QuickBooks Online vs. Sage 500 ERP

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
QuickBooks Online
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
QuickBooks Online is a SaaS version of the QuickBooks product. It contains all of the features found in the local version. Higher-priced plans include greater automation, payment management, inventory and time tracking, and analytics features.
$38
per month
Sage 500
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Sage 500 ERP includes accounting and finance, distribution and supply chain, and manufacturing operations support modules. The latest Sage 500 release includes accounts payable enhancements, credit card processing, and general updates, as well as updates to the solution's modules.N/A
Pricing
QuickBooks OnlineSage 500 ERP
Editions & Modules
Simple Start
$38
per month
Essentials
$75
per month
Plus
$115
per month
Advanced
$275
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
QuickBooks OnlineSage 500
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
QuickBooks OnlineSage 500 ERP
Features
QuickBooks OnlineSage 500 ERP
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
Sage 500 ERP
7.0
Ratings
2% below category average
Pay calculation7.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Direct deposit files9.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management9.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.3
Ratings
8% above category average
Sage 500 ERP
8.5
Ratings
11% above category average
API for custom integration8.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Plug-ins8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
9.7
Ratings
15% above category average
Sage 500 ERP
8.5
Ratings
4% above category average
Single sign-on capability9.60 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Role-based user permissions9.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.1
Ratings
3% above category average
Sage 500 ERP
8.0
Ratings
10% above category average
Dashboards8.60 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Standard reports8.20 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Custom reports7.50 Ratings10.00 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.5
Ratings
9% above category average
Sage 500 ERP
8.0
Ratings
4% above category average
Accounts payable9.20 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Accounts receivable9.40 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Cash management8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Bank reconciliation9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Expense management8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Time tracking6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Fixed asset management8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-currency support7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-division support9.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Regulations compliance9.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Electronic tax filing9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-service portal8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Global Financial Support8.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers8.70 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Localizations8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations9.30 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Configurable Accounting7.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Standardized Processes8.50 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
7.5
Ratings
2% above category average
Sage 500 ERP
8.0
Ratings
1% above category average
Inventory tracking8.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Automatic reordering7.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Location management8.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Manufacturing module7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
Sage 500 ERP
8.8
Ratings
11% above category average
Pricing8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Order entry8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Credit card processing8.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Cost of goods sold9.30 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Order Orchestration8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Order exception Resolution8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Subledger and Financial Process
Comparison of Subledger and Financial Process features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Sage 500 ERP
5.9
Ratings
24% below category average
Billing Management00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Cash and Asset Management00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Travel & Expense Management00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Budgetary Control & Encumbrance Accounting00 Ratings2.00 Ratings
Period Close00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Project Financial Management
Comparison of Project Financial Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Sage 500 ERP
6.9
Ratings
10% below category average
Budgeting and Forecasting00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Project Costing00 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Cost Capture00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Capital Project Management00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Customer Contract Compliance00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Project Revenue Recognition00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Project Execution Management
Comparison of Project Execution Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Sage 500 ERP
4.5
Ratings
42% below category average
Task Insight for Project Managers00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Project Mobile Functionality00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Grants Management
Comparison of Grants Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Sage 500 ERP
7.5
Ratings
1% above category average
Award Lifecycle Management00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Procurement
Comparison of Procurement features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Sage 500 ERP
6.0
Ratings
15% below category average
Contract Authoring00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Contract Repository00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Requisitions-to-Purchase Orders Integrated00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Supplier Management00 Ratings4.00 Ratings
Risk Management
Comparison of Risk Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Sage 500 ERP
4.3
Ratings
41% below category average
Risk Repository00 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Control Management00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Control Efficiency Assessments00 Ratings4.00 Ratings
Remediation and Certification00 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Supply Chain
Comparison of Supply Chain features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Sage 500 ERP
1.3
Ratings
138% below category average
Forecasting00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Inventory Planning00 Ratings2.00 Ratings
Performance Monitoring00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Product Lifecycle Management
Comparison of Product Lifecycle Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Sage 500 ERP
5.3
Ratings
29% below category average
Proposal Management00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Product Master Data Management00 Ratings4.00 Ratings
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QuickBooks OnlineSage 500 ERP
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
QuickBooks OnlineSage 500 ERP
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
1.9
(0 ratings)
6.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
2.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
1.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
3.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
1.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
1.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
QuickBooks OnlineSage 500 ERP
Likelihood to Recommend
I appreciate the ability to auto-generate invoices for recurring transactions, which saves time, as well as the option to set up auto-generated transactions. The report option is super helpful when reviewing information, as you can click to view the details in the report without having to go back and forth.
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Sage is wonderful for payroll and employee management. Although it has the capabilities to be a one-stop-shop program, it seriously lacks the interface necessary for wide use. I've had to consult Sage professionals on numerous occasions to explain and walk me through the program as there are so many redundancies. This program has wonderful potential, but they need to update the software and user interface before I can recommend it to any colleague.
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Pros
  • It enables me to do a P&L for each specific program as requested by the county for the grant money that they give us.
  • It enables me to do [an] organizational budget as well as a budget for each specific program
  • It enables the accountant and the auditor access at any time for transparency
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  • Payables and receivables handled beautifully
  • Projects has the reporting capabilities we need
  • Cash management is easy to do
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Cons
  • Purchase Orders cannot be linked to multiple bill payments which makes tracking purchase orders in QuickBooks Online obsolete. Without the function we have to track this within a different more manual spreadsheet.
  • Would be helpful if you could "split" bank transactions directly from the "review" downloads from the bank. Currently, to split transactions to multiple accounts we need to first categorize, then review after assigning to 1 account.
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  • The application is very functional, but the interface is a little "stale" compared to more modern applications.
  • The underlying client software is written in an old version of Microsoft Visual Basic. I suppose SOME DAY, Microsoft will be discontinuing, although Microsoft has its own ERP software written in that same code.
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Likelihood to Renew
QBO needs better integration with non-Intuit products and developers need to use Intuit's open API to develop better add-ons. Clients are having a great deal of problems with their data importing from the bank and this takes time away from better revenue producing activities. Although the efficiencies are there, they are outweighted by the shortcomings of the product. When we ran a parallel of QBO versus other cloud accounting products, we had more issues with the QBO product than any other
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We will renew our investment in Sage 500, mostly because the competition is very expensive and are bloated with options that are not needed.
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Usability
I had very little trouble setting up the program and migrating from our old accounting system. The daily usage is also very intuitive and easy. Anytime we run into minor trouble with the program, there are always tons of help available on YouTube, so we don't even look up the online manual anymore.
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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.
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Reliability and Availability
We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Everything process has its bugs lately with the new interface. Nothing has worked smoothly since this all began last month.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
In my experience, most representatives keep me on the phone for hours, literally, for a single issue and then usually cannot resolve it satisfactorily. I have 10 open cases that need resolution and, in my experience, there has been NO follow-up communication on any of them.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
No answers on this topic
The online training courses are not up to date. We experienced technical issues with two of the classes.
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Implementation Rating
The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations
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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.
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Alternatives Considered
QuickBooks Online is an accounting software package that allows companies to use a cost-effective and efficient software package. QuickBooks Online allows companies to prepare their balance sheets and income statements. It connects with a variety of other applications, which allows you to be efficient. We are very pleased with QuickBooks Online, and we would highly recommend it.
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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.
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Scalability
As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • I think the help function is cumbersome and hard to use. When I go to refresh myself on a function, say quarterly, I feel like I have to cast about just looking for it.
  • The account reconciliation works, but in this place that could benefit from messaging, there are no easy helping functions flagging things like amounts that fit the discrepancy.
  • Even styling invoices and documents is more cumbersome than it should be.
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  • Efficiency - enhanced automation
  • Cost reduction - simple workspace is enough
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ScreenShots

QuickBooks Online Screenshots

Screenshot of the accounting and bank transactions interfaceScreenshot of an overview of the accounting inventoryScreenshot of book marksScreenshot of the business tax overviewScreenshot of the customer hubScreenshot of the dashboard