I use a very old version of Sage (2008) and although it is broken (ie aint broke, dont fix it), I decided after discussions with the lovely Michelle that I should look at upgrading to perhaps 2013 version. As suggested I rang Sage to ask for a price for their 2013 version of Sage 50 client manager. They told me that they do not sell older versions of their software only now it will be the 2015.
To make matters worse they told me that they now do not sell any versions to Accountants/bookkeepers on perpetual licences but only on a subscription basis. Their prices start at £60.98 per month for 5 companies (£65.98 for 25 companies!). They tell me this has only changed since May of this year.
Wondered if anyone else has come across this/if its correct or if I have just had a person trying to flog me what he thinks is best??!!
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
I know they have just brought out the 2015 version as I got it last week, as part of the Sage Accountants club it is sent automatically - they have recently changed the structure and I had an email about subscription only for future but to be honest didnt read much of it!
I pay around £150 a month for mine- that gives me both payroll and accounts 25 companies with 2 users on accounts and unlimited on payroll
I even tried to buy it as part of the bookkeepers club but they told me (again) its subscription only for the future. I reckon a lot of people will move from Sage when they want to upgrade further - I certainly know one or two who will already. So annoyed (with myself for not sorting this at the beginning of this year!!)
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
I know they have just brought out the 2015 version as I got it last week, as part of the Sage Accountants club it is sent automatically - they have recently changed the structure and I had an email about subscription only for future but to be honest didnt read much of it! I pay around £150 a month for mine- that gives me both payroll and accounts 25 companies with 2 users on accounts and unlimited on payroll
Sharon
My annual bill usually arrives about now - I suppose I'll need to dig out the emails to see what happens next. I've a million* emails from Sage from their various departments and newsletters remaining unread.
* 978,076 emails - rounded up to 1 million.
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Never buy black socks from a normal shop. They shaft you every time.
It's not just the client manager - Sage 50 appears to only have subscription options listed on Sage's store instead of the ability to just buy a copy of the software outright. (And I suspect it's probably the same for 100/200, but I haven't checked)
It looks like it's still supplied as desktop software, so presumably you subscribe for a minimum amount of time and, after that period, you can still use the software even if you no longer subscribe - if not, I would question how you would be able to continue to access your data after your subscription ends.
Looking further on Sage's site I can see a "Sage 50 Accounts and Payroll Fixed Term/Perpetual Licence" and a "Sage 50 Accounts and Payroll Subscription Licence" - the presence of the former suggests its still possible to obtain a normal "Just install it and use it for however long you need" copy, but I can't see how you do that! Furthermore, a glance (admittedly a very quick one) at the subscription licence, it does seem to suggest that ending the subscription brings with it an agreement to uninstall the software. I didn't look at the other licence because it's meaningless if there's no obvious way to purchase the software on that basis!
Not impressed - and more than a little concerned about how this is compatible with a business' legal requirements to hold onto its accounting records for a certain amount of time. A backup is surely not good enough if that backup can't be opened - so the software itself is needed.
And it gets worse - I've just looked at the pricing. Even though they're now selling this software on a subscription basis, so they want you to pay them month after month after month, they still want to charge extra for SageCover - i.e. software support - on top of that. For example:
Sage Accounts "Product Only" - £25+VAT/month.
Sage Accounts with SageCover "Online" support - £35+VAT/month.
Sage Accounts with SageCover Extra support - £50+VAT/month.
Looking at what I have installed on this computer - Sage Accounts Plus, for three companies, those prices are £70/£80/£95 plus VAT per month respectively.
Granted, £95 plus VAT/month probably isn't far off what I was paying when I had SageCover Extra (to get a new version each year) until I had a falling out with Sage, but I just feel that if you want to charge a monthly subscription, then that subscription fee has to include some level of ongoing support - not the first 45 days, which seems still to be the case.
I will add that the other day I saw a more recent version than I have - though it might not be the latest one - and it does look better aesthetically, but whether it works better I don't know; I didn't spend long enough with it. I did note that a couple of the feature requests I made several years ago (which would have improved the product) hadn't been implemented - though I didn't have time to look for everything I requested.
-- Edited by VinceH on Friday 12th of September 2014 07:45:23 PM
-- Edited by VinceH on Friday 12th of September 2014 07:46:28 PM
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
The chap I spoke to didnt seem to be very interested in talking to me - despite the fact that I said I was a new customer! I had to literally DRAG information out of him. Indeed if I had absolutely no knowledge of sage at all then he would have been as much use as a chocolate fireguard. I wasnt impressed at all. I had sort of been expecting the hard sell!
He did mentioned that you could still buy the old disc version of Sage 50 ie as a limited company wanting a version with say one or two companies on it on the old style perpetual licence but didnt expand further on it. No idea how long that offering will be around for!
I think its great that are offering an online model if thats what people want, but I would have thought this would be offered alongside their existing products, but clearly they want to further ramp up sales as lets face it Im sure quite a few people dont get the upgrades yearly (like me!!)
