Choosing Accounts Software

Choosing the right accounts software for your business is a complex process that takes time.  Eureka Solutions are experts at implementing and customising the range of Sage Accounts Software, and as such are well placed to assist and advice you through this difficult decision making process.

Sage has two accounting solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, Sage 50 Accounts and Sage 200 Financials.  To assist you, we have created the guide below, outlining 7 key areas that you should look at during your decision making process.

1. Turnover
   Sage 50 Accounts users typically have a turnover of less than £1m whereas Sage 200 Financials users typically turnover between £1m and £20m.  This is only a rough average however, and many companies operate on a turnover out with these guidelines.
2. Number of Users
   If you want more than 6 concurrent users in the system, we strongly recommend that you look at Sage 200 Financials as your accounts software.  Although Sage 50 Accounts can operate with up to 10 users, the system’s performance greatly decreases with more than 6 users.  Businesses that use Sage 200 Financials typically have between 5 and 50 users.
3. Number of Accounting Periods
   Sage 50 Accounts is an open period account system and does not have the ability to close down a period/month which many organisations may wish to do.  Sage 200 Financials can give you full control over your accounting periods by offering users up to 20 accounting periods, allowing you to specify the duration of these periods.  The system also allows users to close down or reopen account periods, based on security permissions of that user.
4. Management Reporting & Trend Analysis
   The Sage 200 Financials comes as standard with Sage 200 Business Intelligence (BI), which provides far superior reporting and trend analysis than Sage 50 Accounts.  Using BI gives quicker and easier access to the reports and analysis that your company needs make better, well informed decisions.
5. Number of Transactions
   Sage 50 has an upper limit of around 100,000 transactions.  The more transactions within Sage 50, the more performance will decrease, and the system will become slow.  Companies that have a large number of transactions find that they need to archive them, resulting in reporting and trend analysis being extremely difficult.  Sage 200 Financials is designed to handle many times more transactions than Sage 50 Accounts.  As a result most Sage 200 users have historical data going back many years.
6. Trading in Foreign Currencies
   Sage 50 Accounts has limited functionality when it comes to trading in foreign currencies.  If you deal with a high number of foreign currency transactions you should be looking at using Sage 200 Financials.
7. Customisation
   Sage 200 Financials is a highly customisable product whereas Sage 50 Accounts has limited scope for customisation.  Any industry-standard accounting solution will usually do about 80% of what your business needs it to.  If you require additional functionality specific to your business or industry, Sage 200 can be customised to meet your needs.  Eureka Solutions are the UK’s leading Sage Developer and can with technical expertise unmatched in the market.  As such, we can customise your accounts software to meet the specific needs of your business.

For help and advice on choosing the right accounting solution for your business, please contact us to speak to one of our consultants.