Here we look at accounting software for medium businesses for payment and invoicing. We compare solutions that have at least 10 reviews written by reviewers from medium-sized businesses in order to be eligible. So below are the best solutions we found for medium sized companies that we have complied.
NetSuite
Oracle’s NetSuite is a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform with a full range of applications, including payroll, human resources, customer relationship management, and e-commerce. It uses a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model, making it an excellent choice if you want the freedom to develop your company without having to worry about finding new infrastructure and staff. No matter your size or sector, you may use its extensive array of modules and customisation capabilities to boost productivity and cut expenses.
NetSuite’s SuiteCloud customisation options make it simple to adapt the platform to your company’s needs and preferences. You may design your own user interfaces, produce and distribute papers with your logo on them, integrate with third-party programmes, and more.
NetSuite also has powerful reporting features. Thanks to its built-in reporting tools, you’ll be able to pull reports on just about anything you’d like. Role-based dashboards are another tool that can assist your management team and staff in making informed choices.
Your company can use the core platform, select the number of users, and add on modules as you see appropriate by paying an annual licence cost for NetSuite. You can increase the number of users and modules as your company expands to accommodate your changing requirements.
NetSuite will also charge you a one-time implementation fee in addition to the annual licence fee to get your software up and running. The business won’t provide you a price quote up front and instead requests that you book a consultation to get one for your particular type of organisation.
If you’re a medium – or large-sized business searching for a one-stop, scalable solution with a range of customisation features, NetSuite is a good option. It can be a wise investment if you know you’ll require a CRM and other business tools for tasks like accounting, HR, and payroll.
However, you should generally go elsewhere if you’re a start-up, small business, or want a straightforward, “no-frills” choice.
Sage Intacct
Thousands of companies all around the world rely on Sage Intacct, a versatile and scalable financial platform, for comprehensive accounting. Any accounting department or finance team can use Sage Intacct to access a variety of essential accounting tools, including a general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management, and order management.
Additionally, it includes features for built-in dashboards, real-time reporting, time and expense management, project accounting, revenue management, and worldwide consolidations for numerous entities.
The software offers particular functionality for a wide range of industries in addition to being applicable across a wide range of industries as a horizontal accounting system: Non-profit, Professional Services, Financial Services, Healthcare, Hospitality, Wholesale Distribution, Construction are just a few examples.
With excellent rankings in customer satisfaction and engagement, Sage Intacct performs well in industry reports. With robust accounting capabilities and a wide partner network of third-party solutions to address extra demands, it is equivalent in price and capability to competing programmes.
Customers list the following as the top advantages of Sage Intacct in reviews:
- Ease of use for both financial and non-financial teams
- A special shared chart of accounts that brings the overall number of accounts down to a more manageable number
- The cloud platform, which allows customers to access their finances round-the-clock
- The automatic updates handled by Sage Intacct Reports and dashboards that are released every quarter
- Sage Intacct’s open, public API enables robust flexibility and integration choices.
- Ongoing assistance, instruction, and training from Sage Intacct, its community, and your implementation partner
Xero
Xero is a global small business platform with 3.5 million customers that offers a core accounting solution, payroll, labour management, spending, and projects.
Medium-sized businesses can access a variety of solutions from within Xero’s open platform to help them run their operations and manage their finances thanks to the wide ecosystem of connected apps and connections to banks and other financial institutions that Xero has built up.
