complete.
• If you don't need an updated version every year (my case) then the software is not too expensive. The pro version that I'm using was just a little over $300.
• I really like the banking statement consolidation which allows you to ensure you got the right information registered.

Incentivized

• The area for the largest improvement needed is the implementation process. Especially when it comes down to an accounting based ERP setup rather than a CRM model. The experts should have accounting backgrounds in addition to the system knowledge for implementation.
• There should be more training focused on the Dashboards and the maneuverability of the data focused for each graph or report within the dashboards.
• The AP system is a little problematic with more complex company hierarchy. Due to the AP Invoice headers being driven by "main line" but the expense distribution being driven by journal entries - the AP aging is hard to verify the accuracy and can be distorted by different types of transactions.

Incentivized

• Sage 50 could use some improvement in the Invoicing Module to allow for more flexibility in the design of the Invoice fields. The report customization tools could use some upgrading for easier use.
• Fixed assets management module needs to be included with unlimited number of fixed assets.

NetSuite is able to cover all of our needs, spanning multiple departments and managerial levels. We use it daily for a multitude of functions, including creating promotions, estimating inventory, pulling historical reports, forecasting sales, and more. Overall, we're very satisfied with NetSuite as an ERP solution and recommend it to medium to large businesses.

Incentivized

I use this rating simply because I have a thriving Sage 50 consulting practice and will continue to keep my expertise in the product. I have consulted on both Sage 50 and QuickBooks for over 25 years so I have to maintain expertise in the solution as well as accounting and verticals.

Incentivized

NetSuite is a cloud tool, and is easy to implement for mid-sized organizations. It comes with standard forms/ printing layouts, and financial reporting (both summary and detailed), which are very handy for business users. In addition to these, with 99.99% service availability, NetSuite makes it one of the most reliable ERP tools available on the market.

Incentivized

I think Sage 50 is a trusted product and is reliable from a product delivery and support perspective. They have deep domain expertise in the non-profit space and should be a consideration for new non-profit startups or existing non-profits looking to migrate from other platforms. Overall, I believe that Sage 50 does many things well with few limitations.

Incentivized

It has been very reliable. I can only think of 1-2 times in 4.5 years that we have had issues getting in, and in each case were able to get back in within 1 hour. There has not been a major downtime

Most of the time the performance is very good. Pages load in a few seconds; financial reports take less than 5 seconds; basic searches take a few seconds. But performance can be sporadic throughout the day and cause the run time to triple.

Incentivized

I would like to give 8 rating for NetSuite support and reason for that is below: Whenever we faced any technical or functional issues we tried to reach out to NEtSuite support but response was not immediate. We told them about the urgency of the issue but still we were not getting response on time. Then, we have to reach out to AE to get things resolved.

Incentivized

They were very knowledgeable of the product, understood my timeline was limited for a software issue and allowed me to get back to my day to day work. The dial into your computer is great so you can monitor what they are doing and learn some tricks yourself

I had in person training for a day when first got the software. The training was good. The challenge was that there was a large gap between training and when we went live so we forgot quite a lot

Online training is quite strong. I have used for specific pieces of functionality.However it is not sufficient in all areas.

I felt NetSuite Professional Services did an excellent job of guiding us in the implementation. I also felt our internal teams were a little resistant to the change and engagement of new software. Had we performed better engaging and buying into the new software, I would be able to rate the implementation better. Therefore, the lower number should not be viewed as a deficiency with the software or the professional services teams, but as an reminder of how important complete buy-in from the local users is.

Incentivized

We implemented Sage 50 Premium Accounting in house, not using any third party or professional service. It was a relatively trouble free process, but can be tricky. Just read all instructions carefully, especially if you need to load the program on a network with more than one user

Incentivized

QuickBooks Online is, by far, a better and easier-to-use product for smaller companies. Only switch to Netsuite if you have to. We switched to NetSuite because we have numerous subsidiaries, and QuickBooks would not be able to handle the complexity.

Incentivized

As we did the conversion almost 10 years ago it is hard to answer this question. At the time it was the ease of being able to produce both cash and accrual financial statements and reporting that led us to pick Sage

Incentivized

We have been able to scale our business 25X without any major overhaul with Netsuite. Its dashboard setup makes onboarding new employees very easy and allows data to be shared across multiple offices. Its cloud setup does not put any pressure on IT to scale servers or other infrastructure. We have been able to become much more efficient in all aspects of the business.

I define scalable from two perspectives; 1) the scalability to handle more bookkeepers/accountants using the product, and 2) the scalability to handle increasing customer/vendor/employee and transactional data. Sage 50 does a good job on both fronts. From the single users operating a micro-business accounting for customer invoices and bill payments only, to the multi-staff, multi-location, multi-departmental complex transactional operation. Although Sage 50 is quite expensive for that smallest user, it is quite inexpensive for the larger business entity. So, for the new enterprise expecting rapid growth, Sage 50 is the application of choice.

• NetSuite ERP has allowed us to see more clear details around where our business is financially which leads to smarter business decisions.
• NetSuite ERP has freed up time that was spent on certain functions in our old accounting software, leading to more efficiency.
• NetSuite ERP has given us more visibility across business divisions.

Incentivized

• Sage definitely needs to do a better job with customer service. I have had to use them only a handful of times and it was not a great experience but not the worse I've seen. They didn't make us a priority and I felt that they didn't have a sense of urgency. They did address my lack of satisfaction and I can see that they are at least aware of the issues and they are trying to correct them.
• Sage is exactly what we need in my current organization and I wouldn't change it for another system. I have used quite a few in my lifetime and I would say that it fits our needs.