What I like best about this program is it's ability to track accounting by project and by phase.
The expenses are easily set up and utilized as well as the balance sheet.
Data entry is easily accomplished.
The reporting module is excellent as well.
Training is minimal cost to business owners and the annual updates work extremely well.
I also utilized the payroll module with time which works very well and have had no issues over the years.
The time tracking is excellent along with the budgets and alerts, tracking specific scopes of work to enable better estimating is something I found extremely useful.
I have no dislikes with this program. As I am not currently using this program I am not familiar with revisions in the past year.
Benefits this program offers are separate budgets, alerts, tracking of percent complete etc.
This program is very helpful once you learn all of its options.
I suggest this program to small contractors and design build firms as well as engineering firms here in Maine.
A consistent problem with engineering firms is staff members applying their time to the correct scope of work for a given time period. The allow/not allow feature of time entry to specific scopes allows the project manager tracking of entry errors or any overlaps in time and changes can be made at the time, prior to submission of time, this reduces revisions to invoicing at the end of each period.
Sage is an excellent way to track expenses and revenue for construction. I am able to track construction costs in detail. There are many tools to maintain retainage for each subcontractor and track which retainage has been paid and what exactly has not been paid by simple glance or reports as needed. I can also have pending invoices versus released and posted invoices, which makes life easier at the end of each month tracking down what I do not have approved from each employee.
Another great feature is the insurance tracking through sage. I can accurately track what COIs I don't have from subcontractors, or what will be soon expiring.
**My current company uses QuickBooks, but they have many construction projects open, and I would like to see them consider sage, as I find many issues with QuickBooks where sage has no issues. It is important to track in detail construction projects so that we can accurately quote our customers and maintain profit versus inaccurate quotes. Several times since starting with my current company, I have run into an issue of a COI being expired, or a project costing more than expected, which resulted in having to pay out of pocket or explain the issue to the customer.
The only thing I dislike, is that it is difficult to run certain reports and is not the most user friendly program at times. Also, I often experience crashing.
If you are considering SAGE, consider always learning the ins and outs of the software. Do not give up when you are unsure of a certain report or process. Google was my best friend and when I could not understand, I picked up the phone and called support. I believe SAGE is the perfect construction software and I currently wish my company would consider switching over.
We had a huge problem keeping track of COI expirations using QuickBooks and sage has alleviated this issue at my previous company. At my current company, I see this issue and have presented SAGE as a future consideration.
I do like that this software has everything included within it.
So many things have to be done manually. There is no spell checking, the formatting of the forms is very odd and it takes a lot to get it fixed. When creating Purchase Orders, it is very unfriendly. You cannot copy lines, delete lines, insert lines, etc.
This software has a ton of components and you do have the ability to do many things. I think the biggest issue is that this software lacks common sense. Like building a house without outlets. You have all your components inside of it, but you miss something basic to help you do your day to day tasks.
We are using this as an all inclusive Accounting and Project Management software. We have the Estimating ability but have not released it for use yet.
I'm really not a fan of this software at all. The only thing I really like is the ability to query the data from sage and create charts and tables of that in excel.
I don't like the way it looks. I don't like how every task is separated in such a way that you don't flow from one step to the next - if you have a huge company with a different person responsible for every single step then this would make sense- otherwise it's very bad setup.
I would seriously consider other options first before going with this.
The software helps keep the different tasks organized. The benefits of this would be more so for companies where management restricts access to employees or want to restrict what data can be entered.
Many useful add on softwares with great functionality. Very user friendly and customizable to meet your business needs.
A bit complex to get set up, but most software will present this issue. Overall not many cons with this software.
Overall we have been using Sage (formerly Timberline - we still call it that) since 2008. Very happy with this product.
The integration- My project managers can estimate a project and we can track the job costs and accounting in the same software.
Accounts Receivable reports still need work. You can run 3 different reports and get 3 different answers.
The ability to create Change order from individual Change Proposals
The same format does not remain when you enter the same window for a different entry
Need to get more user friendly and better customer support
Allowed checks and balances to make sure all amounts are correct and there is not double billing or payments made