Purpose-built for contractors

CrewCost vs. Sage 300 CRE for Contractors

Sage 300 CRE is a Windows server product Sage sells by subscription and steers its own customers away from. Half the bill is hosting, the reports are Crystal, and the upgrade path is Intacct at four times the price. CrewCost is cloud construction accounting with the field inside it, at a third of the bill.

Real job costing: cost codes, committed costs, and cost to complete

WIP and retainage out of the box, no Crystal Reports

No server, no host, no upgrade weekends; unlimited users, implementation included

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The verdict at a glance

	Sage 300 CRE	CrewCost
Job costing	By cost code, keyed in the office	By cost code, from the field to the ledger
WIP report	Crystal report, rebuilt in Excel	Automatic
Where it runs	Your server or a host	Cloud, nothing to host
Custom reports	Crystal Reports, paid	Built in
How it’s priced	Modules + licences + hosting	Flat, unlimited users

Side by side: what each one does without a workaround

The left column is the workflow you have: a hosted desktop, Crystal reports, TimberScan, a NACHA file. The right is the same task in CrewCost.

	Sage 300 CRE	CrewCost
Job cost structure	Cost codes and categories; real construction accounting	Cost codes and cost types, a subledger of the GL
When a cost reaches the job	When it is entered in the right module by the right person	Every bill, sub pay app, and payroll run posts by default
Committed costs	Tracked through commitments in Project Management	On the budget the day the sub or PO is issued
Cost to complete	In job cost reports, maintained by hand	On every budget line, with gain or fade and ECAC
WIP / over-under billing	A Crystal report, usually rebuilt in Excel for the bonding company	Automatic. Job costs are a subledger of the GL, so WIP ties out
Retainage	Tracked	Tracked natively on both sides, through release
Where it runs	A Windows server: yours, or a third-party host with RDP and MFA; no mobile	Cloud; nothing to host, patch, or archive; any device
Reporting	Crystal Reports; customization is a paid service	Built in, by job, cost code, and period
Accounts payable	Keyed in the office; approvals through TimberScan or email	Captured from inbox, matched, routed to PMs on their phone
Payroll payments	NACHA file uploaded to the bank by hand	Direct deposit inside CrewCost Payroll
Bank reconciliation	Statement in hand, matched by hand	Bank feed, reconciled in CrewCost
Procore	Connector, plus PJ or JC licences for anyone who needs the job	Native two-way sync, payments included
Implementation & users	Partner implementation; licences by module and seat	Included; unlimited users

Where Sage 300 runs out

A server you pay to keep alive, and a vendor that has moved on.

Sage 300 customers pay for a server, a host, a partner and a stack of add-ons to run a product Sage is no longer building its future on. They call us because it runs on a Windows server somebody has to host, patch, back up and archive; because there is no mobile access, so AP approvals run through TimberScan and crew time through a separate app; because every report that isn't stock is a Crystal Reports project; because payments need a third-party tool and payroll ends in a NACHA file uploaded to the bank by hand; and because Sage's own answer to all of that is a different product at several times the price. Three places that shows up:

Half the bill is the server

RDP licences, MFA, hosted storage, backups, one or two upgrades a year, an archive every few years. On a real invoice from a $35M contractor, hosting and upkeep run $20,000 a year against $9,000 for Sage itself. None of it makes a job more profitable.

Reports you pay someone to write

Sage 300 reports are Crystal Reports. Customizing one means a partner invoice or learning Crystal, so the WIP schedule gets rebuilt in Excel before it goes to the bonding company. The same pattern runs through the rest of the stack: TimberScan for AP approvals, a separate time app for the field, a payments tool for AP and AR, and a NACHA file for payroll that someone uploads to the bank.

An upgrade path that costs four times as much

Sage's guidance to 300 customers is to migrate to Sage Intacct Construction: per-seat pricing at $3,480 an accounting user, a partner subscription for implementation and support, payroll from a third vendor, and a paid connector before Procore can talk to it.

What changes in CrewCost

Sage 300's job costing, without the server

A living budget: committed costs, cost to complete, and ECAC on every cost code

WIP and retainage from the same ledger the costs post to; no Crystal, no Excel rebuild

Time tracking built in: hours by cost code move the budget, and payroll pays by direct deposit from inside the system

Cloud with nothing to host; native Procore sync and AI-powered AP with PM approvals from the field

What the move costs

Sage is a third of the bill. The server is half.

