Sage Intacct vs QuickBooks Comparison in 2025

Subscription businesses have advanced invoicing and accounting needs that call for a software that can do more than simple calculations. Such businesses require a platform that can manage their recurring billing, and compliance effectively.

Sage Intacct and QuickBooks are two outstanding contestants for meeting this requirement. QuickBooks is popular in the small to mid-sized businesses circle, whereas, Sage Intacct deals with larger enterprises. How to know which accounting software to invest in?

In this article, we’ll help you make your decision by breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of QuickBooks vs Sage Intacct.

Sage Intacct: An Overview

Sage Intacct is an accounting system designed particularly to manage complex financial structures. It has automated recurring billing, revenue recognition, and adaptable billing models. It is a specialist in managing the bookkeeping needs of multi-entity companies, as it carries features that are suitable for companies that operate in different locations. These features include consolidated financial reporting, real-time dashboards, and multi-currency support.

Which businesses use Sage Intacct?

Sage Intacct is used by medium to large subscription businesses, multi-entity companies, professional services, and more. These organizations essentially have complicated billing and accounting requirements, and need a flexible and deeply customizable solution to function smoothly.

QuickBooks: An Overview

QuickBooks is an accounting software providing simple financial solutions. It is centered on providing user-friendly services that can be easily used by businesses without any experience in accounting. Its set of tools comprises automatic recurring invoicing, expense management, detailed reporting, etc. which fulfill all the basic accounting needs of subscription businesses. It also automates tax compliance by providing precise tax calculations, and integrating with tax filing software.

Which businesses use QuickBooks?

QuickBooks is used by small to medium sized subscription businesses, startups, e-commerce businesses, freelancers, and others. These entities typically have simple accounting needs, and require straightforward features to function effectively.

How Does Sage Intacct Support Subscription Invoicing?

Sage Intacct facilitates invoicing and accounting for subscription businesses via these features:

Automated Recurring Invoicing

The platform automates the creation and distribution of invoices. It relieves your administrative burden, and saves you from navigating through the maze of invoicing inaccuracies, giving your team’s productivity a boost. Sage Intacct creates invoices based on flexible billing schedules. It also offers support for multiple-billing models such as fixed, tiered, and usage-based billing.

Sales & AR (Accounts Receivable) Invoice Tracking

The software tracks payments in real time, flagging unpaid invoices. It automates payment reminders for customers with failed payments. It also applies late fees for payments made past their due dates. With this platform, businesses can maintain smooth cash flows, and minimize the risk of failed or late payments.

You have done your part.
Let SubscriptionFlow take it from here!

Let us help your business grow with our powerful
subscription management software.

Invoice Customization

Sage Intacct lets businesses create professional and branded invoices. Businesses can choose from a number of templates, and configure the invoices according to their customers’ needs. This leads to smooth customer checkouts, and improves brand image.

Invoice Syncing with Payment Gateways

Sage Intacct integrates with a number of payment gateways. It enables invoice syncing with the payment gateways of your choice, so that you can offer customers the payment options that they need. The platform tracks and records payments in real time, eliminating discrepancies. It makes account reconciliation easy for businesses.

Built-In Compliance

With Sage Intacct, companies remain compliant with regulatory authorities such as IFRS 15 & ASC 606 for accurate revenue recognition. The software also records each transaction, and provides accurate financial documentation for comprehensive audit trails. Using Sage Intacct, businesses can continue their operations worry-free, and avoid potential legal penalties.

How Does QuickBooks Support Subscription Invoicing?

QuickBooks facilitates invoicing and accounting for subscription businesses via these core features:

Automated Recurring Invoicing

QuickBooks automates the generation and tracking of both sales and AR invoices. It sets up recurring billing according to flexible subscription cycles. However, it does not directly support different billing models like Sage Intacct does.

Automated Payment Reminders

The platform generates and sends payment reminders automatically in the case of failed payments. It also applies late fees for payments that miss the deadline.

Revenue Forecasting

QuickBooks offers basic revenue forecasting. The system relies on the business’s historical financial data to predict revenue. AI-driven prediction is not available.

Basic Invoice Customization

The platform allows businesses to choose from a variety of invoice templates, customize due dates and payment terms, as well as the line items to be included in the invoice. QuickBooks also allows invoicing in multiple currencies. However, businesses cannot customize the invoice layout. They can only choose from the templates given.

Invoice Syncing with Payment Gateways

It integrates with major payment gateways, and also offers its own gateway i.e. QuickBooks Payments. Businesses can match invoices with the payments collected effortlessly for easy account reconciliation.

Sage Intacct vs QuickBooks: Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Here is a detailed comparison between the features of Sage Intacct and QuickBooks for better understanding of their differences:

Subscription Billing Models

Sage Intacct: Supports multiple billing models, such as tiered and usage-based.
QuickBooks: Only supports the flat-fee billing model. To benefit from the other models, businesses need to integrate QuickBooks with advanced billing systems.

Invoice Customization

Sage Intacct: Invoices are deeply customizable. Businesses can apply custom layouts.
QuickBooks: A variety of invoice templates are available to choose from. However, layouts cannot be customized flexibly.

