Sage Instant Accounts 10

I just thought I would have to redress the balance of these reviews of Sage that I have read. The people who are looking at accounting software as a quick fix are largely mistaken. Learning to use accounting software is not easy otherwise we wouldnt be paying our accountants insane amounts of money to do their jobs, but it is integral to doing well in business.My accountants recommended sage but they also supported me through the installation of it along with training specific to my business. I am now a year in to using the software and am reaping the rewards. Cashflow is tight (I never used to know what cashflow was) my debtor days are low and I am saving money on my year end accounts because my accountant doesnt have to work it out, its all there for him. In fact I cant help but wonder if its the software thats letting people down or their accountants. I guess thats a completely different subject.Well done Sage, I understand now.

I am self employed, and bought this as my accountant recommended it. I found it very difficult to understand, as it just replicates paper accounting on your computer screen, so you still have to know about cashbooks, daybooks, purchase ledgers, nominal ledgers etc. which is why I wanted an accounts program so I could enter the information myself and understand it better. Why can't you customise your invoices and add your logo? (So you have to buy their stationery apparently).After spending time researching the various packages available (which I should have done before buying this), I found that Quickbooks (Available on Amazon) does all I wanted to without the jargon, more features and much more user friendly. My accountant said he only recommends sage as it's all he knows, and said it makes his life easier, not necessarily mine. I now don't need an accountant, as Quickbooks does all I thought sage would do.Don't make the same mistake I did, Do a little research yourself, It's worth it in the long run, It's your business after all.

I am a Chartered Accountant with my own practice. When advising small businesses looking for their first computerised accounting package I will always recommend either Sage Instant Accounting or Quick Books. Both require an investment of time to learn (though we offer training) and, in my experience, which takes longest depends entirely on the individual. One, Sage, is written mostly in the language used by bookkeepers whilst the other, Quick Books, is written in laymen's language - albeit mostly in awful Americanisms. In my very wide experience, it is quite wrong to assume that this difference makes Quick Books easier to learn or easier to use. On balance I agree, and advise my clients accordingly, that Quick Books may present a friendlier interface to first timers, but anyone with previous experience of keeping books, in whatever form, mostly find Quick Books confusing and patronising.Looking at the other comments that have been made, I have to say to Dalcross that I would be worried about any accounting package that didn't replicate paper accounting on your computer and the plain fact is that Quick Books does this too but manages to heavily disguise the fact - something that I personally find a serious drawback and most certainly not a selling point. Getting information out of Sage is infinitely easier once you know how and it tends to do things in a much more logical way. I agree that getting logos on layouts has been a drawback (although fairly easily overcome with two passes of the document through the printer). Sage have addressed this in the latest versions of the more senior Line 50 and, if not already, one assumes the same will happen on Instant.I'd like to think that Tom Finert is like the majority of my clients. He's so right about there being no quick fix. It's amazing the numbers who assume that the software will do it all for them without any investment of time and effort on their part at all. You must be prepared to pay for good training or study a good reference book.Justin just sounds in bad temper about error messages that are probably more to do with his system than Sage. I have been using all versions of Sage for 15 years and I can not recall getting these kind of problems other than on systems that could not cope. As for support, I think Sage do currently charge too much for this so I willingly support my clients mostly for free - as an overhead. However, support for any software is rarely free so it is not as if Sage are particularly out of line by charging. It's just that they currently charge too much.I do have a number of clients who swear by Quick Books but I have far more using Sage and do so very happily and efficiently. Any accounting package can take time to learn and usually, as with any software, the closer the package is to what an expert would want the harder it may be to learn. Once learned however the benefits become clear. I am no graphics expert and I found Adobe Photoshop totally unintuitive and extraordinarily hard to learn. I nearly gave up in desperation. But then I found some excellent training material and now I have invested the time I know it is the best in its class. I think the same is true of Sage. Stick with it and you will find it is better than Quick Books.

All I can say is that I cannot beleive that this software is still used. It does not say much for the accounting profession. One thing sage seem to have wrapped up is the user community, thousands of little old ladies who "do the bookkeeping" all use Sage.The support from Sage is non existant unless you have a support contract, why should I spend £200 per annum to support software that does not basically function correctly. It will not unistall correctly, keeps locking me out and generates error messages that you cannot get any help on unless you spend that £200 per annum. Buying Sage was one of the worst decision I have made.

Sage is certianly sophisticated enough, BUT it has a propensity to crash and lock me out (nothing wrong with my system as far as I can ascertain). Recently it developed an annoying fault of refusing to accept a date - not only could I not get it to accept dates typed in by the number-pad, but it does not even accept dates selected from its own calendar! I have reinstalled, but that has brought up another fault - a corrupt back up.It has become too exasperating to use, and I have had to "red card" it from the business. I wouldn't buy this again.