Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate Reviews

Very stable environment that is always striving to keep up with technology. The support staff have a vast knowledge of the construction industry and the various accounting needs that go along with that.

Can be hard to learn at first, but the support and training staff are able to bring users up to speed.

The separate modules work very good. Certified Payrolls are easily done thru the payroll module. Payables and Receivables modules work nicely, with some help. Has a ton of reports available.

Although it has a lot of reports, they are hard to find the one you want/need. The separate modules seem like they came from separate companies sometimes and without an expert help or customer support, it would be really hard to get what you need out of them. I have had to pay for custom reports to be done to get what I need several times.

Widely universal so integration software more readily available with management systems and customer relation software.

We came from ComputerEase, which is very user friendly. Sage appears to be outdated. The installation and upgrade process is very time consuming and for most would require hiring their services to install or your IT personnel. The biggest issue we have is the font size. If you try to change the font size in your screen, the windows will distort and you cannot access certain information within Sage, so it strains your eyes to view the information. My other big concern, is that when processing applications for payment within Billing, it will allow you to go over 100% on a scheduled line. If you don't manually check via print preview, you can very likely overbill. Additionally, when voiding applications, there are some major hassles when it comes to stored materials on jobs that don't carry over stored each month. Lastly, if you do not post in the order and timeframe that you are trained to do, it results in a large hassle and time-consuming elimination process. There are several other items that are not favorable, but these are the top ones on our mind most frequently.

AP - any errors could be corrected easily, CM - easy to set up new bank accounts, GL - Financial Statement Designer is complete

AP - Waiver Releases trail could be better; GL - I would like to be able to close a month any day of the month, not only "full periods", just to be able to see the Financial Statements progress during the month. I know I can see Year to Date Ledger, but a summary will help

I like that SAGE 300 CRE is able to work for our company in managing our rental portfolio, new construction jobs, and general ledger accounting.

It may take some time to train new employees on the software, as it is so robust, there is a learning curve.

The ease to show combined financials for multiples companies works great.

We have run into many glitches where things do not post correctly due and Sage cannot tell us why. Does not do everything that the sales rep told us it would.

Job Cost module is very helpful. It could have options that are more easily accessible to add change orders and paid date on the job cost reports.

That the entries in one module don’t post to every other module.

Easy to customize for report generation, navigation on the interface is also very easy, the accounting system is very reliable organised and accurate, it’s a versatile and rich application, I think I still need to learn more to maximize the potential of SAGE

The customer support needs to be more responsive to questions about some of the application features, the application is a complex one, I think, we need a tutorial program or forums to learn more about this application, so many features I need to know about. Thanks.

it is user friendly
Easy to use
I like the reports

Difficult to fix a mistake, takes too long

There are a lot of options in Sage. Once you get the hang of the software it is pretty easy to use. It is fantastic for reporting and tracking projects start to finish.

It is a little dated and can run pretty slow at times.

Sage 300 CRE, formally known as Timberline, is a very robust construction accounting software. The customization is really endless and although the software platform is older, the 3rd party software packages available allow you to use current technologies with it. It is not the most user friendly as new software is but it is a very solid working product that has been around for years. I like being able to customize the software to how we do business. I have not run into too many situations in which the software was not capable of handling something. Certainly you might need a consultant to help you create complex reports and other processes but at least it is available if you need it.

I would say the biggest con is the fact the software is built on an older database platform and the screens are a bit older and do not scale well with newer systems. Although there is a SQL database replicator now to move your data to SQL for enhanced and faster reporting, the program itself still runs on the Pervasive database. It tends to run slow when you have a large database so you constantly have to keep up on the archiving. I also wish the program had a few more preventative features when it comes to posting transactions to closed GL periods. Certain tasks do not validate if the GL is closed prior to posting which I find to be a pain. Sometimes the fix is easy but other times it is very difficult to figure out.

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.

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.

It is one of the best tools for estimating the business value and managing project finances. Sega300 enables construction companies of all sizes organize and track tasks. In short, the Sega300 tells project managers what they need to do, and owners what their firm is actually about. The Sega300 eliminates duplicate entries by integrating and updating modules in real time. The Sega300 protects data transmission by limiting access to authorized individuals only. It will guard against changing financial data or losing jobs. The sequential and traffic order of customers and vendors helps integrate monthly accounting surveys for settlements and retrieve invoices accurately and efficiently.

There is nothing undesirable, it just needs some training to learn how to work correctly, and after completing the training, you will find it easy and quick to implement the required operations and extract reports.

I have experience with it and can cope with it.

It's insane that recording transactions in AP need to be separately posted in other modules. It's crazy that I can't run a general ledger transaction report with a job number. Why do we have to purchase separate software (Office Connector) in order to extract data with the flexibility we need? If I run are report and print it from the report menu, you shut the menu down and make me reselect all of the filters, is this intentional just to piss me off? Why can't I resize and save the screens such as the AP invoice inquiry screen or the GL inquiry entry screen? Why are so many screens kept as small as possible so that I am forced to function like I'm looking through a key hole(GL Change Entries) Why can't I enlarge that screen so I can see the full line of data and a much larger list of lines? This program needs to be at least brought into the 21st century if you can't get it modernized to today's standards. We are seriously considering modern software such as CMIC.

