What are the main issues with using Sage Drive for finance teams?

Sage Drive, now known as Sage Remote Data Access, poses significant challenges for finance teams due to its hybrid nature, which lacks a single source of truth. Transactions are first written to a user's PC and then replicated to the central server, risking data corruption and synchronization issues. This setup can lead to inefficiencies and support challenges, making it unsuitable for businesses prioritizing reliability.

Key Takeaways

Sage Drive is a hybrid solution, not a true cloud application.
It causes synchronization issues and lacks a single source of truth.
Data corruption risks arise from its replication method.
Zahara suggests alternatives like Xero for better reliability.
Consider modifying your Sage setup to improve efficiency.

Editor's Notes:

Finance software is supposed to simplify your working day, not mess it up. Still though, plenty of finance teams find themselves wrestling with systems that promise the flexibility of the cloud while still carrying the limitations of desktop software. Sage Drive is one of those. In this article, I explain why it has become a sticking point for Zahara. I’ll also run through the practical problems it creates for finance teams, and the options available if reliability and efficiency are your priorities.

Jump to TL;DR

Why we're saying no to Sage Remote Data Access (Sage Drive)

Let's be blunt: Sage Drive isn't the cloud. It isn't even close.

Xero is a true cloud application. So is Zahara. A cloud application runs in your web browser and relies on nothing more than an internet connection — your data lives in one place, and there's a single version of the truth.

Sage Drive (now called Sage Remote Data Access) is a hybrid, and for want of a better word, it's awful. Your Sage file does sit in the cloud — that much is true. But the way your users communicate with it relies on replicating data back and forth between each of their PCs. And that's where it falls apart.

The problem: no single source of truth

When Zahara releases a transaction into Sage, we need to know — with total confidence — that it's landed safely in the Sage database. With Sage Remote Data Access, we can't.

The transaction is written to a file on the user's PC first, and only then replicated up to Sage Drive: the central server that's supposed to hold the definitive version of your data.

So what happens when that central server isn't connected? What if it's offline? Two things, neither of them good:

Nobody else can see the transactions Zahara has just released.
There's a real risk of data corruption as the replication tries to reconcile.

This isn't a rare edge case. It's the everyday reality of a system that depends on every user's machine staying in sync.

Why this matters for SmartSync

Our SmartSync tool has an excellent integration with Sage 50. It creates purchase invoices in Sage complete with nested line items and a document link, and we've worked hard to accommodate the many different ways people use Sage — with flexible mappings for Departments, Projects and Cost Codes.

We strive for accuracy and reliability. But we simply can't guarantee either when a customer is running Sage Drive, because we can never be certain that a transaction we've written is truly, safely in the database.

Enough is enough

This has caused too much wasted effort for our customers and our support team. So here are the options as we see them:

Move to Xero. We'll help you make the switch. It's true cloud, it's easy to use, and it has a near-fanatical following in the book-keeping world.
Turn off Sage Drive and revert to keeping your Sage file in a static location. It's not a big job.
Use SmartSync one-way — reading only — and import your invoices into Sage using our CSV or Excel file.

There are pros and cons to each, and we're not here to hand you a definitive answer. We're here to get your invoices processed with minimum effort and maximum efficiency.

If you're using Sage Drive and you've had regular support issues, please act quickly to avoid further disruption.

Best wishes, Martin

Sage Drive Isn't the Cloud — and Why We're Dropping Support