The Sage 300 figure below is a real annual cost from a $35M contractor on the low end of users, shared with permission. The other two are priced for an $8M contractor with 18 employees and four people in the office, and both would cost that $35M company more, not less. The shape of the Sage 300 bill is the point: the software is the smallest line on it.

Stay on Sage 300

$28,000 / yr

About $9,100 to Sage for licences by module and seat, $14,500 to host it with RDP, MFA and storage, and $4,500 a year to a partner for support, report writing, upgrades and archiving. A four-seat shop hosts for less; the Sage line barely moves.

Sage Intacct

$58,000 / yr

Where Sage wants you to go. Before payroll. Sage's own rate card applied to an $8M contractor: three accounting seats plus PM and superintendent seats, a Sage partner for implementation and support at about $18,000 a year, and a Procore connector. Almost all of it is fixed, so headcount barely moves it.

CrewCost

$11,988 / yr

Before payroll. $999 a month, paid annually, for contractors under $10M; a $35M contractor is $1,699 a month. Unlimited users, implementation included, nothing to host. Accounting, job costing, time and expenses in one system, with payroll running inside it rather than at a third vendor.

Procore sits on all three paths, so it is not counted in any of them. Payroll is excluded from the Intacct and CrewCost figures so they compare like for like; on Sage it is a separate vendor or a module. Sage 300: a CrewCost customer's actual 2026 annual costs, shared with permission; Sage now sells 300 by monthly subscription based on modules and licence count. Intacct: the rate card from a 2024 Sage Intacct Construction quote via a Sage partner; Sage has raised prices since.

“We’re now able to track our labor production against our estimated costs automatically.”

Daniel Kurtin, General Manager, Luma Exteriors — exterior contractor, $5–10M revenue

Your three options off Sage 300

Sage Intacct Construction

Sage's path. Dimensions instead of modules, cloud instead of a server, and a bill that starts near $42,000 a year for a single accounting seat once the partner subscription is counted. Real if you are heading past $50M with several entities.

Another construction ERP

Foundation, ComputerEase, Viewpoint Spectrum. A different server or a different host, the same shape: modules, licences, a partner, and payroll that may or may not be inside.

CrewCost

Job costing by cost code in the cloud, with the budget, WIP and retainage built into the ledger and the field inside the system. Implementation included, unlimited users; live in weeks, not a fiscal year.

Questions Sage 300 contractors ask

Is Sage 300 CRE being discontinued?

Sage hasn’t published an end date that we have seen, and existing customers keep renewing. What has changed is the model: Sage now sells 300 as a monthly subscription priced by module and licence count rather than a one-time licence with maintenance, and Sage’s own guidance to 300 customers is to migrate to Sage Intacct Construction. In practice, the product you bought is now a subscription, and the upgrade path is a different product at a different price.

Does CrewCost do what Sage 300 does?

On the accounting, yes: cost codes, committed costs, cost to complete, WIP, retainage on both sides, and AIA-style progress billing from a schedule of values, with payroll and field time posting to the budget. Where Sage 300 goes further today is in peripheral modules such as equipment and inventory. If you lean on those, say so on the demo and we will tell you straight where we are.

What about payroll?

Many Sage 300 contractors already pay their crews outside Sage from a NACHA file. CrewCost Payroll runs inside the system: processing, direct deposit, and tax filing in all 50 states, with hours entered by cost code so labor and its burden post to the job budget without a second step.

What comes over from Sage 300 when we switch?

Your chart of accounts, jobs and cost codes, customers, vendors and trial balance, plus open AR and AP. For jobs in flight we bring over the budget by cost code, job-to-date costs, and retainage balances, so you finish the job in CrewCost rather than in two systems. History stays in your Sage archive for reference. Implementation is included and we do the mapping with you.

We use Procore with Sage 300. What happens to that?

The connector and the extra Sage licences go away. CrewCost has a native Procore integration: jobs, budgets, prime contracts, commitments, subcontractor invoices and direct costs sync between the two systems, vendors and customers stay in sync, and payments flow both ways.

Should we just move to Sage Intacct?

If you are heading past $50M with several entities to consolidate, Intacct is a serious option and Sage will make the introduction. If you are a $5–30M contractor on 300 because the job costing works, Intacct is per-seat pricing, an ongoing partner subscription, and a third payroll vendor for the accounting you already have. Our Intuit Enterprise Suite comparison covers the other common upgrade path.

Build confidently.

Bring one of your jobs. We'll show you the budget, the WIP schedule, and retainage tracked through release.

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