Additionally, with Xero, accounting and bookkeeping practises have access to effective compliance solutions, smart practice management software, and a cloud-based single accounting ledger for each client, all in one location
Features of products for businesses:
– Automated data entry
– Xero may reduce data entry by importing sales and spending records straight from banks, invoicing apps, point-of-sale systems, e-commerce websites, and receipt scanners. Business transactions are duplicated straight from the company bank account over a secure web connection, eliminating the need for data entry
– Intelligent bank reconciliation: The programme learns how users categorise certain expenses and offers recommendations. Because of this, reconciling your bank accounts may only require one click
– Online billing: The software may be used to issue invoices and provide clients with a variety of payment options, including credit/debit cards and direct debit. For outstanding invoices, it can also automatically send payment reminders
– Automated financial reporting enables the creation of balance sheets and financial statements at the touch of a button. In some areas, tax returns can also be pre-populated
– Business dashboards – On a visual dashboard, crucial statistics like money in, money out, money due, and money owed are always accessible
– Connection with other programmes
Xero connects with hundreds of other third-party business apps to assist a business manage its particular industry-specific and administrative difficulties. From cash flow and project management to inventory and logistics, customer relationship management, e-commerce, and more, business apps offer choices to create a tailored experience.
While Xero has many benefits, it does have some drawbacks such as:
- It takes some time to learn how to use it
- The requisition/purchase/inventory side is very, very basic
- Limited expense claims, projects, and multi-currency support to the most expensive plan
- No built-in ‘Debtor Chasing’ function so businesses will need to manually follow up on unpaid invoices
- Can be very slow if your company is running online or if it makes a high volume of sales through PayPal
- Poor customer service (takes time and can be met with unhelpful advisors)
- Not really suitable for medium to larger businesses
QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise
QuickBooks gives users improved control and visibility to support the operation of your company. With a comprehensive view of your entire business, QuickBooks Enterprise can aid in decision-making, efficiency, and productivity.
Some of the positives we really liked are:
– Accounting, inventory control, reporting, price guidelines, job costing, integrated payroll, and time tracking
– Capability for 1 million customers, vendors, and inventory items, 100,000 classes, 45 custom fields, and up to 40 users.
– With hosting, you can increase productivity, foster collaboration, and allow your team to work from anywhere.
– Integrated time tracking and payroll solutions, together with the optional Salesforce CRM connector, to automate your work.
– Add more than 200 applications to increase the value of your business. By viewing more of your data in real-time, you can increase your productivity and make decisions more quickly.
You can also get a sense of what’s coming in and going out with a cash flow hub to track payments, bills, invoices, sales receipts, and more to speed up your workflows and reduce data entry. Increase transparency and efficiency
However, we also didn’t like some aspects of QB which are summed up as the following:
- Lack of industry and business-specific features (such as lot tracking, eCommerce and barcode scanning)
- Lack of key reports outside of accounting
- Instability/system crashes
- Lack of direct professional support
- File-size issues/limitations on number of transactions
- Limitations on the number of users
- Built with a “small business mindset”
- Data is not always backed-up so you risk losing information
- Lacks invoice design tools
- Easy to find a fix errors/mistakes (which makes it easy for someone to manipulate your books)
We felt whilst it had many excellent features, it just didn’t seem to have the functions and features as Sage’s Intacct or the stability of it.
Alternatives you may want to consider
Zoho Books
For expanding organisations, Zoho Books is a cloud accounting platform alternative. It automates corporate procedures, tracks income and expenses, and integrates to systems like CRM, inventory, and subscription tools. It is also accessible on all mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, and Windows.
A business owner can save a lot of time by using automation capabilities like payment reminders, scheduling reports, and establishing triggers for specific procedures. Adding transactions to the account is made simpler by Zoho Books. A user can obtain daily transactions in real-time by connecting to bank feeds, which can then be categorised.
Bills, expenses, and other recurring transactions can be programmed to run automatically. You can keep track of your orders, inventory, and make any necessary changes. Zoho Inventory software, which is fully linked with Zoho Books, offers extensive inventory and order management functionality. The Zoho Books link is quite advantageous for salespeople using Zoho CRM. They may instantly produce estimates and invoices that will appear in their Zoho Books account. There is no need for a manual sync because all of the items, sellers, and customers are in sync across the two programmes. It comes in a variety of languages, and companies can create invoices in the currency of their clients.
Considering all of these advantages, it’s important to think about any potential disadvantages of the accounting software Zoho Books. After all, any alternative will have both benefits and drawbacks, independent of the particular solution.
