Sage Accounting review

The vendor states a VAT basis, so both footings are known: Start is R270 including VAT, R234.78 excluding VAT. A business registered for VAT claims the VAT back, so the figure excluding VAT is its real cost.

The base package includes two users and one company. Extra users are R85 a month (R840 a year) and an extra company is R460 a month (R4 500 a year). Advanced Inventory is R465 (R4 620 a year), Debtors Manager R325 (R3 240 a year), Time Tracking R185 and multi currency payments R185 a month. Sage refunds in full if you cancel within 30 days.

Read from sage.com/en-za/sage-business-cloud/accounting/pricing on 11 October 2026.

Sage Accounting is the small business cloud product in Sage's South African range. Sage sells it for sole traders, freelancers and growing small businesses, and its own pricing page calls Start popular with sole traders and micro businesses. Bigger finance teams are pointed to Sage Intacct, Sage 200 Evolution and Sage X3.

It covers the everyday work of a small business: invoices, tracking what customers owe you, bank reconciliation, bookkeeping and VAT. Sage describes it as developed and built for the South African market, with local support on chat, phone and email, and its comparison with Xero and QuickBooks leans on that, and on custom compliance such as the domestic reverse charge for valuable metals.

Start and Standard share the same core. Standard adds the bookkeeping and VAT work, and the room for a small team.

• Start, one user: create invoices in seconds, work from anywhere, track what you are owed, and get going quickly
• Standard, two to five users: everything in Start, plus bookkeeping, VAT return calculation and collaboration with your accountant
• Both plans: automatic bank reconciliation, quotes that convert to invoices, recurring invoices, stock items with reorder levels, and the mobile app
• Standard: AI features that draft bills from invoices and write personalised customer emails, and receipt capture with AutoEntry
• The base package includes two users and one company, and you can upgrade, change or cancel at any time

Sage sells the rest as add ons. Extra users are R85 a month, an extra company R460, Advanced Inventory R465, Debtors Manager R325, Time Tracking R185, multi currency payments R185 and storage R20 for each gigabyte. Pay for an add on for a year and Sage's own annual prices make it 15 to 18 percent cheaper a month: an extra user is R840 a year, an extra company R4 500, Advanced Inventory R4 620 and Debtors Manager R3 240.

The cost calculator above adds them for you. A VAT registered business with three users, a second company and Debtors Manager on Standard pays R490 plus R85 plus R460 plus R325, which is R1 360 a month including VAT, against the R490 on the headline.

Both plans manage stock items with reorder levels, out of stock warnings and best seller reports, with categories and sub categories. Advanced Inventory goes further: it updates your inventory and your accounting records at the time of each incoming or outgoing transaction, which Sage says gives you the true cost of every sale.

Debtors Manager adds an automated workflow for late payments, with a timeline, draft follow ups and customer account status. Reporting covers sales, purchases, quotes, customer activity and VAT liability in real time, a cash flow statement and forecast, debtors and creditors by age, and unreconciled transactions, and it exports to Excel, CSV and PDF.

Sage's VAT page describes a monthly snapshot of what you owe, a record of previous submissions and a digital paper trail of every VAT action. It says you enter your VAT registration and how often you submit, then add your SARS user ID to submit VAT returns directly from the product. Domestic reverse charge VAT for valuable metals is covered by a feature of its own.

Through Sage Accountants Edition, an accountant can prepare, submit and track a client's VAT201 return in the same system. The payment itself is still made on SARS eFiling.

Sage lists direct bank feeds with First National Bank, Nedbank and Investec, which means no CSV files and no third party in the middle. It also lists connections to ABSA, FNB Business Profile, Standard Bank, Nedbank's new online banking and Capitec Bank, and says it connects to more besides. New transactions are checked on a daily schedule, and there is no extra cost for a bank feed.

Sage warns that a bank may be supported while your particular account type is not, so check your own account in the trial before you commit.

Support is local, with a South African phone line (0861 237 243), chat and email, a knowledgebase and a Community Hub. Sage also gives subscribers access to member masterclasses, business advice articles and learning resources, and a software certification you can earn.

The product is also sold to accountants: the Sage for Accountants programme gives a practice Sage Accounting, Accountants Edition, a discounted Sage Payroll with two free payslips and 50 percent off the subscription, 50 AI document capture credits, a directory listing and continuing professional development points.

The plan structure is the main trap. If you are VAT registered, the plan that lists VAT returns is Standard, which starts at R490, not the R270 headline. Extra companies are expensive at R460 each, so a small group of related businesses pays far more than a sole trader would.

The base plans carry no yearly discount, so a business that pays for a year saves only on the add ons.

Within Sage's own range it sits below Sage 50cloud Pastel, which Sage describes as the more expensive, desktop based product for advanced businesses with a bookkeeper. Against Xero, Sage starts lower and publishes a local phone line. Against QuickBooks Online, Sage states its VAT basis and names its banks. See the head to head pages for the plan by plan detail.