I started to use Sage 300 back when it was called Timberline. I implemented it at the Drywall company I was working at. The software is very user friendly and is very easy for anyone to use. I perfected the software use when I went to a General Contractor that was already using the software. When I first interviewed for my current position, in my interview I couldn't stop talking about Sage. That was the reason I was hired. I have once again implemented Sage from a manual system.

I don't like the was the Job Cost module changed and would love it to go back to the old set-up screen. I used to use the condition button for looking for set up mistakes and not I literally need to go thru each job looking at the set-up.

Also in the Payroll module I wish the reports and generating accruals would be able to use the daily entry grid instead of have to enter the date for each entry. I went for one entry per employee week to forty. That's not cost effective to get the work done.

I like that there are many work arounds and alternate ways to "get what I need". For example, If someone is in AP, I can generate a report that I need by going to IA. I can also trust but verify results by running multiple reports and annotating their correlation and reconiliation.

I wish there were automatically more User licenses available for the AP and JC module. We are a SME and often run into the issue where two staff members need to be in AP or JC at the same time. They are performing separate functions too.
For example, if I am cutting checks in AP my accounting assistant has to wait until that task is done before she can export new invoices from Paperless into AP.
Perhaps, based on either sales volume or entity size, more licensing can be included with our renewal each year at no additional cost.

I like the ability to be able to write reports that are meaningful and exactly what I need.

The fact that Sage will never update the core of the software and just keep creating software additions to add functionality while still charging an annual fee for tax updates will bury this product eventually.

Able to store a vast amount of information. Everything is broken down into modules and works well with multiple users. Does allow for customization of certain tables and modules.

Requires too much work to get to what I need. Tables of data cannot be sorted. For example, a list of contacts on a project cannot be sorted. They are listed in order of entry, which means I have to scroll through an entire list to find a contact. Same goes for some drop down lists. If I don't know the person's name, I can't search. I have to scroll through the list one click at a time because the scroll bars on the side don't scroll proportionally. One click on a side scroll bar takes you down 75% of the bar even if the list is really long.

Getting information from the system requires customized reports, which you either pay for or get trained in Crystal Reports. I used to use Quickbooks Enterprise and was able to get more relevant information faster and easier than I do from Sage. Some of the screens can be expanded but do not show more information. It just creates more blank space so I spend a lot of time scrolling to get to what I need. The system as a whole is very out-dated. Search options are very basic...can't search for MEDICAL if the contact is entered as GREATER AREA MEDICAL CENTER. You would have to know it starts with GREATER AREA.

payroll & accounting modules are great tools

crashes easy, data loss or corruptibility not hard to realize

Once trained, easy to use. Good security policies in place to allow multiple users with access to only what they need.

Cumbersome to get information out. If you want Job information about an AP invoice, you need to look at two different inquiries because the job info is in the Job Cost database while you are looking in the Accounts Payable database, or vice versa. Even with daily time entry, the Payroll module doesn't offer an inquiry or report to get daily info about an employee (Job charged to, EQ used, etc.) Finally, why doesn't Sage have any plans to develop a 64-bit ODBC driver? The whole world is going to 64-bit Windows platforms, but have to use 32-bit Spreadsheet software to use the ODBC connection to access the information that should be available from within the software itself.

I like the way that these modules cover most of the activities that I need. Reporting flexibility and program stability have always been good.

I would like to see scheduling features included, purchasing fully integrated, eventually cloud-based. I would like to be able to make g/l accounts inactive. I have been having problems with module licenses and .lck. It needs updating to compete with newer programs and contact with support almost always requires a 45 minute wait.

Support is responsive when called or emailed. Although a few of the support team have not been able to assist and we have to move up a level

sage is not user friendly. The modules are difficult to maneuver and advancing and closing months should be one step not many. Closing a period should truly make it closed, meaning that no entries or voids can be made without special pw or permissions. Reports take forever to run. Conditions and Ranges are confusing.

The software is very reliable and there are very few hiccups in day to day use.
It's also very handy to have features such as:
- Attaching documents/invoices to an AP or Journal Entry
- Recurring journal entries
- Project Coding

I find the interface layout to be a little archaic. It is not very modern in comparison to other accounting software.
A troublesome area is when making entries in the General Ledger module, the entries are not reflected in the AP, Bank, or AR modules. However, making entries in the AP, Bank, or AR modules are transferred correctly in the GL.
Lastly, the reports that are generated by Sage 300 can be put into Excel 97-2003 only. Furthermore, the reports are generated in a very complex manner with poor formatting and many merged cells. Trying to manipulate and sort data can take a long time.
It would be very helpful to be able to search/filter through Sage by the invoice/document number. The only option to do this is to either export the data to Excel, or search by vendor.