sage business cloud accounting

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Sage Business Cloud Accounting. All opinions are 100% mine.

Is one of your New Year’s resolutions to get a better grip on your small business finances? If so, you’re making a smart move. Cash flow problems are to blame for as many as 82% of business failures.

Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to help small business owners manage their money more effectively. To start off 2019, I decided to give one of them, Sage Business Cloud Accounting (formerly Sage One), a road test.

Sage Business Cloud Accounting Overview

To say I’m “not a numbers person” is putting it mildly. That’s why I loved the simplicity of the Sage Business Cloud Accounting “Summary” dashboard. On one summary screen, you can see Money In, Money Out, and your current balance. It’s a super simple way to see where your business is at financially.

On the same summary screen, you can view Customers by Outstanding Invoices and Customers by Overdue Invoices, or your checking account balance and your cash balance. The information displays in a card or tile format so it’s easy to see without a lot of clicking around.

Additional tabs on the Summary screen take you to Sales, Contacts, Banking, Reports and Cashbook.  Here’s a closer look at each.

  • Sales: Create and manage invoices here. You can view all your invoices at once or filter by criteria such as Outstanding, Overdue and Paid. Customizing the information that you collect and display about each invoice is easy — all you have to do is select from a checklist of options to add things like Net Amount or P.O. Number.
  • Contacts: Keep customer and vendor contact information here. Don’t worry: You don’t need to re-input all your customer and vendor data. You can import vendor and customer lists from other apps or records.
  • Cashbook: This is where you track money and in money out of your checking account and cash account (essentially, your cash flow). Simply input money in or out and drop-downs make it easy to categorize the amounts for detailed record-keeping. The app automatically fills in tax rates, such as sales tax, based on your location.
  • Banking: You can connect your Sage Business Cloud Accounting account to your business bank accounts, or import your bank data in QIF, OFX or CSV formats. There’s also a Check Register section you can use to view recorded checks or set up and print paper checks (yes, sometimes you still need to do that).

Making the Most of Sage Business Cloud Accounting

To get the most from Sage Business Cloud Accounting, you’ll want to refer to the Reports section frequently. Available reports include:

  • Profit and Loss
  • Balance Sheet
  • Accounts Receivable (A/R) Aging Report
  • Cash Flow Statement
  • Income and Expense Day Book
  • Unreconciled Bank Transactions
  • Cashbook Report
  • Sales Day Book
  • Trial Balance
  • General Ledger Report
  • Audit Trail
  • Chart of Accounts
  • Sales Tax Report
  • 1099 Vendor Report

Mouse over each report to get a succinct description of what the report will show you.

The settings of Sage Business Cloud Accounting offer lots of opportunities for customization. You can decide what information about your business shows up on documents, brand your invoices with your logo and customize the email message that’s used when you send an invoice or other statement.

I really enjoyed how simple and intuitive Sage Business Cloud Accounting is. There’s a mobile app to make it even easier to use wherever you are.

Other features of Sage Business Cloud Accounting include the ability to choose from cash basis or accrual basis accounting, create cash flow forecasts, generate customer quotes and estimates. If you don’t need those features, consider Sage Business Cloud Accounting Start, which is designed for one-person businesses and freelancers.

For midsized or established business that need even more features, consider the Sage 50cloud solution. It integrates with Microsoft Office 365 to offer an all-in-one accounting solution.

Take a free test drive of Sage Business Cloud Accounting or Sage 50cloud and see how they work for your business.

Woman working in studio stock photo from Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock