Yes. The ledger, the budgets and the customer and supplier records are read from Sage each night, read-only, into a warehouse you own, and matched to the other systems the business runs. How they are read depends on the product: Sage 50 Accounts offers a read-only ODBC driver, Sage 200 and Sage Accounting have an interface for other software, and Sage Intacct adds a scheduled bulk export. Which one applies is the first thing the audit settles.
Why the Sage figures still end up rebuilt in Excel
Sage does what an accounting system should: it records every invoice, payment and journal against a nominal code, and it produces the statements. Its own reports send data to Excel easily. Sage 50 can send any report to Excel as columns of data, and Sage 200 Professional has its own Excel Reporting.
That ease is part of the problem. Every month the finance team sends the same reports to Excel, adds the sales detail from the till or the CRM, the pay totals from the bureau and the budget from its workbook, and rebuilds the pack. The result is careful work that depends on one person and is hard to question quickly when a director asks why a number moved.
The ledger knows the account and the amount. It usually does not know which outlet made the sale, which campaign brought the customer or how many hours the job took. Those answers live in other systems.
Where Sage keeps budgets and departments
Before budget against actual can refresh on its own, it matters where the budget lives and how costs are split.
Sage 50 Accounts
Monthly budgets per nominal code, and in the advanced method a budget per department and nominal code. Costs are split by department, with analysis codes on records. Sage notes Essentials supports the standard method only.
Sage 200
A nominal account is the combination of code, cost centre and department, and budgets are set against those accounts for the current year and future years. The budget values can be read through the Sage 200 interface.
Sage Intacct
Budgets set per account, with dimensions such as location and department, and readable through its interface. Dimensions are tags on each transaction.
Sage Accounting
Budgets and the actual against budget report are part of Sage Accounting Plus. Departments, cost centres and projects are available as analysis types.
What happens to the Sage data in the warehouse
Each night the nominal ledger, the budgets and the customer and supplier records are read and loaded beside the other systems. Every nominal code is mapped once, with your finance lead, to the line your directors read in the pack, so the codes can stay exactly as your accountants set them.
A customer in Sage is matched to the same customer in the CRM, a product code in the ledger to the same product at the till. Where Sage holds the budget, it is read from Sage; where it lives in a workbook, that workbook becomes an owned input with a named owner.
Groups get one more step. In Sage 50 each company has its own data folder, and in Sage 200 Professional each company has its own database, so each company is loaded on its own and combined in the warehouse under shared report lines, with what the companies charge each other taken out. Each company's own view stays available.
The route is chosen for the least access. Sage's ODBC driver for Sage 50 cannot write back, and the Sage 200 interface allows only what its Sage user is allowed. Sage says it does not provide support for ODBC use, so the audit tests the route on your version before anything is quoted.
Which Sage you run, where it keeps the data, and how it is read
From Sage's own documentation. Your version and how it is hosted can change the answer, which is why the audit checks it first.
| Sage product | Where the data sits | How a warehouse reads it |
|---|---|---|
| Sage 50 Accounts | A data folder for each company, on a PC or shared over the office network | Sage's ODBC driver, which is read-only |
| Sage 200 Professional | A SQL Server database for each company | The Sage 200 interface for other software, limited to what its Sage user may see |
| Sage 200 Standard | Hosted by Sage on Microsoft Azure | The same Sage 200 interface, switched on by default in Standard |
| Sage Intacct | Sage's cloud; in a multi-entity company, one chart of accounts shared by all entities | Its interface, or the Data Delivery Service, a paid add-on that sends scheduled CSV files |
| Sage Accounting | Sage's cloud | Its interface, with access granted by one of your users, who can be set to read only |
A group of three companies on Sage 50
A Maltese group runs three service companies, each in its own Sage 50 company data folder on the office server. Jobs and hours sit in a separate job system, quotes in a CRM, and the group budget in a workbook the finance lead maintains.
- The group view is built each month by sending three sets of reports to Excel and combining them by hand.
- Nobody can say which jobs lose money, because hours sit in the job system and invoices sit in Sage.
- Budget against actual reaches the directors when the finance lead finds the time to build it.
- All three companies are read each night through Sage's ODBC driver and combined under shared report lines.
- Each job shows its hours, materials and invoiced value together, while it can still be discussed.
- The budget workbook loads as an owned input, and budget against actual sits on the directors' screen every morning.
Each company still keeps its books in Sage, supported as before. The finance lead stopped assembling the group view and started explaining it.
Three questions that tell us which route applies
Where does it run?
Installed on a PC or a server in the office, run in a browser, or hosted by a partner or by Sage. Your finance team will know straight away.
