Sage Construction Suite Reviews

PO/Bill entry and conversions were seamless. Being able to customize your reports to business needs was awesome. Payroll processing was as easy at it comes. I believe that this software has some amazing potential which is why I would love to see the finished product. I think that is definitely user friend as long as you aren't afraid of software. The customer service is great outside of the IT department. They could use some patience for there customers. I will say that for the most part, they do have a lot of self help options so make sure you utilize your resources before you call. They do have software the exports to most accounting systems which I thought was super useful. We used Quickbooks.

Because Corecon is still under contruction, you can run into a lot of issues that only one who pays attention to detail will notice.
- Reports requiring date spans would pull the day before and the day after the selected dates.
-Importing time sheets would not import on the right dates.
- After one of the updates in November, you could not copy a PO or Bill to a different project.
- If you enter bills dated with future months, it would apply the expense to whatever month the expenses were entered versus what the invoice(bill) date was causing the budget reports to be incorrect.
-Error code from Links to QB don't have an index and you have to google them most times.

There is nothing I like about this platform.

The developer has created a platform on the most narrow and arcane perspective of construction contracting and management. Nothing about this platform is congruent with industry standards and methodology, particularly if you work in the government sector. It is like someone took shortcuts in the SQL database development rather than truly thinking though the numerous permutations of the business processes associated with construction management. Every GUI for every module forces you to follow the developer's narrow methodology which frankly exposes their inexperience and poor understanding of construction management. You will find it takes far too many incongruent steps through too many screens creating cognitive disconnect just to perform the simplest tasks. You will likely find yourself developing workarounds just to get by..... only to find they don't work either. Just wait till you try to enter a contact's company title only to realize that you're forced to select from a drop down that can only be edited at the Contact Management Settings module! Utterly Stupid! And every element of every module is constructed this way. The canned reports are mediocre and tools to build custom reports harken back the old SQL and Access crap report builders. Don't even bother with the Excel import tools: besides having to downgrade files to 97/03 formats you have to use their canned spreadsheets only find numerous manual steps are still required to complete entries. I could go on......

Ease of use:
A/R - client set up, job creation, invoicing and applying payments
A/P - vendor set up, invoice entry and payments

Self-teaching is difficult. KB, University and other resources are located in 3 different websites. This should all be streamlined. One website with one login that allows us access to our account management tools, KB and Uni. Since I wasn't here at implementation, I have found it difficult to utilize portions of the program that weren't used prior to my hire date. Customer service is great but don't offer training and any training that isn't self-teach is outrageous! We are glad to see you upgrade your annual services to include access to the various classes that otherwise are out of our price range.

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.

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.

The best thing about this software was the sales pitch that got us to buy it.

We have had nothing but trouble since we purchased it. Updates with Microsoft in particular.

Multiple features depending on what task I'm trying to complete.

Contract documents and invoices saved in one location. Reports that can be generated.

I most liked about this software is estimation calculation and payroll management which is good to use feature. And make the construction much more easy and fast.

The cons is there that sometimes future estimation is calculated wrong and not matched , except all others things are fine and good.

I did not do the integration, that was done by IT and they do not use the same day to day features that most users deal with. I'm sure the system is much easier for the IT people, but it needs to be easy or have instructions available for the every day majority of the users in the office. It seems very easy for day to day use for the majority of the work done in the office, there are just a few reports and features that would be nice to have. Possibly they are available but I'm not sure where to get instructions.

We were not provided with any sort of ongoing instructions or help for specific issues that we encountered after we fully implemented and starting using the software. Sometimes it will take a while to get use to something to realize you need other types of reports/information or functions, we had to just learn by trial and error. There is limited space when adding Vendors and no way (at least not know to us) to get rid of a vendor once it is added. We ended up with MANY double entry vendors. Additionally, making a vendor inactive in AP does not stop that vendor from being used in the SM module which creates issues importing. One of the biggest problems we have had is that the PO field allows users to accidentally type in random various characters, such as a / or lower case letters, which causes an error in the program importing. The system does not recognize the random characters which has cause a never ending loop posting. The system should not even allow someone to put in a character it will later not recognize, as we now have no way to get rid of these errors. Even customer service cannot fix the problem. We have POs that now have 492 lines as they are stuck in a loop and every day that we post another line gets added. Also we could use a reference guide on how to run specific reports we desire.

