Many companies in the United Kingdom rely on Sage accounting software such as Sage Line 50 and Sage Line 200 to run many aspects of their businesses. Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with Sage, after serious investment or organic or acquisitive growth, many IT & finance leaders begin to look at alternative solutions to Sage Line 50 & 200.
Many of you have asked us:
What ERP can replace Sage Line 200?
Who are Sage competitors and alternatives?
Do I have to upgrade Sage to an ERP system?
In this post, we'll answer these questions and help you to understand when it's the right time to replace Sage Line 50 or Sage Line 200 and offer some suggestions as to which ERP software you can replace it with.
Sage is one of the largest British software vendors and has been providing finance and accounting package and software to UK companies for years. During this time they have released various accounting packages, still used by many businesses today including Sage Line 50, Sage Line 200, Sage X3, Sage Intacct and many more.
Many of the CFOs and CIOs we speak to are struggling to remain compliant with local accounting and tax requirements when using Sage Line 50 or Sage Line 200. Although many countries such as the UK and other common countries are supported, Sage can often struggle with less common accounting localisations. As a result this can seriously hamper scalability into new countries and markets, as well as pose potential compliance risks.
Sage may have won some awards for the user interface and user experience of Sage Line 200 and Sage Line 50, but that was when Microsoft DOS was cutting edge. In today's world, Sage Line 50 and 200 user interfaces are outdated.
Depending on how your Sage line 50 or 200 is configured technically, many companies complain of issues in accessing the system remotely or from a mobile device. Modern ERP systems provide Cloud hosting and mobile optimised user experiences, allowing you to access the software on the fly or via purpose-built mobile applications.
As localisations are often a key issue with Sage Line 200 and Line 50, when companies choose to expand their operations into new territories, running Sage can be an issue. Modern ERP solutions often provide multiple localisations out of the box, as well as the ability to inherently manage multiple legal entities in one place.
When companies acquire new businesses to expand their portfolio and customer base, keeping Sage Line 50 or 200 is often tricky. Maintaining multiple legal entities and performing intercompany transactions with Sage Line 50 & 200 is often challenging.
A simple reason for upgrading or replacing Sage Line 200 or Sage Line 50 is an increase in sales and transaction volumes or a shift in your business model. As a business grows, so will your customer base or your product and service catalogue. Line 50 and 200 can often struggle to keep up with the demands of these changes, leading companies to investigate alternative software and solutions.
We often see companies moving away from Sage Line 200 or Line 50 when they're preparing for their next round of funding. A modern ERP system can instil confidence in your investors, encouraging them to part with their cash due to your ability to scale and provide a return on investment.
Sage Intacct is a Cloud financial management software solution which is a common replacement for Sage Line 50 & Sage Line 200. Sage Intacct has many additional modules and third party addons, however its core speciality is people and services centric business industries.
Download the full Sage Intacct Guide
Netsuite is one of the most popular Cloud ERP solutions available on the market and is often used to replace Sage Line 50 & Sage Line 200. Netsuite is a complete Cloud ERP solution offering financial management & accounting, project management, professional services automation, inventory management, production and manufacturing, procurement, e-commerce, CRM & marketing and more.
SAP Business One commonly replaces Sage 50 & Sage 200.
SAP Business ByDesign is a cloud ERP software which is a common replacement for Sage Line 50 & 200.
Acumatica is a native Cloud ERP solution which is generally used by small and midsized companies. As such, we generally see that companies evaluating Acumatica may compare it to similar solutions by SAP such as SAP Business One & SAP Business ByDesign.
Microsoft, like SAP offers several ERP products such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Business Central. Microsoft ERP is therefore frequently compared with SAP ERP products like SAP Business One, SAP Business ByDesign and SAP S/4 HANA ERP.
Microsoft 365 Business Central is typically compared with SAP ERP solutions such as SAP Business One or ByDesisn, whereas its bigger brother Dynamics 365 typically goes toe to toe with SAP S/4 HANA.
Odoo is a relatively new ERP software which is open source.