What does the product name say?
Sage 50 Accounts, Sage 200 Standard or Professional, Sage Intacct or Sage Accounting, and the version number, from the help or about screen.
Where is the budget kept?
In Sage against the nominal codes, or in a workbook beside it. Both work; they are read differently.
What we do not do
- We do not sell, license, implement or support Sage. Whoever supports it for you keeps doing that.
- We do not change your Sage setup, your nominal codes or anything you post.
- We do not prepare statutory accounts or do audit work. Your accountants and auditors keep those roles.
- The warehouse is yours from the first day, built in your own account rather than ours.
How it works
- A strategy callThirty minutes with Glen, free, with no pitch deck. Bring the systems you run and the question none of them answers on its own. You leave knowing whether joining them is worth doing, and where to start.
- The data auditAbout three hours with your team, mapping where each figure comes from, which system holds it and which steps are done by hand. The audit confirms how each system can be read, and it ends with a quote.
- The buildThree to four weeks from an accepted quote to a live dashboard. Implementation is the first month. Your team agrees the definitions with us; we do the building.
- The fractional teamAn ongoing senior team keeps the loads running, follows changes made to your systems and connects the next source when the business needs it.
Glen Sultana founded 110 Analytics after a career built where the numbers move daily. Our people have run analytics for tier-one companies, S&P 500 firms and high-growth technology businesses. Glen is the person on the first call, and he runs every data audit himself.
- Built in your environment, under your account
- No lock-in: if we part company, it keeps running and stays yours
- Based in Malta
Straight answers
Do you replace Sage?
No. Sage stays your accounting system, set up exactly as it is today. A read-only copy of its ledger and budgets sits in your warehouse next to the other systems, for the questions Sage cannot answer alone.
Will this affect our Sage partner or licence?
Your licence and support stay as they are, and nothing in Sage is changed. Each route needs something on your side: a Sage user for the interface; for Sage 50, a machine on the office network that can reach the data folder; for Sage 200 Professional on your own server, the interface opened to outside connections; for Sage Intacct, a Web Services licence or the Data Delivery Service add-on. The audit sets out which applies to you.
How do you connect to Sage?
By the route your product offers: the read-only ODBC driver for Sage 50 Accounts, the Sage 200 interface for other software, the Sage Intacct interface or its Data Delivery Service, or the Sage Accounting interface with a read-only user. The audit confirms which, on your version.
Can you combine several companies that each keep their own Sage data?
Yes. Each company is loaded on its own and combined in the warehouse under the report lines your finance lead approves, with intercompany charges taken out. Each company's own view stays available.
Will our existing Sage reports still work?
Yes. Nothing changes inside Sage, so the reports your team runs there keep working. Keep using them for ledger work, and the warehouse for the questions that cross systems.
Our nominal codes have grown messy over the years. Is that a problem?
Usually not. The audit shows where codes were used inconsistently, and the warehouse maps old codes to current report lines without reposting anything in Sage.
Terms on this page
- Nominal code
- Sage's account code for a type of income, cost, asset or liability. The chart of accounts groups the codes into the sections of the statements.
- ODBC driver
- A standard way for other software to read a database. Sage's ODBC driver for Sage 50 is read-only.
- Report line
- A heading in the management pack, such as payroll or rent, that groups one or more nominal codes. Agreed with finance once.
- Consolidation
- For management reporting, combining several companies into one group view, with what they charge each other taken out.
Where the product facts come from
Every product fact on this page comes from the vendor's own documentation, read on 8 October 2026. Vendors change their products, so the audit checks the version you run.
- Sage Knowledge Base: Sage 50 Accounts ODBC driver (read-only)
- Sage Knowledge Base: Sage 50 Accounts, send reports to Excel
- Sage Knowledge Base: Sage 50 Accounts, each company's data folder
- Sage Knowledge Base: Sage 50 Accounts, advanced budgets by department
- Sage 200 help: company databases
- Sage 200 help: cost centres and departments
- Sage 200 help: using budgets
- Sage Developer: Sage 200 API introduction
- Sage Knowledge Base: Sage 200 API enabled by default in Standard
- Sage Knowledge Base: Sage 200 Standard hosting
- Sage Knowledge Base: Sage 200 Professional Excel Reporting
- Sage Intacct Developer: Data Delivery Service
- Sage Developer: Sage Intacct REST API quick start (Web Services licence)
- Sage Intacct help: multi-entity shared lists
- Sage Intacct help: dimensions
- Sage Developer: Sage Accounting API access rights
- Sage Developer: Sage Accounting analysis types
- Sage Knowledge Base: Sage Accounting budgets (Accounting Plus)