QuickBooks Online vs. Sage Accounting

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 Accounting
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Sage Accounting is online accounting software made to simplify life for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers by providing the functions needed to take care of daily business to-dos. Users can create and send professional quotes and invoices, track income and expenses and know where the business' financials stand. Every Sage Business Cloud Accounting subscription includes unlimited access to support as well as automatic backups and product updates.N/A
Pricing
QuickBooks OnlineSage Accounting
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 Accounting
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsVersions and pricing listed are for CA products. Versions available and pricing may vary by country. * 2 months free to start, or free for 1 month to try, then $19/$43/$62 +tax/mo (tier depending). Offer valid for new customers only on monthly subscriptions of Sage Business Cloud Accounting. After the promotional period, the monthly subscription rate will renew at the then current rate. May not be combined with any other offers or discounts. To ensure continuous service the subscription plan is an automatically renewing plan. Subsequent months will automatically be billed to the same credit card each month on the anniversary date of purchase. Plans can be terminated at any time prior to the renewal data and not charged for renewal.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
QuickBooks OnlineSage Accounting
TrustRadius Insights
QuickBooks OnlineSage Accounting
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

QuickBooks Online has garnered positive reactions for its multifunctional capabilities that cater extensively to small and medium-sized businesses, emphasizing ease of transaction handling, including invoice generation, and comprehensive financial reporting. Users have expressed how QuickBooks Online adeptly supports fast and accessible bookkeeping activities, critical for those requiring a system that provides real-time insights into their operations, appreciated by a broad range of business structures from construction companies to outsourcing firms.

Sage Accounting, on the other hand, has been predominantly identified by users for providing robust usability and straightforward online access which enhances bookkeeping transparency. Particularly beneficial for businesses like virtual accounting firms or those requiring remote management of financial activities, Sage Accounting enables a streamlined invoicing and payment monitoring system that can be accessed remotely, a feature extolled for keeping financial affairs centralized and straightforward. This aspect of Sage Accounting is pivotal for users requiring frequent, application-based user interaction like real-time financial statement generation and transaction monitoring from diverse geographic locations.

Both software solutions are deployed across a range of industries and have been tailored to address user-specific accounting challenges, particularly for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and accountants. However, QuickBooks Online has been highlighted for its additional functionalities with third-party integrations from apps and other online tools enhancing its utility, whereas Sage Accounting is prized for its simplicity and effectiveness in handling core accounting tasks without the requirement for extensive additional features.

