Sage Accounting integration: sync your project clients straight into Sage

If you run your books on Sage Accounting, your project clients no longer need typing in twice. With the new Sage Accounting integration, The Site Book connects to Sage Business Cloud Accounting on Pro and above: click Sync with Sage on a project and its client lands in your Sage business as a customer contact, ready for you to raise an invoice.

We already did this for Xero. But a lot of UK builders, and the bookkeepers who look after them, have been on Sage for years and are not about to move. Asking them to keep client names and phone numbers in step by hand was exactly the kind of double handling The Site Book is meant to remove.

What the Sage Accounting integration does

Each project in The Site Book has a client: a name, and usually an email address and phone number. Sync with Sage takes that client and makes sure Sage knows about them:

• A new client is added to Sage as a customer contact, with the email and phone from the project.
• A client Sage already has is matched by name or reference, so you never end up with two copies of the same customer.
• A client The Site Book added is remembered. If you correct the client's name on the project, the next sync renames that same Sage contact instead of creating another one. A customer that was already in Sage is never renamed.

It is an on-demand sync. You decide when a client goes to Sage, which is usually when the job is confirmed and you are about to invoice a deposit.

Your books stay yours

Accounts data is not something a site tool should be careless with, so we kept the integration deliberately narrow:

• Contacts only. The integration lists your Sage businesses and finds, adds or renames customer contacts. It does not create invoices, quotes or payments.
• It never overwrites your details. Once a customer exists in Sage, its addresses, emails and phone numbers belong to whoever keeps your books. A sync only keeps the name of a contact it created in step.
• One company, one business. If your Sage login runs more than one business, you choose which one each Site Book company uses, and every sync for that company goes there and nowhere else.

Only an owner or admin can connect Sage and choose the business, and syncing uses their own Sage login, so whoever looks after the books stays in control of what goes into Sage. Unlinking is one click in Settings → Integrations.

How to connect Sage Accounting

1. In The Site Book, open Settings → Integrations and find the Sage Accounting card in the Accounting section.
2. Click Connect Sage Accounting, sign in to Sage and allow access.
3. If your Sage login runs more than one business, choose the one this company invoices from and click Link this business.
4. Open a project and click Sync with Sage in the Export & share card.

Then open Contacts in Sage Accounting: the client is there as a customer, ready to invoice.

Why it matters on a small firm

On a small building firm the person pricing the job, the person on site and the person sending invoices are often the same two or three people. Every time a client's details are typed into a second system, there is another chance for a wrong phone number or a misspelt surname, and another five minutes lost at the end of a long day.

Keeping the client in one place, the project in The Site Book, and sending it to Sage with one click means the invoice goes to the right person first time. When the client's details change, you change them once on the project.

When something changes

Businesses change hands, bookkeepers come and go, and logins get tidied up. The integration is built so that none of that quietly sends a client to the wrong place:

• If your access to the Sage business is removed, the next sync stops and tells you so, with a button that takes you straight to Settings → Integrations to reconnect and choose the business again. Nothing is sent anywhere else in the meantime.
• If someone leaves the company or loses their role in The Site Book, their syncs stop working straight away, even if they still have a Sage login of their own.
• If the plan changes, the sync checks the company's plan every time it runs, so a downgraded account simply stops syncing until it is back on Pro or above.

The Sage Accounting card in Settings → Integrations shows recent sync activity and whether each one worked.

Xero or Sage?

Use whichever your accountant already uses. The two integrations behave the same way: the same client details, the same owner-or-admin set-up and the same on-demand sync. The Sage version also lets you pick between several Sage businesses, because many Sage logins look after more than one.

Which plans include it

Sage Accounting is included on Pro and above, alongside Xero, Google Drive, Dropbox and Zapier. The integrations page has the full list, and the Help Centre guide walks through every step.