Sage Instant Accounts 10

This company sucks. They wanted 500 dollars just for support.

We found that Sage One online based accounting software is the worse accounting software I have ever used, in my 20 years of being an accountant. And to even make things worse, as I write this review I have been on hold exactly 30 minutes waiting to speak to a support representative.

Having read many of these reviews I felt I needed to defend Sage a bit.

The V2010 wasn't perfect but many of the comments on here are inaccurate.

Reports and layouts are fully tailorable with a little bit of point in the right direction. Get your accountant to do the training not sage as they can tailor the training to what you want to do. This is an out of the box software to fit many business types so some of the features you might not even need to learn.

The latest V2013 version is very solid and for £130 plus VAT very competitively priced compared to many of the Cloud based programs (which still aren't as good as this)

I provide training on sage and have been able to teach old ladies without any book keeping knowledge to use the software and produce good management information information.

The newer features of clear bank reconciliations and submission of VAT returns to the government gateways are quick and easy to use and save you having to use the government website which is terrible.

I would still recommend sage over quickbooks as it's much more tailorable to different business types.

Any software is a learning curve but once you get it right it works really well.

I agree with the sage support though, based around sales, not support but as i said talk to an accountant who can train you correctly.

Complete waste of time and money, very complicated, this is the worst accounts package I have ever used in 30 years of business. It is easier to write your our accounts package using Excel.

I absolutely hate this software, and my reasons are well-founded. There is a steep learning curve, and I expected that, but the issue is that the functions which are there to make your life easier need to be unlocked. For a premium of course.

You'll find that the software is like that throughout. It will let you get part way through your tasks and then you'll hit a brick wall. The software doesn't help you when you run into problems - you have to call Sage, where you're then given sales spiel from the guy on the 'helpdesk'. Avoid.

The package itselff is passable but be very wary of the optional "support". Some staff know what they are doing, others seem to struggle with basic accounting. I often find I am helping them more than the other way around! Also be alert for the pressure selling that will follow as soon as they have your details. I have this afternoon had to hang up on one women who just would not give up and am now ignoring any unrecognised numbers. In summary, reasonable package, rubbish company.

I used to use Microsoft Accounting 2009 but Microsoft withdrew support for the program. Because I didn't want to be left high and dry I bought Sage Instant Accounts. I found it so bad I also purchased their support package.

After 7 months I can say that if I wanted to deliberately produce counter intuitive, difficult software it would resemble Sage Instant Accounts.

If you don't already have it, I would not advise buying it. Does anyone know of a good accounting software package that doesn't cost the Earth?

Have used Sage accounting for a retail business for 8 years, after a break of 3 years, I purchased the latest version of SAGE, it is complicated, difficult to use and feels like they update perfectly good versions in order to charge excessive money for purchase and updates, I am not an accountant and still have to use one to sort out the mess that SAGE makes of the job it was purchased to do, because of a software "gremlin" I have to re-enter every invoice for the past six months! Cannot recommend anything else as I have never used other programs, but do your research and find something better.

Unorganized garbage. Don't waste your money!

Having read every other review I wonder if I have the same product! I changed from using Microsoft Accounting to Sage and find the programme's very similar. I have used the report designer and made up my own invoices BUT that was quite tricky to get the fields etc in the right place but I managed in the end. I use the company reports to check on monthly budgets and have now got the hang of the bank reconcilation. The layout is clear and VAT is a doddle! The only problem I have had is that I have emailled a back up to my accountant to make some adjustments and the back up she returned is in a later version than mine and has locked me out until I upgrade! The accountant's fault really - not Sage.