Multi-Entity Billing

Sage Intacct: Supports billing of multi-location businesses by consolidating numerous invoices into one.
QuickBooks: Does not support multi-entity billing.

Tax Compliance

Sage Intacct: Offers automated tax calculation and filing for different types of taxes such as sales tax, VAT and GST. Supports taxation regulations of different regions.
QuickBooks: Also offers tax compliance. However, it might not be available for all regions. Businesses have to manage tax manually in regions where this feature is absent.

Dunning Management

Sage Intacct: Supports dunning management natively. Retries failed payments following a schedule.
QuickBooks: Does not have in-built dunning capabilities. It must be integrated with external software like SubscriptionFlow for recovering failed payments.

Payment Gateway Integration

Sage Intacct: Integrates with a number of payment gateways, such as PayPal, Stripe and Square.
QuickBooks: Also supports integrations with PayPal and Stripe, and offers its own gateway QuickBooks Payments as well.

Payment Reconciliation

Sage Intacct: Facilitates invoice tracking, and matches total payments with invoices automatically.
QuickBooks: Supports fully automated payment reconciliation via QuickBooks Payments only. For other gateways, manual set ups are required.

Deferred Revenue Management

Sage Intacct: Manages deferred revenue alongside the revenue earned. It transfers deferred revenue to the earned one over time.
QuickBooks: Does not automatically handle deferred revenue. Businesses need to have third-party tools to do that.

Revenue Recognition

Sage Intacct: Automatically recognizes revenue, and ensures that businesses remain compliant with ACS 606 and IFRS 15.
QuickBooks: Does not support automated revenue recognition. Businesses have to manage compliance manually.

Subscription Analytics

Sage Intacct: Provides AI-driven revenue forecasting, as well as churn analysis.
QuickBooks: Provides revenue forecasting based on a business’s financial history. Does not support AI advancement.

Expense Management

Sage Intacct: Offers advanced expense management, and automatically tracks accounts payable.
QuickBooks: Offers simple expense management. Accounts payable have to be tracked manually.

E-commerce Integrations

Sage Intacct: Integrates with a variety of e-commerce platforms for frictionless subscription payments.
QuickBooks: Also integrates with popular e-commerce platforms like Shopify.

Scalability

Sage Intacct: Is a scalable platform best suited to medium to large businesses.
QuickBooks: Is also scalable, and is best suited to small and medium sized businesses.

Financial Reports

Sage Intacct: Supports advanced financial reporting which is customizable. Also offers real-time dashboards showing a variety of subscription metrics.
QuickBooks: Supports financial reports with limited customization features. Its dashboards display basic subscription metrics.

Ease of Use

Sage Intacct: It has a complicated interface. Users require a good amount of time to get familiarized with it resulting in a steep learning curve. It is best suited to expert accountants.
QuickBooks: It has an intuitive interface, and guided set up. Users with none to limited technical knowledge can get used to it quickly, making it a good choice for beginners.

Sage Intacct vs QuickBooks: Charges Comparison

Here is a quick breakdown of the charges of both platforms:

Sage Intacct

Annual Subscription Cost: It primarily offers yearly subscription which starts at $10,920. Businesses get one user license, and a suite of its core financial management tools.

User Licenses: It offers two types of licenses: business and employee. Business user licenses grant full access to all features. Employee licenses offer limited access, and are bought in bundles of 10.

Advanced Features: For additional features such as payroll and inventory management, and revenue recognition, extra charges are applied. These raise costs by $3,000-$10,000 or above yearly.

Implementation Costs: These costs depend on the business size and needs. They might amass up to $20,000-$35,000.

QuickBooks

Subscription Cost: QuickBooks Online offers these plans: Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced. They are available as monthly subscriptions. The current subscription costs of these plans per-user are $35, $65, $99, and $235 respectively.

Promotions: The platform offers a 50% discount to new users for the first three months. It also offers a 30-day free trial.

Advanced Features: Just like Sage Intacct, it also charges extra for additional feature such as payroll and inventory management, live bookkeeping, etc.

Implementation Cost: QuickBooks does not apply any fee for implementation. The process is free for small businesses. However, live set-up sessions, system migration services etc. carry charges that vary from business to business.

Have You Made Your Pick Yet?

By now, you might have formed a better understanding of Sage Intacct and QuickBooks, and their unique strengths and advantages over each other. Both the platforms simplify invoicing and accounting via their own distinctive set of features.

Here is the bottom line: If you run an enterprise-level subscription business with complicated accounting requirements, Sage Intacct is the solution for you. It offers deep customization, compliant invoicing, and automated revenue recognition.

If you operate a small or mid-sized business, it’s better to opt for QuickBooks for its user-friendly features and budget-friendly costs. QuickBooks covers the basic accounting requirements of subscription businesses.

After choosing the right accounting platform for your subscription-based business, consider signing up with SubscriptionFlow for seamless integration. SubscriptionFlow facilitates smooth integrations with both Sage Intacct and QuickBooks, and provides businesses of all sizes with an all-in-one subscription management solution.

SubscriptionFlow also enhances the billing and reporting functionality of QuickBooks to suit complex requirements.

Book a demo with SubscriptionFlow today, to manage customer subscriptions, and handle recurring invoicing like an expert.