back to article URGH – bitter taste! Sage hikes One SaaS price 50 per cent

Accounting-as-a-service firm Sage is hiking its cloudy payroll software prices by half, The Register has learned. The British Salesforce partner last week wrote to customers of Sage One warning them they will be charged £15 per month from April 1 – up from £10. In the letter seen by The Reg, the firm justified the price on …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    50% price hike

    *mumble* Brexit *mumble*, no that wont wash *mumble* 50% extra functionality *mumble*

  2. AMBxx Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Desktop Accounts Software

    I upgrade our accounts software every 5 years. Desktop only. Not going cloud - no control over pricing and changing supplier is a nightmare.

    That is all.

    1. Ragarath

      Re: Desktop Accounts Software

      What software do you use? We are looking at alternatives to our antiquated system and looked at sage on premise but the price was astronomical.

      Recommendations would be appreciated.

      1. AMBxx Silver badge

        Re: Desktop Accounts Software

        Intuit QuickBooks, but they're pushing everyone towards cloud and the dreaded monthly fees. Not sure what I'll need to move to in the future, but at least I'll always be able to refer to my older accounts without paying a monthly fee just to look.

    2. TVU Silver badge

      Re: Desktop Accounts Software

      "I upgrade our accounts software every 5 years. Desktop only. Not going cloud - no control over pricing and changing supplier is a nightmare.

      That is all."

      Yes, SaaS cloud services is becoming a licence to print money...entirely at the customer's expense and this does not appear to be an instance where such a large rise is justified.

      1. Adam 52 Silver badge

        Re: Desktop Accounts Software

        The problem here is contractual, not cloud per se. If you were on a monthly Sage licence it'd be the same. Although you would have the option to continue illegally, not that anyone reputable would suggest it.

        SaaS does very much facilitate short-term contracts. Which is, of course, one of the reasons people like it.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get your cheap intro here, roll up, roll up, put all your data in our propriety format.

    Give it a go people, there's never anything bad about propriety format and vendor lockin, well, apart from that warm glow you get when you try to sit down.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One clound to bind them alll....

    ... and in the darkness milk them.

  5. Dwarf

    Locked and loaded

    Once you are locked in, then we'll be loaded.

    I'll never be signing up for any cloud service / subscription, I like to own my things outright. That way I can ensure that it works the same today as it did tomorrow and I know what I need to fork out for at any given time.

    The big bonus is that when you go bust or just decide that you are stopping providing the service, then I'll still have access, unlike those miserable people who are now hooked on your subscription and just lost everything.

    1. alain williams Silver badge

      Re: Locked and loaded

      The big bonus is that when you go bust ...

      the receivers don't sell my confidential data to the highest bidder; might not be allowed in the UK but it does happen in the USA.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    50% more for "new features"

    Did they ask if anyone wants/needs them?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 50% more for "new features"

      It doesn't matter. They shoved them down your throat from the cloud, so you'll have to pay for them. The could business model is they decide, and you pay.

      1. AMBxx Silver badge

        Re: 50% more for "new features"

        Looks like they've been reading Microsoft's CRM licence.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I used cloud based accounting software for two years

    I understand that accounting is important but after miss entering our year end month there was no way to change it.

    Two years added up to about £700 so it was a fair test.

    My accountant has always told me that you need nothing more than excel to do your accounts and he's kinda right (bells and whistles aside)

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: I used cloud based accounting software for two years

      "My accountant has always told me that you need nothing more than excel to do your accounts"

      For payroll?

    2. VinceH

      Re: I used cloud based accounting software for two years

      "My accountant has always told me that you need nothing more than excel to do your accounts and he's kinda right (bells and whistles aside)"

      He's kind of right... but only up to a point. I could do my own accounts in a spreadsheet (but it would never be Excel!), but I don't - meanwhile, where I am today, doing so would be insane.

      In fact I use Sage 50 for both - but the desktop version, none of this cloudy crap.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    its not doing the accounts that is the problem though

    its demonstrating compliance to multiple, potentially conflicting bodies of rules and outcomes of those accounts. It can be done by an old bloke with a quill pen and ledgers but that's no good when you have to search out all the instances of a particular transaction over time etc.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: its not doing the accounts that is the problem though

      "demonstrating compliance to ... rules"

      Putting employees' details on someone else's computer wouldn't be my first step in that.

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