Sage has introduced Sage 50c, its cloud-based accounting software for small and medium businesses, integrated with Microsoft Office 365.
Sage 50c is the online version of Sage 50, formerly known as Peachtree Accounting. Instead of running on the user’s computer, the software is accessible via the cloud, much like Office 365 is the cloud-based version of Microsoft’s widely used office productivity suite. Sage 50c comes with the Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium productivity suite included.
Sage originally announced its integration with Microsoft last July during the Sage Summit conference in Chicago . The company plans to roll out the new system for small and medium businesses across different global markets this year, starting with the United Kingdom and Ireland this month, followed by the U.S., Canada, France and Germany in the spring.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
Jason Alden/Bloomberg
“Our partnership with Office 365 massively extends the benefits of Sage 50c, by combining the power of Sage and the power of Excel to service millions of small and medium businesses around the world,” said Jacqueline de Rojas, managing director for the U.K. and Ireland at Sage, in a statement Monday.
New features in Sage 50c include Sage Contact, which syncs with Microsoft Outlook to give users access to contact details, information, notes, history and files through any device at any time. Mobile invoicing and expensing features enable business owners to record expenses and generate invoices remotely. The system provides direct connections to bank accounts to give businesses an up-to-date view of their finances.
A new Sage Capture feature lets users photograph receipts and capture expenses, invoices and other paperwork digitally via Microsoft OneDrive. Digital storage features also use OneDrive to provide remote file storage, sharing, data access and more for documents. Sage Intelligence Reporting helps users create Microsoft Excel reports with design tools and templates in Sage 50c. Business performance dashboards allow users to monitor different business processes and measures from a single interface.
“Together with partners like Sage, we’re empowering accounting professionals and small and medium-sized businesses to get more out of every moment,” said Ron Markezich, corporate vice president of Office at Microsoft, in a statement. “The new Sage 50c offering, which is integrated with Microsoft Office 365, enables customers to manage their businesses across multiple devices and from multiple locations—with confidence that their information is live and up to date.”
Michael Cohn, editor-in-chief of AccountingToday.com, has been covering business and technology for a variety of publications since 1985.