Sage 50 vs Quickbooks aka PeachTree

I have been a member of the Sage Accountants Network for a few years now. Sage streamlined Peachtree to align vertically with their larger product offerings in an effort to accommodate growth of organizations. As well, they changed their branding to reflect the vertical alignment within their respective families (Peachtree to Sage 50, MAS90 to Sage 100, etc).

Personally, I'm not a fan of the so-called webinars--particularly because of the amalgamation of the two words 'web' and 'seminar', which have been combined to form nothing more than a gibberish word--but I digress.

I use Sage 50 Quantum 2014, which is the highest level of the Sage 50 family before moving upward to Sage 100. At one time, Intuit posted product comparisons between Quickbooks and Peachtree. You'll be hard-pressed today to find a hard-core side-by-side comparison posted by Intuit pitting their products directly against Sage 50. In fact, if you contact an Intuit Salesperson and ask them to provide you with marketing collateral on how they compare to Sage 50 Quantum...they will be unable to do so. They do not compare.

I have a client who owns a construction company (metal pre-fabricated grain storage buildings) that is in its 18th year of growth. Where Sage benefits him is in the following areas:

1) Accurate Job Costing--Sage 50 Quantum has built-in time sheet tracking, job tracking down to the phase and level of completion--all integrated within the same system.

2) Change Order tracking--not much more to elaborate on here.

3) Departmentalized and Consolidated Financial Statement Reporting--you can departmentalize a single company and view individual financial statements (as if you have multiple operating units) / or track separate physical companies and view consolidated financial statements to get an accurate view of your overall portfolio.

4) Pervasive Database--Quickbooks does not historically 'play well in the sandbox with others'. Intuit chose to write a database heavily-laden with source code that causes Quickbooks to experience frequent data integrity issues (many are serious). I've spent many hours rebuilding Quickbooks databases. Sage 50 has a very friendly database and does integrate well with other programs using open databases (i.e. estimatics programs, etc.)

5) Accuracy--Quickbooks has always had an issue with this as a company grows. Sage 50 is the only off-the-shelf accounting program that is fully GAAP compliant (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). <--Note this last word: PRINCIPLES--they do not change. Intuit touts Quickbooks as being compliant with Generally Accepted Accounting Practices--very much like the English language has been watered down to make misplaced apostrophes acceptable to the general public--despite the fact that it does not adhere to the official guidelines of what is correct when expressing something in English...or like the generally accepted gibberish word 'webinar'...but again, I digress.

6) Sage 50 follows the order of YOUR operations--Just like I would assume you take the time to build something right, you want to take the time to build your company file right (regardless of which software you choose to employ). Being a small contractor, I would steer you toward the Sage 50 Premium edition. Quickbooks is just not robust enough to compete.

I would personally avoid any '.com' solutions for any of your core operations, period. They will not be around for years to come. If you take just a little time and make a little effort in building the right solution, you'll be able to maintain an accurate and useable system.

The fact that you are seeking advice on the meaningful differences is a HUGE step in the right direction. I hope the details of my advice help you.

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