As you read this review, it's important to remember that I tested the Sage 300c cloud version (which begins at $75 per user per month) for its small to midsize enterprise (SME) general ledger accounting capabilities.
However, when I tested the platform from an enterprise resource planning (ERP) perspective, I switched over to the in-house, hosted Sage 300 ERP lineup.
Sage views the entire 300 platform as a single product no matter how it's delivered, but there were still functional differences between the two when I tested Sage 300c.
In the time between my general ledger and ERP tests, Sage released a number of additional modules to its cloud version.
These modules include things like order entry, inventory control, and purchase orders.
This put the two versions much closer as far as functionality goes.
Honest, Objective Reviews
Daxdi.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.
Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
However, while these modules greatly build out Sage 300c, especially in the area of financial accounting, they still don't add enough to call Sage 300c a true ERP system.
Sage 300 ERP, however, has no trouble qualifying for that designation.
Still, Sage is continuously working to bring the two product platforms level as far as features and modules go.
This means Sage 300c may yet reach true ERP status by the time we publish this review, so be sure to compare carefully.
Also, I felt that Sage 300c was a solid general ledger accounting system so, when I reviewed it, I assigned it a 3-star ranking, which translates to "Good." However, when looking at Sage 300 ERP, I found the product to be slightly more capable in an ERP scenario so I awarded it 3.5 stars.
A slight increase but warranted for folks looking for a capable small business ERP system.
Sage 300c for General Ledger Accounting
A long-time player in the general ledger accounting space, Sage Software has built up its product portfolio primarily through long-term acquisition.
Its current offering, Sage 300 began its life as Accpac software purchased by Sage from Computer Associates in 2004.
While that doesn't count against the product, Sage Software hasn't done as much as some of the competition to add depth to or expand its product.
This fact keeps it behind Editors' Choice winner Intacct (Visit Site at Sage Intacct) in our roundup.
Most of the small to midsize enterprise (SME) accounting applications I reviewed can expand beyond accounting and integrate other key functions such as customer relationship management (CRM), human resources (HR), or even full-blown enterprise resource planning (ERP).
That's especially true of the bigger names such as Oracle NetSuite OneWorld and SAP Business One Professional.
Sage 300 is attempting to do the same, evidenced by the application's modular design.
You purchase only the modules you require, and they'll seamlessly integrate into a financial suite or ERP system specifically suited to your business needs.
That's the idea, anyway.
The trouble with Sage 300 is that it doesn't offer as many modules as most of the other competitors do.
Our test system provided only General Ledger, Accounts Payable, and Accounts Receivable, which together comprise the base Sage 300 offering.
Also included were administrative tasks such as bank transactions and reconciliation as well as tax rate computation.
A customer relationship management (CRM) is also an option but wasn't tested.
At the time I performed this review, no other modules in the 300 environment had been released.
This puts the platform at a disadvantage against not only well-known names such as those mentioned earlier but even mature players that aren't so well-known, including Open Systems Traverse ($175.00 at Software Advice) .
Sticking the Landing
However, if all you're looking for is midrange corporate accounting functionality, Sage 300 has you fairly well-covered with features and capabilities in-line with its competition, though still slightly behind in some areas.
For example, many accounting systems have adopted the dashboard concept in which the initial entry screen is populated with data selections or "widgets" that provide a bird's-eye view of the overall business.
Upon opening Sage 300, you see a basic screen with a dashboard that can only hold up to six data widgets.
You can add and eliminate widgets easily from a check-off menu.
Several of the software applications I reviewed allow you to navigate or drill down from inside a widget.
Unfortunately, the closest Sage 300 comes is its ability to generate a report, and this is only offered on the Receivables Aging and Payables Aging widgets.
The reports come up quickly but there's no drill-down to the individual transactions that make up a line item in the report.
Even its lack of simpler functionality, such as the ability to customize your entry screen, is a bit behind the competition.
The Help screen points out that widgets can be moved around through drag-and-drop but this did not work when I tried it.
I was working in a virtual server environment which may have impacted this, though I worked that way for most of the reviews and the competition didn't have this problem.
Nor does it appear possible to resize the widgets.
When six widgets are selected, you'll have to scroll down the screen to see all six.
Again, minor, but lagging.
Cloud Features Mirroring On-Premises Capabilities
In many respects, available Sage 300 modules mirror the capabilities in the in-house 300 system.
Account setup and structure are familiar, and report generation and formatting are likewise similar.
Sage 300 offers a 10-segment account makeup to configure really complex corporate setups, and you can specify the length of each account segment, its title, and its hierarchy.
Different companies and divisions can be operated with different currencies, which makes multinational operations simple to configure.
That will come in handy when the Sage 300 infrastructure is built out, but is probably not as useful right now given the limited number of available modules.
Also missing is any sort of process navigation.
The drop-down menu from the top ribbon bar is really the sole navigation method.
Other software in this roundup provided alternate navigation capabilities.
For example, SAP Business One Professional lets you create dashboard widgets resembling a flowchart and mirroring the individual processes in a specific area.
Even the Sage 300 on-premises system has some of these, which Sage calls Visual Process Flows.
It's easy to navigate in Sage 300, and you can tailor what drop-down options are available to specific users, but given the navigation options in the other software I reviewed, Sage 300 comes up somewhat short in this area.
Going Mobile Isn't a Problem
With cloud-based software, mobile access is especially important and should be simple and trouble free.
My test account was running on a virtual machine (VM), which may have added an extra layer of complexity, but I was able to log in successfully and navigate on all three of my mobile testing devices (iPad, Android tablet, and Microsoft Windows 10 Surface 3) using the Chrome browser.