Very disappointed
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Just thought I would let you know, you can just purchase the disk sage from pc world they are selling 2013 and 2014 at reduced prices, but only some stores have them its just the ones with the stock left that you can get them from, I purchased sage 50 2014 at cheaper than normal price you would need to look on line to see which stores have them.
Hi Joanne I am not sure exactly but I think there was sage 2013 plus and also professional, best to look on line and see what they have I didn't pay that much attention to them as they where dearer than mine lol I purchased the standard sage 50 with 2 users and multy company which you would then have to go to sage and pay for the extra ones.
-- Edited by figureit on Sunday 14th of September 2014 01:30:20 PM
Just had a quick look on the PC world website and interestingly the licences are are for 1 year only, so as Vince says - not sure where you would stand after that!
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Yes do remember seeing that myself now you say it on something but it wasn't on the one I bought or one of the sage 2013's but cant remember which one :(
The download versions come with a one year licence.
The CD versions don't have that restriction - so if you don't want to find your data held to ransom* in one year, you need to go for the CD version.
* As I said on Twitter a few days ago... SaaS means "Software as a Service" - but I suggest an alternative acronym: DaaPR, which would mean "Data as a Protection Racket" - Discuss!
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
I am still selling perpetual licences. They are listed, just no longer promoted.
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For just about anything Sage :- switch to renting, pay-as-you-go sage support, sagecover, upgrades, application integration, reports, layouts, analysis or any other help making life with sage easier/less time consuming Contact me.
"I am still selling perpetual licences. They are listed, just no longer promoted."
Listed where?
As I said above, when looking at the Sage Store - Sage's online shop - I can only see the subscription options for Sage 50; there are no options I can see for purchasing a perpetual licence.
Even going through the process as if to buy one of the packages, there are no selectable options to change what you are purchasing from a subscription to a perpetual licence.
I'm not saying Sage aren't still selling it on that basis - as I pointed out, the existence of the "Sage 50 Accounts and Payroll Fixed Term/Perpetual Licence" suggests they are still selling (or willing to sell) the software under a perpetual licence - but it doesn't appear to be available that way from their online store.
And I also pointed out the software available from PC World appeared to be under a perpetual licence if purchased on CD.
Having said that, though, I've since noticed that PC World states the licence for Sage Instant on CD is '1 user, 1 year'.
Interestingly, I've just noticed that if you are on the Sage Store page, click on "Software & Apps", then "Desktop/Online Accounts Software" - the green icon, not "Read More" which takes you to a Sage 50-specific page (it's not just inconsistent, poor UIs in their software, then!) - Sage Instant isn't actually listed at all (though it's still possible to find it by searching).
Reading between the lines, therefore, (and being a cynical old fart) I can't help but wonder if we are about to see a discontinuation of the cheaper desktop option?
Can't have pesky end users only paying a comparatively small amount of money, and only once at that, when we can fleece them month after month after month and use their Data as aProtection Racket!
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
Vince,
You must still be able to purchase the licence for multi company as all the people that own or have bought recently like myself may want a licence in the future, and surely they would not be able to sell this software in the shops still if you couldn't still purchase the licence.
Unless they are going to do a monthly plan just for the multi company licence, at a reduced price for those that already have the software. Maybe ?
"You must still be able to purchase the licence for multi company as all the people that own or have bought recently like myself may want a licence in the future, and surely they would not be able to sell this software in the shops still if you couldn't still purchase the licence."
There's no change to the multi-company (or user) aspects to the software - there are still options for that; the monthly subscription price just goes up in the same way it did if you were buying the software under the old scheme.
The point is that Sage are trying to move people away from
Buy once, and carry on using it until the heat death of the Universe
"Unless they are going to do a monthly plan just for the multi company licence, at a reduced price for those that already have the software. Maybe ?"
Ah, sorry - in case there's any confusion: Users who already have the software, purchased previously under a perpetual licence, won't be affected by this change. It's only new purchases. (Whether upgrades will still be provided under a perpetual licence is another question again.)
-- Edited by VinceH on Tuesday 16th of September 2014 09:58:48 PM
-- Edited by VinceH on Tuesday 16th of September 2014 09:59:12 PM
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
The question of what happens when you cease subscribing - whether you are still able to access your data - has been bugging me, so I asked @SageUk on Twitter. It actually took two attempts a couple of days apart before I got an answer, from a (new to me) Sage Twitter account - @askSageUKI
This is the whole conversation - which is obviously limited by the 140 character restriction of Twitter: My comments are blue, Sage's are red.
[16/9/2014]
"Oi @sageuk A question about your new subscription options. If someone subscribes and uses it then stops, how do they access historical data?"
"@sageuk e.g. if they use your stuff for a couple of years, then decide to move to something else from that point."
[18/9/2014]
"RT @sageuk A question about your new subscription options. If someone subscribes and uses it then stops, how do they access historical data
"RT @sageuk e.g. if they use your stuff for a couple of years, then decide to move to something else from that point."
