by Georgina Russell
Sage One and Xero are both cloud based accounting solutions. They can be connected to from anywhere where you can access the internet. When you log in to either platform, they both show a dashboard summary with some of the key figures you might want to glance at, such as your bank balances or the current amounts owed and owing.
Transactions can be entered manually online, or imported electronically. Both platforms offer the option of setting up a secure connection to your bank and downloading your transactions to speed up the data entry process and both are functional ways of managing the day-to-day workings of a business.
Sage One is an online version of the Sage accounts software, and those familiar with Sage Line 50 will find a lot of the features and account names familiar. Sage One Start is a streamlined version, aimed at smaller businesses. It works reasonably well for this purpose. However, larger volumes of transactions start to show up the low functionality of the platform, as there aren’t many tools built in to help speed up data entry and account reconciliations.
The Reports functions, to show and compare figures, work well, but on Sage One Start, they cannot be modified, so if the report isn’t quite right, there isn’t much you can do about it.
Xero has a lot to recommend it. Transaction entry is sped up because the platform learns from your entries and starts to give suggestions to you about where items might be posted, while still leaving you in control as you have to verify it is correct. Reports are easily customizable, and you can add footnotes or comments to provide explanations to jog the memory six months down the road.
There are a lot of options to get your head around, but Xero has a very good help section that is easily searched, and usually provides detailed instructions to show you how to do what you were wanting to.
Xero will take a bit of time and practice using before it starts to make sense, as the greater flexibility also comes with greater complexity, but there are a lot of resources out there to help, and a number of Toppings staff are trained as official Xero Advisors, who assist our clients and help them get set up and working with Xero.
Here we have considered both Xero and Sage One and we hope you have found this article useful, if you would like to discuss your options in further detail please get in touch.