Sage 50 Accounts 2014 review

While cloud-based accounting provides a new way to keep your company’s accounts, the majority of firms still use conventional accounts packages such as those from Sage. Sage 50 Accounts 2014 is aimed at small and medium businesses with around 50 members of staff. We’ve reviewed the standard version, which includes core features such as credit control, budget management and inline VAT reporting and submission, while the Plus version (£700 inc VAT, from www.pcworld.com) adds advanced stock control and per-project budgeting. The top of the range Professional (£1,219 ex VAT, from http://shop.sage.co.uk) version adds foreign currency support, sales and purchase order processing.

Sage 50 Accounts has lots more features than a typical entry-level accounts package and its interface can look intimidating if you’re not familiar with it, but Sage has done what it can to simplify the setup process. If you’re starting from scratch you’ll be asked to choose whether you’re a limited company, partnership, sole trader or charity, and you’re presented with suitable options to accept or customise. The full range of VAT registration types are supported, although there’s no facility to apply HMRC’s one-year, one percentage point discount for new flat rate registrations automatically; you’ll need to change the rate manually at the end of your first year.

There’s no dashboard to greet you with an easy overview of your finances

Similarly, while a startup’s first financial year usually spans from the date of incorporation through to the end of the twelfth month afterwards, such as 22 November 2012 to 30 November 2013 for example, we couldn’t find a way to implement this. Setting the start of the financial year to December gave us the correct period end, but it wouldn’t allow us to enter invoices from the part-month before. Sage told us that users can change the period start date mid-year to cater for this, but it’d be nice not to have to do so.

CHART TOPPER

While more simple packages often suppress the details of the book-keeping process, Sage 50 Accounts 2014 doesn’t. Sage 50 Accounts users can view and customise their chart of accounts, with the chart of accounts being the set of ledgers against which money is recorded as it enters, moves through and leaves the business. While the default nominal accounts may be all you need, it’s easy to modify them or add new ones should you want to rename and add sales codes to support multiple service lines.

Those who need to can get stuck into editing their chart of accounts

You can also assign sales to various departments, which could help monitor the relative performance of salespeople, teams or territories, while the software lets you manage a transaction from the initial quotation through to a final invoice. Customer records extend beyond the basic address and contact details found in simpler packages. In Sage 50 Accounts 2014 you can set up options such as default or additional client discounts, and set the credit control defaults to match the terms you’ve agreed.

Customer records go far beyond simple address details: the credit control feature is powerful and very useful

One stand-out feature is the free Sage 50 Mobile app for iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices, which lets you access and use some of the software’s key functions from a mobile device. Rather than synchronising your data through the cloud, this connects directly to your Sage data files using an optional mobile gateway client. This means you don’t need to upload your data to third-party servers, but you do need to leave the gateway PC switched on.

The mobile app provides key functions such as viewing customers and raising invoices

IRREGULAR PULSE

You can also use the Sage 50 Accounts Pulse Windows 8 app, although you must pay a £5-per-month subscription. It’s described as ideal for showing at-a-glance financial summaries to those not involved in finance, but while Sage told us this was still available, the Windows Store reported that it wasn’t. It’s a shame that we couldn’t try it out, as this is one area where Sage 50 Accounts may prove lacking for some users, as it displays financial data almost entirely in tables and lists. Its reports are dry financial documents that are invaluable to accountants, but they might not suit managers and business people who prefer visual representations of data. Sage said that Excel integration makes it easy to generate charts, but we’d prefer to have key business indicators such as sales and expenses graphed in a dashboard.

As you’d expect from modern finance software, VAT returns are scheduled, generated and submitted electronically from within the program, and it’s possible, through free plug-ins, to import bank account data from a wide range of banks, which simplifies record keeping and reconciliation. There’s no built-in payroll module, but the optional Sage Payroll 50 (£305 ex VAT, from shop.sage.co.uk) can make the relevant entries with each pay run. It costs £21 per month for up to 25 employees. As with other Sage bookkeeping software, there’s native support for the Sage Pay card payments system, which costs from £30 per month.

Overall, this is an impressively comprehensive package, with standard features encompassing everything that an accountant in a small firm is likely to need, with the possible exception of foreign currency trading. It’s a £144 option with the edition we reviewed, but it’s a standard feature in the Professional version.

There’s also the reassurance that external accountants and other financial professionals are likely to be familiar with Sage, which helps minimise cost and hassle come the end of year. Experienced accountants will love Sage 50 Accounts, but small business owners without much financial experience will be better served by simpler, friendlier cloud-based services such as Sage One, or Crunch.co.uk with its integrated accountancy service.