I did experience a bit of latency and hesitation in response, but this was most likely due to running through the VM.
With a direct cloud subscription, I doubt customers would experience the same problem.
A Good Fit?
Sage Software is commendable for resisting the urge to shoehorn everyone into the same basic system.
The company knows that one size does not fit all.
Rather, it offers numerous products targeted at businesses with needs ranging from basic to complex.
The Sage 300 product line is not what I would consider an actual ERP system at this time.
It provides a good, basic accounting system that can accommodate multiple currencies and multiple companies, divisions, and departments without undue complexity.
However, it still lacks components such as payroll, inventory, and HR.
Overall, I liked Sage 300c as a general ledger accounting platform for SMBs but it's most definitely a work in progress.
If you need more than the currently available CRM add-on capability, such as payroll or inventory, you'll have to go with a cloud competitor or the more mature, on-premises Sage 300 product line (which supports numerous add-on modules).
You can mix and match these with the available Sage 300c modules by using data import and export, but why would you want to make operations and setup more complex than it has to be? If your company needs these functions, then you're better off biting the more expensive infrastructure bullet and deploying the standard Sage 300 system.
However, as stated at the beginning of this review, Sage Software is constantly adding new modules to the 300c line, so be sure to check carefully for what's available at your time of purchase before making a decision.
Stepping Up to ERP
Also, as stated at the beginning of this review, while I wouldn't classify Sage 300c as an ERP system, its sibling, Sage 300 ERP, definitely bridges that gap.
Its enhanced inventory, HR, CRM, and business intelligence (BI) certainly add up to enough capability to call this a true ERP tool.
Therefore, to emphasize those differences, I've chosen to use that platform to review Sage 300's worth in this area.
A key difference you'll notice pretty quickly, however, is price.
Since the Sage product line is largely modular, putting together the modules to build an ERP system increases the price tag considerably.
More detail on pricing is recorded below, but as a starter figure, you can assume Sage 300 ERP will cost your company about $3,065 per user per year (as reflected in my as-tested configuration and deployment).
Sage 300 ERP is available in several editions including Standard, Advanced, and Premium, the latter being the one I reviewed.
It's also available in two bundles, Financial and Distribution (each including different modules).
The different editions define features and capacities in the separate modules.
This is a very different approach from other completely modular systems such as Cougar Mountain Denali Summit ($275.00 at Software Advice) or Open Systems Traverse.
For example, the number of companies allowed by the software is unlimited in the Advanced and Premium versions but limited to five in the Standard version.
Likewise, the general ledger account structure varies between the different editions from three segments in the Standard edition to up to 10 segments in the Premium edition.
So, if you are setting up an organization with multiple companies, subsidiaries, divisions, and locations, then you may need the account structure flexibility that the Premium version provides.
The editions also differ in features.
For example, in the Inventory module, "Price by Cost" plus a percentage or amount, and "Price by Weight or Quantity" are only available in the Premium version when I was testing.
The available bundles are different from the editions and they address which modules are included.
The Financial bundle includes the System Manager, multicurrency capability, general ledger and consolidations, accounts payable and receivable, and inter-company transactions.
The Distribution bundle includes all of the modules provided in the Financial bundle and adds purchase orders, inventory, order entry, sales analysis, and project job costing.
Payroll is optional with both bundles, but both include Sage's CRM server with a single-user license.
To make it even more interesting, there are other applications and features available separately from those included in a bundle.
Sage Software lists almost 30 different application modules for the Sage 300 ERP system (including the ones listed earlier).
Some others of interest that I didn't get a chance to test include advanced payroll that incorporates HR, MICR check printing, document management, and service and maintenance agreement management.
Sage Software also has agreements with third-party vendors, such as Avalara, to offer Sage-branded ancillary applications such as Avalara's sales tax application.
This is common practice at this level of management software, but Sage does go a step further by adding its name to the application in addition to its partner's.
With Capability Comes Complexity
Sage 300 ERP can scale from a relatively modest, enhanced financial accounting system all the way to a full-featured and customized ERP system that can handle a medium-size or even enterprise-size entity.
That's true of several of the offerings I reviewed, including Epicor ERP (175.00 Per User Per Month at Epicor) , NetSuite OneWorld, and SAP Business One Professional.
But Sage is more often associated with midsize implementations so it's worth pointing out that the suite is capable of much more.
Adding more modules and functionality ramps up the complexity of the system (and, potentially, the price), but Sage still makes it simply to navigate.
It uses both a Windows Explorer-type listing of applications and subtasks in a vertical pane on the left-hand side of the screen, and optionally, Process Flowcharts that lay out tasks required for a particular application, such as general ledger.
Sage 300 ERP also has an excellent set of reports.
Using filters to customize these reports is a bit more complicated than in most small business accounting software (as is unfortunately true of many of the systems reviewed).
This is where working with a reseller or consultant pays off since they can configure the system specifically to your needs and workflows, including building reports and even a standard set of BI-style queries you can run whenever you need.
For DIYers, though, Sage Software also offers a Sage Intelligence Report Designer that they claim makes designing and generating custom reports a simple process.
It wasn't included as part of my test installation, but even without it, I found it a fairly simple matter to export reports to Microsoft Excel for additional formatting and analysis.
My test system also wasn't configured for a specific type of business such as manufacturing.
The Inventory module offered serialization and the standard variety of costing including First In, First Out (FIFO), Standard Costing, Weighted Moving Average, Specific Item Costing and even Last In, First Out (LIFO), which is rapidly falling into...