Features
QuickBooks OnlineSage Accounting
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
Sage Accounting
9.3
Ratings
19% above category average
Pay calculation7.60 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Direct deposit files9.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management9.00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Reimbursement management9.40 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.3
Ratings
8% above category average
Sage Accounting
8.6
Ratings
12% above category average
API for custom integration8.70 Ratings9.10 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 Accounting
9.7
Ratings
15% above category average
Single sign-on capability9.60 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Role-based user permissions9.70 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.2
Ratings
4% above category average
Sage Accounting
9.3
Ratings
16% above category average
Dashboards8.70 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Standard reports8.30 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Custom reports7.60 Ratings9.70 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.6
Ratings
10% above category average
Sage Accounting
9.1
Ratings
16% above category average
Accounts payable9.20 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Accounts receivable9.40 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Cash management8.80 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Bank reconciliation9.20 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Expense management8.80 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Time tracking6.90 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Fixed asset management8.20 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Multi-currency support7.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Multi-division support9.20 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Regulations compliance9.30 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Electronic tax filing9.40 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Self-service portal8.80 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Global Financial Support8.20 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers8.80 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting8.80 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Localizations8.20 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations9.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting8.20 Ratings6.90 Ratings
Configurable Accounting7.80 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework8.40 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Standardized Processes8.60 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
7.6
Ratings
3% above category average
Sage Accounting
6.9
Ratings
6% below category average
Inventory tracking8.00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Automatic reordering7.00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Location management8.20 Ratings5.70 Ratings
Manufacturing module7.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
Sage Accounting
8.2
Ratings
6% above category average
Pricing8.00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Order entry8.00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Credit card processing8.60 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Cost of goods sold9.30 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Order Orchestration8.00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility9.00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Order exception Resolution8.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
User Ratings
QuickBooks OnlineSage Accounting
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
1.9
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Availability
2.0
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Performance
1.0
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.1
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
3.0
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
1.3
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
1.0
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
QuickBooks OnlineSage Accounting
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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Pastel also helps users to save time when it comes to bank and supplier reconciliations. Capturing into pastel is also easy. The merit of pastel is that it is very efficient and simplifies most of the financial accounting and human resource management tasks. I have discovered that some long batches (more than 2000), if posted during peak hours, tend to fail during posting and resume later, but at this point, doubling, trebling, or even quadrupling transactions.
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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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  • Bank integration - being able to extract banking transaction into Sage Accounting.
  • Allocation rules - transactions are auto-allocated once allocation rules have been set up. This is a great time-saver.
  • Flexibility - the ability to view transactions, click on them to the allocation point and rectifying if required saves having to create journals, and therefore time. General ledgers therefore stay cleaner and more user-friendly.
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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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  • I find it difficult to record journals in cloud accounting. Maybe I just don’t have the knowledge.
  • It’s important to export all unrecorded sync bank transactions to Excel to send to clients to explain the payment receipts before being posted. This function is not available on the cloud and makes life harder, having to call out the transactions to clients over the phone.
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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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I could not live without Sage Accounting, it has become an integral part of my everyday. The more I have used Sage Accounting the more I have fallen in love with it. I am excited to be part of this ever-evolving accounting system that has grown from strength to strength, making life easier is something Sage does so well.
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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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Sage Accounting is built for the business owner/user and not the accountant, it therefore guides the user and thus detailed accounting knowledge and experience is not a necessarily a prerequisite . It offers a monthly price and therefore no significant up front spend and it tailorable to your business with useful dashboards that again you can tailor to instantly see what's important to you.
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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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Sage has been always available when I want it. If there is any maintenance work to be done by the Sage team, you are told well in advance. Maintenance is generally carried out late at night or before the day begins for most of us. It continues to be the most reliable software I use.
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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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Performance is top notch, if it is not, it is probably your wi-fi connection. It has happened that pages load slowly because of an error on Sage side but almost never. Overall reports load fine, the site is fast, navigation is fine. I have a client that has so many invoices, it is slow or gets stuck when you try to load a report for a whole year but it is just too many invoices, it makes sense. Just take 2 report for 6 months and combine them, its not an issue for me. I am happy with Sage Accounting's performance.
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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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The support is world class - never ever during 30 plus years in business I have received such helpful, knowledgeable and genuine support as I have from Sage. At Sage people matter and i can chat to someone safe in the knowledge that they will actually listen and assist. This also backed up by huge online portfolio of help and resources
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
Staff are always friendly, and patient, always work at a speed that suits you. You are never rushed, and In only a short time they seem to be able to help you make great strides. It has been a pleasure not a chore, learning how SAGE Accounting works and benefits me and the company.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
I find the online training was very informative and they answered all my questions. I am also certified in Sage One and provided online training in the program which I have set up several people on and they love how it keeps them organized.
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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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The clients' business owner worked with Sage on implementation before I began working for them. After consultation with them it is clear the process was quickly performed and without complication. The key takeaway was that Sage is seen as a partner to the business. That said, it was always necessary to engage with an accountant such as myself to extract the best out of the software.
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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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The first integration we had created for our product was with QuickBooks Online. There was a fair amount of work put in to create this solution, and a huge amount of testing to make sure it works properly. Once Sage Accounting had an API available for integration, we included this as well, as a fair number of our customers use Sage products. While there were challenges coming from the difference between product APIs, Sage Accounting was overall easier to implement, and more straightforward with actions and expected outcomes.
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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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You can use Sage in your company for various aspects/positions such as bookkeepers, invoicing clerks, accountant, purchasing etc. Everyone can have their own user login and permissions can be set that specific people can do specific jobs without being able to access other peoples progress or accounts of the company.
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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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  • Being cloud-based, meaning I can work from anywhere, has had a massive ROI, as I am no longer tied to the office.
  • CoPilot has meant we can spend more hours creating work for our business than chasing for payments.
  • Statement Runs mean we do not have to spend half a day carrying out the tasks individually.
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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

Sage Accounting Screenshots

Screenshot of the All-in-One DashboardScreenshot of the Accounting DashboardScreenshot of an Invoicing Quote EstimateScreenshot of the Purchases TrackerScreenshot of Stock InventoryScreenshot of a VAT Returns List