Switching from QuickBooks to Sage 100

Doug Clark has been a business analyst, a Certified Master Developer for Sage, and a Chief Financial Officer during his career. Today, he interacts with most of the Ardent Consulting customer base and, as a result, has unique perspectives on the accounting and inventory control needs of growing businesses.

“What if I told you that — for a comparable price — you can have greater control over the inventory management and finances of your business?”

As organizations grow — especially manufacturing and distribution organizations — many of them struggle with a lack of inventory controls and inventory costing issues. This isn’t their fault. Growth can be a wonderful thing! It just means that it might be time to take a look at a more capable accounting and inventory management system.

What if I told you that — for a comparable price — you can have greater control over the inventory management and finances of your business?

“With Sage 100, you will benefit significantly from the integration between purchase orders, inventory, and sales orders.”

The Most Common Issue We See

With QuickBooks, when there is no advanced inventory module, you can only use average cost which is the least reliable method of costing. When you layer in the advanced inventory module offered by Quickbooks you can start to track FIFO but you still don’t have the control you really need. Even with more advanced modules, what we find is that organizations still do not have the visibility needed around inventory shortages, reorder points, and the purchasing process. 

With Sage 100, you will benefit significantly from the integration between purchase orders, inventory, and sales orders. This will help you capture the overall picture of your inventory and is the kind of control that you do not get with the standard Quickbooks offering.

“Quickbooks is not GAAP certified so there are ways to trick the system”

Great for General Accounting But Not GAAP Certified

QuickBooks is adequate for general accounting functions. It can handle the general ledger, payables, receivables, and bank reconciliation. However, Quickbooks is not GAAP certified so there are ways to trick the system such as cutting a check and then deleting the check. No void necessary as the check just disappears. The same is true of an invoice as you can amend them post-sale. These are important financial control issues and usually not something that organizations tend to focus on until they start scaling and growing the business.

One of the more significant control items we hear about from our customers centers on dates in Quickbooks. Within QuickBooks, the posting date is the invoice date. So if you get an invoice in July, with a June date, it's going to show up in your June financials even though you've already closed the month. With Sage 100, because we close the periods, in this same example the invoice would not show up in the prior period. Instead it would show up in the current period.

“As an owner of an organization, you tend to be the accountant, the purchaser, the salesperson, and everything in between. As you grow, you need better controls”

As Your Organization Grows You Require More Controls

QuickBooks is very good for one to five users. It’s great as a calculator and a checklist. However, when you need more robust financial reporting, better control of your money, and more oversight into your inventory, you should consider moving on. As an owner of an organization, you tend to be the accountant, the purchaser, the salesperson, and everything in between. As you grow, you need better controls because more people will have access to your financial systems. 

What About Pricing?

You used to be required to layout a significant amount of cash to get started with Sage 100. Historically, you were buying the software as a lump sum up front and then paying for a maintenance plan in future years. Now with the subscription pricing model, the entry fee is much less and very comparable to the Premium version of Quickbooks. 

Subscription pricing is a great model and it really works well to help support the cash flow of your organization. Unless you are a Sage user already, we find that many are not aware of the newer subscription pricing options which really does level the playing field across the various competitive solutions between Sage and Quickbooks.

Our Services and Recommendations

We have 40+ years of experience at Ardent Consulting working with the various Sage product lines. Not only do you buy the software, you also get our knowledge and expertise of having worked with Sage for all these years. There are not a tremendous number of QuickBooks consultants out there who truly know the ins-and-outs of their product as well as we know Sage 100. We have more operational knowledge and we understand how your business flows into your financials.

More Information and More Reporting

Do you need…

  • Inventory reorder reports? 

  • Reorder methods for individual items?

  • Automatically generated purchase orders?

  • Customized financial reports (no more exporting to Excel!)?

  • Open purchase order reports with significant detail?

  • Open sales order reports with more detail?

Not only can we provide you with this information via Sage 100, we can also help you take advantage of Sage Intelligence which is a data warehousing tool that allows for highly sophisticated reporting and data manipulation.

Most importantly, you can rely on us to help manage the change management process. When we get started working together we will determine how you are running your business today and what processes will need to change as you bring on a more sophisticated solution like Sage 100. If it impacts the financials then we will spot it. When you combine our support and product features with paperless office then the audit trail becomes extremely helpful because it is all tied back to the general ledger. These are the kinds of change management issues we are used to working through and find that our customers become more efficient and faster with our support.

Greg Tirico