Move from Sage 50 without giving up the depth your business depends on
If you have used Sage 50 for years, you probably have good reasons for keeping it.
Your finance team may know it inside out. Your accountant may have worked with it for years. And if you use Sage 50 Professional, you may rely on it for much more than your accounts.
You may want easier access from anywhere, integrated payroll, better bank connectivity and less dependence on desktop software. But when you look at Sage Accounting, you are not looking at Sage 50 rebuilt for the browser. Sage designed it as a different product for a simpler set of needs.
So you can find yourself with an awkward choice: stay with Sage 50 and keep the desktop environment, or move to Sage Accounting and give up some of the functionality you use today. With Big Red Cloud, you have another option.
You can run your accounting and payroll through your browser, with multi-currency, unlimited users, bank feeds, document capture and multi-company reporting. If you also need deeper purchasing, stock, sales-order, warehouse, project, hire, workshop or service workflows, Turbo Inventory can handle those alongside Big Red Cloud.
Sage 50 is capable. The desktop model is the issue.
Sage 50 Professional can do a lot. You can use it for sales and purchase orders, stock, fixed assets, project costing, multiple companies, foreign currencies and advanced reporting. Those capabilities help explain why you may still use it.
But Sage 50 remains a Windows desktop application. Sage has added connected services around it, including Remote Data Access, but you still have installed software, company datasets, version compatibility and synchronisation to think about.
You may have people working from home, or on the move, your accountant may need access from another office, and you want everyone to work with the same current information.
With Big Red Cloud, you sign in through your browser and work on your live accounts. You do not need to install your accounting application on each computer or synchronise copies of your company data between locations.
Why not move from Sage 50 to Sage Accounting?
Sage Accounting may suit you very well if your needs are straightforward. It runs in your browser and covers the core accounting requirements of many smaller businesses. But it does not replace Sage 50 Professional feature for feature.
If you use Sage 50 for sales orders, purchase orders, advanced stock, fixed assets, full project costing or multi-company consolidation, you will not find the same breadth in Sage Accounting. You may also find some budgeting and management-reporting capabilities more limited.
You can therefore decide to leave Sage 50 because you want more modern software, then discover that Sage’s own browser-based accounting product drops some of the functions that made Sage 50 useful to you.
If you are looking for a Sage 50 replacement, it makes sense to look beyond the Sage range.
Big Red Cloud vs Sage 50 vs Sage Accounting
| What matters to you | Big Red Cloud | Sage Accounting | Sage 50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you access it | Through your browser | Through your browser | Windows desktop software with connected services |
| Working from different locations | Everyone works on the live system | Everyone works on the live system | Remote Data Access |
| Irish accounting & VAT | Built for Ireland | Some Irish accounting support | Mature Irish functionality |
| Multi-currency | Included | Available | Available |
| Payroll | Advanced Irish payroll 2027 within Big Red Cloud purchased seperately | Separate Sage Payroll product | Separate Sage 50 Payroll product |
| Users | Unlimited | Unlimited on main plan | Extra users may increase your cost |
| Supplier invoice capture | Purchase Importer unlimited | Available | Usage allowance, then additional charges |
| Operational workflows beyond the ledger | Turbo Inventory, integrated with Big Red Cloud | Limited | Available in Sage 50 Professional |
| Advanced inventory | Turbo Inventory | Basic inventory | Available in Sage 50 Professional |
| Multi-company consolidation | Included | No equivalent native consolidation | Available in Sage 50 Professional |
| Training | Our live training plus ETB-delivered Irish accounting and payroll training | Sage learning resources | Sage learning resources |
Sage puts much of its deeper SME functionality in Sage 50 and its browser-based accounting experience in Sage Accounting.
With our setup, your finance and payroll sit in Big Red Cloud, while Turbo handles the deeper operational workflows that belong outside the ledger.
Keep the operational depth without keeping the desktop
This matters if you buy, hold, sell, deliver, hire or service physical products. Perhaps you originally bought Sage 50 for your accounts. Over time, you may also have started using it for purchase orders, sales orders, stock, price lists, projects and order fulfilment. Once you reach that point, changing your accounting software means thinking about more than your nominal ledger.
You do not have to move all of those processes into another accounting package. Turbo Inventory handles deeper operational work such as purchasing, sales orders, stock control, serial and batch tracking, multiple warehouses, trade counter, hire, workshop, projects and service operations.