User Limitations
Although Zoho Books offers four different levels, the number of users you can have on your account is limited. Even though you can increase the number of users by paying a monthly or annual charge, the Enterprise Plan only includes a maximum of 10 users at the outset.
This limitation could be especially problematic — and expensive if you need to expand your workforce — when compared to competing systems.
No payroll services
Lack of payroll services is another potential drawback of Zoho Books. Unlike many accounting solutions which either offer specialised integration options with various payroll software systems or have payroll features, Zoho Books does not offer these kinds of tools. So you might think about using another platform that will enable you to easily connect your payroll or pay taxes within your accounting software.
Minimal Options for Integration
The options for third-party integration with Zoho Books are likewise limited, albeit probably not as much as the first two reasons. In addition to not offering payroll services, Zoho does not have nearly as many third-party tool integrations as competing platforms like Sage Inacct, QuickBooks or Xero.
Odoo ERP
Odoo is an open-source software that can be fully customised with hundreds of finely made business apps. The majority of business demands, including CRM, Sales, Project, Manufacturing, Inventory, and Accounting, to name a few, may be satisfied by Odoo’s user-friendly database.
Odoo’s software programme is made to accommodate all business sizes. By eliminating unnecessary manual processes, organisations can become more productive and save numerous hours of labour thanks to Odoo’s seamless nature.
Users can automate various operations that would have otherwise required manual inputs into numerous applications because every module is connected to one another to create a completely integrated experience from app to app. Odoo puts all company functions in one location, allowing teams to collaborate with different departments from a single unified platform in the most effective way possible.
Odoo is an open-source programme that provides security features to the business technology and software development community all around the world. It also has many modules and apps on the Odoo market can be customised to meet any and all corporate demands.
Odoo does have some downsides though, which are:
– Even though it is straightforward to use, it is fairly difficult to operate, and maintaining it needs an internal IT specialist
– There is a lot more manual data entering than there is with other alternatives
– There is no automated scheduling that takes workstation and material availability into account
– There is no estimation functionality that would enable producers to provide clients with precise lead times and prices
– Pricing is complicated because modules must be purchased separately
absence of helpful support resources
– Because it is open-source, the software lacks a unified strategy, resulting in variable quality
Conclusion
Here at Itas Solutions, we’re big fans of Sage’s Intacct and undertaking this task of comparing Sage Intacct against others, hasn’t moved our reasoning for this. With its core features including accounts payable/ receivable, inventory, fixed assets, billing, contact management and vendor payment services. Plus, it has a budgeting module and integrates with payroll software.
Intacct is an ideal solution for non-profits and midsize organisations with teams of finance professionals. It can handle complex accounting transactions and adhere to accounting standards with ease, plus it has a global consolidation module that quickly consolidates hundreds of entities into one.
Intacct is also highly secure that keeps your data confidential and we found it security as the best out of the ones we looked at. Its PCI DSS Level 1 and SOC 2 Type II certifications guarantee compliance with security policies.
The budgeting and planning module helps you create and update realistic budgets with your staff, while collaborating across departments. It also grants role-based access to budget information, allows staff members to create or edit budgets, and offers valuable insights from what-if scenarios.
If you would like to discuss how Itas Solutions can help you set up and integrate Sage’s Intacct into your business, don’t hesitate to contact us on info@itassolutions.co.uk, call us on +44 (0) 1824 780 000.
Who we are
Having started in 1995 with just one customer, Itas Solutions now supports over 200 clients nationwide. They know we are always there to provide a helping hand, whenever they need us. Trusted by our customers for over 20 years, Itas has been built on referrals from customers and IT professionals that love the expert yet personal service that we offer.
If you would like to know more about how Itas can help your business with finance automation, Sage implementation and improve purchasing control, you can get in touch at info@itassolutions.co.uk, call us on +44 (0) 1824 780 000 or contact us via our website.
