Advantage flies the flag for Sage 50 apps

These days, it seems everyone wants their own ecosystem. Xero has its galaxy of apps, the challenger bank Monzo is building a “marketplace”. Standalone software products, it seems, aren’t quite enough.

In this market, Sage 50 Accounts seems anachronistic. While it still dominates the mid-market, it certainly isn’t gathering any buzz. What it does, it does well. It’s a pliable, muscular bit of kit.

Increasingly, though, many of these mid-market users have begun to skirt against Sage 50’s boundaries, especially in niche industries with specialist requirements. More so than ever, Sage 50 seems to be creaking.

“Sage 50, despite being one of the UK’s first accounting packages, remains a good off the shelf business package,” explained Matt Hobbs, CEO of Sage reseller and developer Advantage Services. “But as people have come into the fray, and customers are demanding more, there’s a growing need for more customisation.”

While many customers persist with Sage 50, some may be casting envious glances at Xero’s kaleidoscopic app ecosystem. When Xero can’t handle a particular function, it can usually connect to a third party program that takes care of this need.

Xero’s success at encouraging independent software developers has created its own issue. Xero users certainly aren’t short of choice, but many are beginning to experience the syndrome known as “app overload” where there are just too many options.

Sage 50 is more customisable one than most people realise, said Hobbs. It has its own catalogue of 169 third party applications, but has a more bespoke approach.

“We offer a one-stop shop,” explained Hobbs. Sage 50 sits at the centre, and then Advantage can modify the customer experience through apps, both off-the-shelf and bespoke.

“There’s no real limit to what we can build, obviously if the company has enough money to pay for it.”

Sage 50 can’t send bulk invoices, for example, so Advantage developed an add-on that allows a business to group invoices, instead of sending different ones at staggered intervals.

Other Advantage programs allow for purchase order control, credit control, back-to-back ordering. Hobbs is lining up project management and timesheet tools for release next year, which he claims will cost a quarter of the packages available with Sage 50 now.

“It’s hard to make people say ‘wow’ with Sage,” said Hobbs. “No product solves all problems. Nothing off the shelf does. That’s why the Sage eco-system exists.”