You can use Big Red Cloud for your finances and Turbo for the operational work that sits behind them. The two systems work together without asking your accounting ledger to run your whole business.
If you mainly use Sage for accounting, Big Red Cloud may give you everything you need on its own. If you also rely on Sage 50 Professional to run part of your operation, you can use Big Red Cloud and Turbo together without giving those workflows up.
Learn more about Turbo Inventory.
Run a more complex finance function without going back to desktop software
You can run advanced Irish payroll directly within Big Red Cloud for 2027. Our payroll supports multiple pay frequencies, batch processing and timesheet imports. You can allocate payroll across departments, jobs and cost centres, manage PAYE, PRSI and USC, make your Revenue submissions and produce the reports your finance team needs.
Your payroll and accounts sit in the same platform, so you avoid another hand-off between separate payroll and accounting products.
You can also manage foreign-currency customers and suppliers in Big Red Cloud while keeping your reporting in your base currency. If you need a fuller purchasing process, Turbo can take foreign-currency purchasing through RFQs, purchase orders, goods receipts and supplier invoices.
And if you run more than one company, you can manage those companies and report across them on a consolidated basis.
Once you have several entities, foreign-currency trading and a more complex payroll, those capabilities stop being specialist requirements. They become part of your normal finance operation.
Your Irish accounting software should understand Ireland
Sage has served Irish businesses for decades and offers mature Irish functionality. We built Big Red Cloud around Irish accounting, payroll and banking workflows.
You can handle cash-received VAT, reverse charge, postponed accounting and the practical work involved in preparing Irish VAT returns.
You can connect bank feeds from AIB, Bank of Ireland, PTSB and Revolut.
And when you need help, you can speak to our team in Ireland and join our daily, live product training for Ireland. Big Red Cloud also forms part of formal accounting and payroll certified education delivered through Ireland’s Education and Training Board system.
Spend less time on routine finance work
Our Purchase Importer comes with Big Red Cloud. You can upload or send us a supplier invoice and let the software extract the information you need for posting instead of typing it all into your purchase book.
Sage also offers document capture, including for Sage 50, but Sage applies allowances and can charge for additional captures.
You can also give access to everyone who genuinely needs it. Your accountant can work with your live books, your management team can see the reporting they need, and colleagues who need customer balances or payment information can get appropriate access.
We include unlimited users. Sage Accounting also includes unlimited users on its main plan. With Sage 50, extra users can add to your subscription cost depending on your edition.
What does Sage really cost you?
Sage 50 costs considerably more than Sage Accounting, with its main Irish editions running into three figures per month. Extra users, document capture and other options can push your cost higher.
For many Sage 50 users, the cost does not stop at the subscription. You also spend time maintaining desktop software, managing remote access, moving information between separate systems and working around processes that your business may have accumulated over many years.
With Big Red Cloud, you can bring your accounting, payroll, document capture, banking, multi-currency and multi-company reporting together in one platform, with unlimited users included.
If you need deeper stock and operational management, you can add Turbo without returning to a desktop environment.
Can you move from Sage 50 to Big Red Cloud?
Yes, but we should first understand what you actually use Sage for. If you have ten years of history and processes wrapped around Sage, nobody should expect you to switch systems on the strength of a feature checklist.
If you mainly use Sage 50 for accounting, your move may prove relatively straightforward. If you also use it for sales orders, purchase orders, stock, projects or other operational work, we should map those processes before you move.
You can then put each part in the right place. Your accounting and payroll can move into Big Red Cloud. Where you need deeper operational processes, Turbo can handle them.
We do not need to reproduce every workaround you have built in Sage over the years. We need to preserve the controls and processes that still serve you and improve the ones that do not.
[Talk to us about moving from Sage]
Is Big Red Cloud better than Sage?
That depends on what you need. If Sage 50 works well for you, your team likes the desktop setup and you see no reason to change, staying with Sage may make perfect sense. If you run a smaller business with straightforward accounting needs, Sage Accounting may suit you too.
Big Red Cloud becomes more relevant when you want browser-based accounting without stepping down to a lightweight system. You may want your accounting and payroll together, multi-currency, unlimited users, invoice capture and consolidated reporting across several companies. You may also need serious inventory, purchasing or other operational workflows without asking your accounting system to do everything.
In that case, Big Red Cloud and Turbo can work together as two connected platforms.
Try Big Red Cloud free for 30 days. No credit card required.
