Why Sage 200 is Still the Best Choice for SME’s in the UK
The UK SME market has long been fertile ground for Sage 200. Whilst Sage themselves pulled back from their own vertical modules many years ago, the ecosystem around the package remains immense, with plenty of excellent established solutions for Manufacturing, Distribution, Warehousing, Projects, Documents, API integration and more, being used every single day by thousands of Sage 200 sites throughout the UK.
The bedrock of the UK small to medium enterprise market mostly live on the industrial estates of England, where Hi-Viz jackets are a staple of everyone’s work wardrobe. It’s in these places that armies of highly skilled and hard-working people make amazing products, and ensure these products are in the right place at the right time.
The Competition
For many years Sage 200 has had no peer or rival in this space. Many small business solutions have tried to trade up, but just aren’t robust enough for the job. Various enterprise level solutions have tried to trade down with software bundles, ‘template’ installs and ‘guardrails’ around what’s in and what’s out your offer.
The reality of these sort of deals is that they look great on paper, but you always end up with a “that’s great but can you just….” conversation that, in turn, always leads to an argument, or a quote for many extra days of expensive consultancy that wasn’t in the brochure. This is all before we even get to the customer commitment required for such a project, which in your average SME is simply unrealistic.
Sticking With Sage
With this in mind, Sage 200 remains the best-in-class solution for UK SME distributors and manufacturers. Whilst functionality fit is always subjective, the breadth of options available with Sage 200, for the investment of time and money required, is unparalleled in this specific space.
From streamlined financial management and improved stock visibility, to one reliable source of truth and genuine scalability that grows alongside you, Sage 200 delivers real benefits for your business.
Now with options to bring all your business data to life with Microsoft Power BI for system users and non-system users alike, (spoiler alert: the built-in product Report Designer probably isn’t the one for modern day KPI reporting) the solution is more powerful than it’s ever been. Reporting that once took hours is now available in minutes, giving you the confidence to make decisions based on real-time data, rather than working from inaccurate information.
Customer story: Sage 50 to Sage 200
One business we worked with, Dalrod, were in need of a partner who understood the complexity of running Sage across a growing franchise network.
We helped them move off Sage 50 and onto Sage 200, and in the process supported a wider review of how they structured and reported on their business.
Sage 200 gives growing SME’s the tools to run finance, operations and reporting from one connected system. If you process a high volume of transactions, need advanced reporting capabilities, or require a system that grows alongside your business, Sage 200 is ideal for you.
It’s also a solution trusted at scale, with Sage software supporting more than 350,000 SMEs across the UK!
At PKF Smith Cooper Systems, we understand the Manufacturing and Distribution SME market inside out, with extensive experience implementing Sage 200 across multiple sectors. We currently support and maintain one of the largest bases of Sage 200 sites across the UK, with over 40% of our clients operating in the manufacturing industry.
“[PKF] Smith Cooper has provided a wealth of knowledge and understanding when supporting the wide range of Sage products and add-ons that we use. I would certainly recommend [PKF] Smith Cooper to any other business as a number one Sage partner.”
– Blue Diamond STL
If you are interested in moving your systems to the next level, need support with your existing Sage 200, or have made a step too far forward and wish to trade back, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Written by: Chris Smith, Managing Director at PKF Smith Cooper Systems
Reviewed by: Julie Read, Marketing Manager at PKF Smith Cooper Systems
