Sage One Accounting Software - Cloud Accounting

Cloud Accounting

Sage One accounting software is Sage’s latest offering via the cloud. Sage 50 Professional Online has been around for several years, however, was essentially the desktop version remotely hosted. Sage One has been specifically designed for its purpose – an introductory accounts package for the small business owner.

Top Benefits Of Sage One Accounting Software

[1] Accountant Access

Your accountant will be able to access your Sage One data at the same time as you. This has been great for us, as we are able to help out clients immediately, without having to send backups back and forth. Another advantage for clients that are new to bookkeeping, is that we can login, check and file their quarterly VAT reports for them.

[2] Easy To Use

Sage considers the application so easy to use that there are no training courses for it. We tend to spend an hour or two with clients who are completely new to bookkeeping going through the functionality, and then they are good to go.

[3] Payment Integration

Sage Pay is very popular and easy to integrate with your invoicing, and enables you to receive payments online and register them in your bank account in your accounting system.

There are lots of other benefits of Sage One accounting software, such as online VAT filing and good reporting.

Sage Support

One of the main reasons that we often recommend Sage (we don’t automatically recommend Sage – we look at clients requirements and experience) is their superb helpdesk. The Sage One helpdesk is no exception, the technicians are knowledge and are quick to diagnose problems and offer solutions. As busy accountants we don’t have a lot of patience for poor quality helpdesks and call centres, however, Sage is the exception to the rule.

Why Choose Cloud Accounting?

We regularly have calls from clients complaining that there laptop/computer crashed and they have lost data. When you are on the cloud it decreases your risk of data loss. Your data is secure and backed up and you can access it from any computer. Whether you choose Sage One or another cloud accounting software solution, I think you will wonder why you didn’t move sooner. No more backup headaches or having to upgrade your desktop application software.

Sage One is also very low cost, we generally recommend clients use the Sage One Accounts package, which is only around £10 per month.

Next Steps

I recommend that you look at a few options out there before you commit, as whatever any of the software companies tell you, changing accounting software packages when you have already been using another one is a pain. Decide what are the most important accounting software features for you and then take a look at a few of the options out there, such as Xero, QuickBooks Online and Microsoft Accounting packages. If possible test them with a few transactions, to see if you find them easy to use and quick. Once you have chosen your favourite you are ready to start using them. Like all accounts and bookkeeping, the data will be on as good as what you put in, so follow these top tips.

Enter your data regularly
Ensure you reconcile and sense check the data
Reconcile against bank and credit card statements and supplier statements.
Review your reports with your accountants regularly at least quarterly if not monthly.

For more information on Sage One accounting software, please visit the Sage One website.

Nicky Larkin

Nicky Goringe Larkin is a Chartered Management Accountant who founded Goringe Accountants Ltd.

http://www.cusimanopc.com/canadian-income-tax/ canadian income tax
There are several cloud based accounting software available now. Just google “cloud accounting” and you’ll get a good list of at least 10 to 15. I haven’t tried QB online, but I’m sure this is also available. You should consult with an experienced charted accounted to make sure what to do in the future, will be straightforward to implement.
http://haysdentraining.co.uk/ Zoe McCarthy
Well, it all really looks nice on paper. I have just one concern though, are the data stored there safe from attacks? I am currently hesitant to adopt this kind of accounting, I am not pessimistic, I just want someone to prove me wrong.
- http://goringeaccountants.co.uk Alex
  Hi Zoe. Thankyou for your comment. Sage has published some information on its cloud security which should cover most of the concerns you have: http://uk.sageone.com/security. Sage use the same security that your internet banking uses (128 bit encryption). The primary security threat though is rarely over the internet. If you are worried about data theft, then you should be more concerned with potential “purchase key” attacks (ie. someone being bribed), most likely from within your own company. When faced with such attacks it is actually much better to have the data off-premise with a provider who has invested in tight security and monitoring of their own systems administration staff. Off-premise has other benefits too. If I were to try and steal your medical records, for example, I know where to break in: your local GP surgery which has minimal security. If I wanted to steal the data from a physical server, even if I managed to get past the data centre’s security defences I would then be faced with banks of thousands upon thousands of identical machines with meaningless labels like “SDC02729″ on them – and would not know which to steal. Internet attacks ‘on the whole’ are very easy to defend against. The rising problem is not one of data confidentiality or integrity but rather availability (up-time) due to the rise in distributed ‘denial of service’ (DOS) attacks. Again, this is a strong-argument for off-premise hosting since few organisations can afford the multiple-gigabit bandwidth network uplinks necessary to defend against such attacks. Other common security breaches are from people having password like “pa55w0rd” or easy to guess/crack passwords. So in general I would recommend the following when using cloud services: 1) Apply common sense checks to validate the supplier’s security credentials. 2) Don’t be afraid of using off-premise cloud, it may be much more secure than on-premise. 3) Choose a good password!
http://www.cheaperaccountant.co.uk Emma Simpson @ cheap accountants
The best part for small business owners is the cost, with the Sage One Cashbook version only costing £5 a month. This may be all that is required for a number of small businesses and is a lot cheaper than some of the other suppliers within the cloud accounting market.
- http://goringeaccountants.co.uk/ Nicky Larkin
  The feedback from clients re SageOne is mostly fantastic. Very easy to use, generally they are able to just dive straight in and make sense of it.