It does integrate with many other programs. With the right knowledge, it can be very flexible in reporting. The support is also much better than most programs.

Constant and repetitive data entry. Just a few examples... To record payment of multiple POs electronically, the Sage requires individual acceptance for each PO. So when paying 45 POs with one ACH transaction, Sage requires over 100 individual clicks of the mouse as well in addition to keyboard input. Data entry often requires both mouse and keyboard input, making it slower.

If you make a mistake on a date entry, (like accidentally entering Dec 45th) there is no indication. No popup, no change of color on the field, nothing. You eventually just have to realize what happened. With acct #s or Job #s, there is a pop up to say it didn't recognize the input.

With general ledger entry, Sage does not automatically fill in an amount to balance the transaction. You have enter each line. Seems silly, but that one feature would save many hours over a year. Every other accounting program I have ever used in over 30 years will default to the amount needed to balance the entry, and you merely type over it as you go, but its right there for that last line when you do need it. Just simple, easy, things that could be done that in many years of development have never been fixed.

The visibility offered across all the financial modules. Job Cost reports give a project overview.
Accounts Payable is very user friendly and far superior to other programs I've used.

We are integrated with Procore Construction Software. It would be extremely helpful if Sage 300 was fully integrated across all the financial tools in regards to exporting data. The flow of A/R billing/payment data and A/P invoice/ payment data would greatly impact the ability to manage all aspects of the projects.

Project management is its best selling point. This is one of the only affordable software solution in a mid-range cost.

The input is antiquated and not user friendly at all. Extra key strokes are required to do just about anything. Many of the canned reports are generated by record number instead of date. There are no month to month comparative reports for balance sheet which you would expect to be easily available. Tracking of payments to vendor requires way too much effort to view invoices a check paid. Inability to create cash basis statements requires a lot of work at end of year to convert outside the system. This should be part of the basic package.

It works. It's fairly cheap. Not that buggy. I assume this is so because you haven't hired a team of developers since the late 90s. I'd bet the head of the user experience if you have one, has been ready to retire for the last ten years.

You have not put any effort into improving the product. For example how hard would it be to put a link from the transaction inquiry to the entry batch by clicking a button. The standard reporting is terrible. Have you ever asked what an accounting team needs? Also, in 2021 one should be able to copy and paste into your tables (e.g. JEs). Another example of how sloppy your user experience is when you close the books for the month, someone has to open the prior month one at a time. We have 90 companies. I had to program a python script to do this! I also use an Oracle product for financial reporting.

On par with some other offerings, but does not excel in any specific area, hence no one are where it really excels.

The overall accounting approach to how information is presented is lagging, in my opinion. Various inquiries need to be made in order to retrieve specific vendor, or client information, instead of making the reports and inquiries available through either the A/P, or A/R modules - all of them. The software also needlessly complicates interaction with the GL through the Cash Management and the Register feature(s), all this in my opinion should be centered around and through the GL module. Certain options under Agings are also puzzling, offering various reports that have little to do with actual aging(s), such as presenting the outstanding amounts in aged-buckets. When one is also more used to dealing with Debits and Credits, Sage presents some of these as 'Additions' or 'Subtractions'... which takes away the purely accounting approach to dealing with transfers, and debit and credit activity within various GL accounts, while a non-accountant might find the 'Additions' and 'Subtractions' easier to work with when it comes to dealing with actual bank accounts, the layout becomes more puzzling when dealing with other, non-cash accounts, where straight up Debit and Credit columns would be a lot more appropriate - for any entries. The 'Register' module mitigates this to some extent by a pop-up box, where some of this is automatically pre-filled, but in my opinion it's just an extra step that adds to the confusion and easiness of entries through GL only.