Sage Helps

We started in 1987 with The Master Builder; which was purchased by Intuit; which was purchased by Sage and became Sage 100 Contractor. So we have grown up with the great grampa of Sage 100. It has run our company for decades and we are very happy with it. As we grow, the program can grow. There is still a lot of the program's capability that we do not use, yet, but hope to.

Pros

Integration of job bidding to job costing to accounting to payroll.....all modules talk to each other in real time. We could not have any software that did not do all these things

Cons

The weak point is the estimating module that comes with it. I don't think it has been upgraded for 20 years.....no...really. They want me to buy the upgraded estimator which I think I will do soon.

New User Review

Now that I have learned how to use the software, I am very happy with it. It allows for seamless integration of project management and project accounting. I would recommend this software to others, but with a serious explanation that the learning process is difficult and frustrating for those who don't come from an accounting background.

Pros

I love the interconnectivity of this software. It really does a great job of tying everything together and it makes pulling union reports, workers compensation reports, etc easier than the spreadsheets that I was having to keep previously. After the long and difficult process of learning how to use the software, I am now seeing all of its benefits.

Cons

Learning how to use this software was not a good experience. I would love to be able to pull up videos on the internet and have someone walk me through the different screens. We used a company with live help for Sage 100 Contractor and it was expensive and I felt that I was often waiting for our schedules to align to get a simple question answered. It made me hate the software in the beginning and it was very frustrating. I am just happy to be past that!

Wouldn't Recommend for a Specialty Contractor

We use Sage 100 for all of our accounting/payroll/purchasing/subcontracting and project management.

Pros

I've been using the software for seventeen years --- drill down works great --- generally intuitive to use. Can teach others to use in a short time.

Cons

Reports are needing serious work that Sage just won't change, Some work arounds that we implemented when we first started using the product are STILL required seventeen years later. There are also STILL issues within the program that Sage just can't fix. Have had to hire third party consultants to help with some issues and reports.

Good package for the money

Overall it's a decent software package for the money and the size of our business. Other systems can do more, but you'll likely pay much more.

Pros

The software provides the needed accounting and payroll modules. The optional Inventory modules offers some basic tools to manage your inventory. Reporting tools are rudimentary, but adequate.

Cons

Receiving inventory items works strangely. A Sage invoice is created when receiving. At the point of vouching the supplier's invoice, the same receiving generated invoice can be updated. However, issues occur if you have used any of that inventory before getting the supplier's invoice entered. There's a work-around which involves copying and pasting, but the vouching process should not care what your current inventory level is. The weighted average cost is problematic when working with projects. Any given transaction can result in a G/L record that doesn't match the project record, leading to variances. Need the option of last-cost, std cost, etc.

Sage Review

Overall it has been very good.

Pros

I like the accountability features first and foremost. The AP, AR and Payroll are simple and easy to use.

Cons

I would like to see a little more ease of use for estimating. For a small remodeling company like ours, we do not need massive amount of data. And a HUGE improvement would be if you could set up a standard "Note" for each cost code. We prepare proposals by Cost Code with descriptions as to what "Tile" entails (our allowance, our standard running board pattern, inclusion of grout, etc.) I would also like to see a running report that includes budget v. actual for hours, labor dollars, subs and materials. Right now I need more than one report to do that.