Sage v other small business accounting software

[Aprisa]

I have been using Sage 50 and Sage payroll for about twenty years now but am getting increasingly frustrated by the cost of the support charges levied that are necessary to keep up to date especially with payroll legislation.

We now pay £280 a month for the support and have just been told that it will be another £15 per month for the pensions module, I'm not fantastic at accounts and have got used to Sage but I really don't think it would be a huge effort to change systems.

We only have 6 employees and invoicing is done by bespoke software so is this overkill?

Quick-books are quoting £25 pcm for my number of employees and free data migration from Sage, has anyone done this and are they any good?

Other suggestions gratefully received.

Thanks

[dartissimus]

Aprisa said:

I have been using Sage 50 and Sage payroll for about twenty years now but am getting increasingly frustrated by the cost of the support charges levied that are necessary to keep up to date especially with payroll legislation.

We now pay £280 a month for the support and have just been told that it will be another £15 per month for the pensions module, I'm not fantastic at accounts and have got used to Sage but I really don't think it would be a huge effort to change systems.

We only have 6 employees and invoicing is done by bespoke software so is this overkill?

Quick-books are quoting £25 pcm for my number of employees and free data migration from Sage, has anyone done this and are they any good?

Other suggestions gratefully received.

Thanks

It's a no brainer, one of those jobs that should always be put out.
Pay the specialist and get on with your own job, save money, hassle and time.

[Shirt587]

They saw you coming!

Sage isn't worth that. Unless your 6 employees are doing many thousands of invoices a month in multiple currencies, you don't need anything complicated and Qucikbooks is a well known 'safe' package.

Go to Quickbooks, give your accountants another £500 a year to explain in simple terms what the latest change in tax/pensions/random pointless legislation is, and you're still £2500 better off.

[Dejay1788]

I second a vote for Quickbooks, really cheap and really easy to use.

[MyM2006]

It is also cheaper to use Sage products on a monthly subscription basis which includes sagecover rather than buy the program and then additional sagecover.
Payroll would be £35 a month including pensions module. You don't own the program but if you are paying for sagecover to make sure it's up to date I cant see that being a problem. Still not cheap though!

[Audicab]

We use Xero that covers our financials, payroll and invoicing all for around £30 per month. I used to use Sage and find Xero so much easier to use.

Lots of accountants also now use Xero.

[jammy_basturd]

Audicab said:

We use Xero that covers our financials, payroll and invoicing all for around £30 per month. I used to use Sage and find Xero so much easier to use.

Lots of accountants also now use Xero.

Same here. I imagine Xero could do what you want for a much reduced cost and be much easier to use!

[NeilOak]

We have used Xero for the last 5 years and its excellent. We link it with MiPay for payroll.

Contact Martin Hickman at Max Accountants http://maxaccountants.co.uk/ who will be happy to help you get started.

Good Luck

[Stigproducts]

Another vote for Quickbooks; scalablility and low cost.

IMO Sage is trading off customers unwillingness to go through the hassle of changing; in other words over charging because of loyalty like insurance companies do.

[surveyor]

Quickbooks are relatively new in the Cloud accountancy business, I suspect having been dragged into it.

The other two are Xero as mentioned and also Kashflow.

[Aprisa]

Thanks for all that feedback.
I've just spoken to Sage and once my contracted period ends in March I can move to a cloud based version on subscription that will work out at around £20 per month all in, rather a big difference.

I have looked at Xero and Quickbooks and both would work and enable me to import my invoices from our controlling software, if Sage get arsey then at least I now know that moving would not be too much hassle.