QuickBooks Desktop Pro vs. Sage 500 ERP

What I think the QuickBooks Desktop Pro is well suited: 1) Easy to use and effective to navigate while satisfying our financial and accounting functions' needs 2) We upgraded the version from the QuickBooks Desktop to Desktop Pro for its advanced functions and the ability to track the different projects/programs that are essential to organization.

Incentivized

Sage 500 ERP is great for companies with core accounting needs, distributors, and discrete manufacturers. Some areas, such as process manufacturing, would require a companion product from an ISV for the software to be truly functional. Some areas, such as construction or retail apparel, may simply not be well-served.

Incentivized

• It is easy to manage and adjust inventory on hand.
• It is easy to make reports and customize them to your needs.
• We also use it to pay our employees directly.
• It is easy to make year-to-year comparisons to see where we can make improvements and the current financial situation.

Incentivized

• Sage is the one-stop-shop for all of our needs. We're able to control contracts, subcontracts, and field reports from the program.
• Another strength is the ability to database all the information and export it to excel. This makes data-based investigations a breeze.
• The ability for Timberscan to be imported to Sage is a huge help with invoice management. Prior to this it all had to be done manually and slowed the process to an essential halt as there are thousands of invoices per month.

Incentivized

• QuickBooks Desktop Pro has been around for a few years and after an update[,] they force you to look at the changes/updates before you can use [them] after updating.
• QuickBooks Desktop Pro does not have 2FA.
• QuickBooks Desktop Pro should offer a way to store backups to a personal cloud without having to map a local network drive.

Incentivized

• The biggest concern/complaint of Sage 500 users is speed. Some of the screen take a while to load.
• The user interface needs some refreshing. Screens need to be updated to take advantage of shortcuts and to be more intuitive.

Incentivized

I'd love to keep using it, and do intend to - though we've not been pleased with price increases over the past several years. In fact, we used to subscribe to the payroll service, but QuickBooks priced themselves out of reach for us, so we discontinued that. Currently, pricing would be the primary reason for NOT renewing, if we didn't.

Incentivized

It's too pricey for our size of company.

Incentivized

It is a great software that does everything a small business needs it to do, but there are just a few bugs and quirks that make additional software necessary. The slowness of the software occasionally might eventually be overshadowed by the quickness of cloud-based software though.

Incentivized

I have been using Intacct for almost 10 years in 2 different companies and I just simply love it. I tried SAP (GUI) and Netsuite and they dont come close to what Ive seen.

Incentivized

I haven't experienced a time when QuickBooks Pro was unavailable when I needed it in the entire 20 years of using the software

Incentivized

They are awful. Intuit doesn't spend real money on support. They appear to have typically said, first-level script readers who are sending messages to the senior people for anything even a little bit difficult. Many of them don't speak particularly good English. Considering that they recently doubled (or, if you are paying annually, tripled) their pricing, and touted as one of the benefits that it includes [..] support, it's a real ripoff. However, we have to use the product because it is ubiquitous. I look forward to the day a competitor comes up with something good enough, which has excellent support, that matches all the features QuickBooks Desktop Pro currently has [...] or at least gives us a way to have all the functionality we currently have without excessive sacrifice [...] so that we can switch. I was very satisfied with QuickBooks for many years. This latest [rise] in price, and their sheer gall at touting the benefit of the 100 to 200% increase as being [the] inclusion of support, is what turned me so far against them.

Incentivized

Best thing I ever did was to attend a two day training seminar on QuickBooks, I learned an immense amount in a short time with hands on training by experts. I strongly recommend such training for anyone using any part of the software. It will pay for itself in the first month.

The online training courses are not up to date. We experienced technical issues with two of the classes.

Incentivized

We implemented the software ourselves. The training we received on the software was done by taking a community course teaching us how to use QuickBooks. It allowed me to get started with some basics of how to use the program and have not needed much assistance since completing the course work.

Incentivized

Keep your database and application in different servers.
Install Microsoft Office on your application server so you can use some of the data analysis tools in Sage.

Incentivized

Zoho had great end-user support and it was almost as simple to learn and was as easy to use. But its reports were not as [customizable] as QuickBooks Desktop Pro, and its job cost and department accounting [were] more cumbersome than QuickBooks Desktop Pro was. In addition, while I like an underdog (Zoho) the fact is that it is easier to find staff that [is] comfortable with QuickBooks Desktop Pro than anything else on the market.

Incentivized

500 seems much smoother at handling some of the basic accounting tasks, for example both issuing and later reconciling checks in Dynamics AX seems a little tedious.

Incentivized

• QuickBooks Desktop Pro is a no hassle accounting solution that ticks a lot of boxes. It almost never disappoints and organizations will usually keep using it for many years. If anything, the only time I've seen an organization migrate away from it is if they have specific accounting needs, or if the organization has grown to the point that they need a more robust accounting solution. Even then, QuickBooks can usually be maintained within another accounting software system for specific functions, like A/R & A/P for example.

Incentivized

• Positive: The program allows for a lot of data entry and splitting of information. It has the capability of replacing multiple programs and therefore saving cost.
• Negative: The modules are cumbersome and not user friendly at all. As a result not many user are comfortable using it. This means that the program is not being used to its capacity.
• Negative: Although the program has the capacity to be great, the user interface destroys that potential. Sage needs to seriously work on their program to simplify it. It's as if it still uses Command-line entries from 1995. Needs to be updated ASAP.

Incentivized