Sage One reaches 100,000 UK subscriptions, affirms cloud accounting uptake

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Accounting software provider Sage has announced it has hit 100,000 subscriptions of its cloud-based Sage One product, with the user base comprising more than half of customers already using Sage.

The numbers indicate the small business sector is alive and kicking when it comes to utilising cloud software, and Sage describes it as “one of many milestones that helps us to connect our customers to accountants and partners with real time and intuitive information about their business.”

“Our aim is to support businesses by providing the technology and ecosystem that they need to be successful and to grow,” said Stephen Kelly, Sage Group CEO. “Sage One is central to our strategy of addressing the white space opportunity of small and medium businesses which are not using any means of accounting software currently.”

Sage also took the opportunity to throw out a series of other highlights from 2015, including the launch of Sage Live, for more real-time accounting, partnerships with the likes of Salesforce, Microsoft, and Google among others, and ISV agreements with Xactly, DocuSign, and Apptus.

The small business approach to cloud computing has been analysed extensively by this publication in recent days. In particular, a survey from Clutch found nearly half of small businesses in the US do not use cloud storage. Most of the time, the main reason for this reticence is around security. Interestingly however, Oscar Arean, technical operations manager at disaster recovery firm Databarracks, argues that as managing security in-house becomes an increasing headache, cloud solutions make more sense.

Sage claims its UK subscriber base for Sage One is growing at 4,600 per month, while the company’s overall organic revenue grew at 6% for 2015.