Sage One empowers entrepreneurs to track their businesses from their phones or tablets

As a business owner you may find it difficult to keep track of transactions – don’t despair! A solution for entrepreneurs and small businesses is at hand. By Gugu Lourie

Accounting firms have come up with digital solutions to help small business owners to manage their finances correctly.

You have no idea how excited I was when I began testing the Sage One software, which focusses on helping small business owners who can’t afford the services of an accounting firm or an accountant to manage their finances. The wonderful thing about this software is that it’s available online, anywhere, anytime and from any device!

The software also helps businesses to avoid the typical pitfalls that often befall many new businesses.

Until I got to test the Sage One software, I had been doing my accounting manually. Once I used the software I was able to focus more on other aspects of my business, instead of being bogged down with managing my finances.

And because it’s online, I can literally take my accounting with me everywhere I go. I can now log my expenses immediately after meeting a client – I don’t wait until I get home to throw the receipt in a file, which will probably not get filed properly anyway.

I am thrilled because this accounting solution is easy to use, efficient and affordable for small business owners like myself.

And, while I was testing Sage One, I found out that there were many more benefits to it.

But don’t just take my word for it. Find out for yourself and sign up for a free trial at Accounting Free Trial Sign Up Page.

During my free trial, I found that it’s:

1. Easy-to-use

Sage One Accounting software is accessible 24 hours on the internet. It speaks your language! The biggest stumbling block for small business owners when using accounting software themselves, is the industry jargon that forces you to hire an accountant to manage your finances. With this software, it’s so easy for me to do my banking. And because I could keep track of my cash flow, it empowered me to better understand the state of my business.

This means that I’m running my finances in real time. I don’t have to wait for the accountant to tell me about the state of my business in a month’s time or wait to get home to review piles of financial statements.

2. Gives you a bird’s eye view of your business

You can easily customise your features on your dashboard, view who your top customers are and check their outstanding balances.

You also automatically get access to your sales history graph and are able to identify your biggest revenue generating customer.

Furthermore, you can use Sage One to quickly and easily create professional invoices. This feature helps small business owners who are receiving late payments from customers to manage what’s owed to them.

Even more amazing is that you can easily generate recurring invoices of the same amounts each month. They will then be emailed automatically to each customer.

3. The beauty of Sage One is that data gets secured in the cloud

This means that there are no installation hassles as there is nothing to install. It removes the need for constant software updates, your data is secured safely and the cloud protects sensitive financial information.

If my device or tablet is stolen or misplaced, my data will be unaffected and I will only need a new phone or tablet to access my data and continue to manage my finances.

The only hassle is that you must have access to the internet, but that can be sorted by working in a free Wi-Fi hotspot, which are mushrooming everywhere in the country.

4. Placing my customer information on my iPhone 6

I was so excited that the accounting software was available via the Sage One iPhone app. I was able to record notes, which were automatically displayed on my to-do list on my app dashboard.

The app made it easy for me to search for my customers’ contacts and phone them directly from my iPhone 6s.

The map feature allows you to navigate to your customers’ offices.

The app is also available on Android devices.

5. Pay your employees with Sage One Payroll

As a Sage One user you also have access to Sage One Payroll, which simplifies your payroll processes. You don’t need payroll qualifications to pay your staff, you only need access to an internet connection.

Sage One Payroll is SARS compliant. Apart from being able to pay your staff online, you can also process leave, anywhere and anytime.

I think this feature is incredibly useful to many entrepreneurs and freelancers when they don’t have time to manually pay their employees.

Try this feature; click on Payroll Free Trial Sign-Up Page

After a free 30-day trial period of the online accounting software, Sage One offers a monthly package for R185, and a yearly offer of R1998. If you take up the yearly offer, online payroll for two employees is included free of charge. Almost all the features are included in all the packages. The main difference is the 10% discount that doesn’t apply for a monthly package.

I’m sold on buying Sage One Accounting’s yearly package.

Sage Pastel is a trusted firm, which has serviced small businesses for years and has helped to demystify accounting. Sage One Accounting is definitely an easy to install, use and navigate accounting software.