"@VinceMH Hi, if the subscription is cancelled the data wouldn't be accessible. If cancelling subscription they should export or print data."
"@askSageUKI 2-300 invoices/month, over a couple of years would be wasteful of paper, so next question is on the subject of exporting..."
"@askSageUKI Is there now a *meaningful* export option? I recovered data by exporting via reports in the past, but it needed some tweaking..."
"@askSageUKI ..and that was to re-import the data *back into Sage itself*."
"@VinceMH the only way to export the info is to save the report as a .CSV. You can then make any necessary adjustments."
"@askSageUKI Right... As I said, I once had to export data in this way just to re-import it into Sage. Colour me not impressed, then."
"@askSageUKI What you *should* do after a lapsed subscription is make the software/daya *READ ONLY* so it can still be meaninfully accessed."
"@VinceMH "Thanks, I really appreciate your feedback. I will add this to our #WishList"
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
The free 30 day trial of our software would ensure that the last six years (or longer if you wish) worth of general ledger transactions could be captured to Excel for posterity. Just a thought.
Regards,
-- Edited by bro0010 on Thursday 18th of September 2014 02:48:42 PM
That's interesting to know Ian. I subscribed to Profit Cents which to be honest I haven't really used as clients aren't wanting to pay for extra reporting. I may avail myself of your free trial and see if it is worth cancelling the other subscription!
On another note Ian, if were to export Sage to Excel, do you know if it can then be imported into Xero or other software?
In each Excel workbook you'd have the opening balance sheet from two years before the selected reporting year end, and all the double entry transactions posted in the two year period up to that selected reporting year end. Running it three times for a company, decrementing the reporting year end by two years on each re-run, will get you the last 6 years of transaction data, four times would get you eight years ... and so on. The free trials provide access to all Sage versions and all company data accessible from that machine.
I have no experience of the large scale import capabilities of Xero or other softwares, but all the elements that are key to posting on Sage are available in the Onion transaction data: transaction number; nominal code; sub-ledger reference; transaction type (BP, BR, JD, JC, PI, SI etc.); amount; department; transaction date; date entered; invoice reference; details (transaction narrative); tax code; customer and supplier names, addresses contact details; and, more. I'd be surprised if you'd not be able to reuse it fairly easily.
To be honest, you could take a crude ODBC dump of the AUDIT_JOURNAL table and get the same basic level raw data, without the bells and whistles we add, but not everyone is comfortable tackling ODBC. Using Onion, it's all done for you - a double click on the grand total of the TB PivotTable will expose all the transactions underpinning the model in a single Excel worksheet. For those still using Excel 2003, with more than 65,000 transactions in the two year period, the transctions could be split over several worksheets by, for example, using the PivotTable drill functionality to separate the transactions by year, P&L and Balance Sheet, department or some other criterion that keeps the transaction count below 65,000.
In the interest of fairness, I should say that there are probably other providers in the market whose free trials would provide a transaction level export too.
Regards,
P.S. Thinking about it, the access to data issues raised could impact on the use of the read-only ODBC drivers after the expiry of the main licence. The drivers use the same login credentials as Sage does. Better take those downloads before the existing licence expires or make sure the "continued read only access" option includes ODBC access!
-- Edited by bro0010 on Thursday 18th of September 2014 05:23:37 PM
The free 30 day trial of our software would ensure that the last six years (or longer if you wish) worth of general ledger transactions could be captured to Excel for posterity. Just a thought.
Just to clarify - I don't actually need to worry about this. In the case of any Sage data on my own system, there is no issue. And in the unlikely event that I was to upgrade and subscribe to their new protection racket, if the point came where I was to change to something else, I'm more than capable of getting the data out before it becomes unavailable.
I was merely seeking clarification from them about what happens if/when a subscription runs out so that people are made fully aware of it up front - and highlighting it here for the benefit of others.
(I'm not sure that I've read anything at all from Sage - other than the answers to my questions on Twitter - that actually makes the point clear that if you stop subscribing, you lose access to your data. Very, very naughty, IMO.)
Also: I don't use Excel. Although I could theoretically carry my Office 2010 licence over to this machine from the dead one on which it was installed, I decided not to bother.
And, of course, as you've subsequently realised: The ODBC access may (probably will) be lost in the event of a lapsed subscription.
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
Thanks for the clarification. I was recording a generalised thought prompted by your question to Sage: If someone subscribes and uses it then stops, how do they access historical data? I can see how my comment is not relevant to your own circumstances. Sorry about that, no offence intended.
I do agree with the general point that you make, that it is disingenuous of Sage not to be more up-front about the implications of changes to their licencing model. Thank you for seeking clarification from them for the benefit of others, it is much appreciated.
No offence taken at all, Ian - exploring the implications, and any workarounds or solutions* (which you did) is a useful direction to take any discussion.
* "Don't use Sage" - there's one possible solution. Any others? ;)
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
