Sage Accounting is a cloud-based small-business accounting software. With two affordable plans to choose from, Sage Accounting offers essential bookkeeping and accounting features, comprehensive reporting and inventory tracking. If financial management is your top priority, you’re better off bypassing FreshBooks and Sage completely. FreshBooks completely lacks budget and forecasting tools, and Sage only offers cashflow projection options on its pricier, Standard tier. If you’re weighing Xero accounting vs Sage, the Xero Ultimate plan has everything you need to manage your business.

Best Accounting and Bookkeeping Apps for Small Businesses

Xero offers three pricing plans, for which you’ll pay anywhere from $25 to $54 a month. The basic plan gives you 20 invoices, five bills, and bank transaction reconciliation. As you move what is invoice factoring up, you get unlimited invoices and bills and even multi-currency support in the top plan.

Sage Software Integrations

Unfortunately, both Xero and FreshBooks offer pretty stringent client limits. So, if you collaborate with a high number of customers, Sage’s generous limits will be better for you. Sage’s unique cash-flow projection tool makes financial planning a whizz too. This, combined with its affordable monthly plans, make the software best suited to cost-conscious businesses that are able to get chief executive officer by without advanced accountancy functions. Xero is a better solution than FreshBooks and Sage because of the strength of its overall feature offering — including its handy budget manager, decent value for money and its wide variety of integrations.

Xero provides a more in-depth expense management experience right from the start. Xero comes out on top with its broader range of payment gateways. If your bank isn’t directly connected, you can download and import transactions with ease. Unfortunately, Sage Accounting doesn’t have any desktop apps. The winner in this category would depend on your preferences.

This has now been renamed and repackaged as Sage Business Cloud Accounting⁶. This is the same product we looked at earlier in this guide, with all the same features. Xero is all-in-one accounting software that is particularly geared towards new businesses, and a younger demographic of entrepreneurs and business owners. Sage, meanwhile, supports invoice payments via debit or credit cards and also integrates with Stripe. Sage, meanwhile, lets you create and send an unlimited number of invoices on all of its plans.

The Xero App Store is giant, featuring over 1,000 apps you can add on. But having the options available means there’s always likely how to amend a federal tax return a solution for your issues. You can sort by specific function or narrow down the options by industry. Some popular add-ons include Timely, Shopify, Stripe, PayPal and Airwallex. Read our essential guide to the best SaaS accounting software, including Sage, QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite and more.

Invoicing is one of the most basic features of accounting software, so it’s no shock that it’s something offered by both Xero and Sage. Thankfully, invoicing is a simple process through both services, and both offer unlimited invoicing support. With this tier, you can have up to five users and use it for multiple companies under one account. It includes everything the Pro Accounting plan offers, plus many additional features.

1. You must be able to observe what is going on financially within your firm and collect a multitude of information into a report that is both comprehensive and simple to grasp.
2. After this time, you’ll pay between £12 and £30 for its plans, which is broadly comparable with Xero – albeit a little more expensive for freelancers and sole traders wanting a basic plan.
3. Your accountant is one of your company’s most crucial financial partners.
4. It allows you to automate your reconciliation with a single click and access all of your data on the go from the cloud.

Customer support

When picking between the three accounting solutions, it really comes down to the needs of your individual business. If you’d like to see a simpler breakdown of our top providers, check our handy form today. Both of these software packages will make a big difference to your business, and technically there is little to separate them.

Xero partners with Gusto Payroll, and costs start at an additional $40 per month plus $6 per employee per month. Sage has its own proprietary payroll offering, Sage People Payroll, but pricing is customized based on your company’s specific needs. Xero and Sage are two excellent accounting options for small businesses looking to get their finances in order. Both made our list of the best accounting software because of their invoicing capabilities and bank transaction reconciliation. We compare Xero vs. Sage so you can decide on the perfect accounting solution for your needs.

Xero allows your customers to pay online invoices using debit or credit cards and even with digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. It also integrates seamlessly with top payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, and GoCardless. Xero takes the lead as it’s the only one of the two with desktop-based accounting software. After you sign up for Sage Accounting, you’ll be able to log in to your account and access your dashboard. Your main dashboard view will be the summary tab, which provides an overview of key financial information, such as sales, expenses and cash flow. You’ll be able to navigate to different sections of your account using the navigation bar across the top of your dashboard.