What You Missed at Sage Future 2025

Sage’s annual conference, hosted for the first time in Atlanta, proved to be a great opportunity for partners and Sage customers alike to learn about the latest and greatest solutions around the very popular accounting software. Largely driven by AI, it was clear that the pace of innovation in the space is driving companies to scramble to find better ways to automate processes and migrate to modern, cloud-based solutions.

Couldn’t make it to the conference? Read on for the top key insights around the state of accounting, software, and data in 2025.

Spreadsheets are here to stay

Spreadsheets continue to be the easiest and most natural for most business users to understand and work with data. Spreadsheets aren’t going anywhere. At the conference, a selection of spreadsheet products was on display, promising to get rid of “manual spreadsheets” and instead unlock real-time, synced spreadsheets with data straight from Sage.

Still working with manual spreadsheets? Upgrade today to live data, synced straight from Sage and more than 270 other sources, as well as the capability to update in bulk back to Sage, with CData Connect Spreadsheets—free to use forever, no credit card required.

Connector depth > Connector breadth

Nobody needs to connect to everything. Everybody needs to connect to something. We had a more technical user come up to the CData booth asking if we could help him get a specific data table from Sage Intacct. He asked reps from other data solutions at the show, but they couldn’t help him. He could see the data by manually querying the Sage API in Postman, but their connectors couldn’t perform the task.

In a few minutes, we pulled up the tables in CData Connect Cloud, queried Sage Intacct, and scrolled through all available tables to find General Ledger Account Groups (GLAccountGrp). He immediately saw the benefit of CData connectors. With the Data Explorer in Connect Cloud, we showed how he could build datasets using the attributes he actually needed in the table, and access them in BI and analytics, automation, and integration platforms.

CData solutions are built with our superior CData Drivers and connectors. That means any CData product uses the best connectivity and data model available, enabling users to have complete, live access to the data they care about. Don’t go with a solution that will leave you stranded with incomplete data models and poor connectivity.

Leave the connectors to the experts

Especially speaking to other software providers sponsoring the show, it was clear that building data connectors is an increasingly difficult and expensive problem. With the proliferation of software solutions – especially highly specialized and tailored ones, built specifically for Sage – building connectors is a challenge that lies outside the focus of their engineering orgs who focus on their own unique products. Even for those that connected exclusively to Sage, building robust connectors and enabling their own users to set up connections to Sage is a constant challenge.

For these companies, CData Embedded Solutions resonated strongly, offering a white glove connector experience for their users embedded right in their software platforms. Not just unlocking Sage data, but data from 270-plus other CData connectors delivering rich, performant data models. Let CData, with data connector expertise, deliver a seamless connectivity experience instead of reinventing the wheel.

Enabling real-time analytics across Sage solutions

Enabling better analytics and insights remains to be a challenge for finance and accounting teams, highlighted by the conversations at the CData booth with Sage customers across products. Accounting and finance professionals are no longer focused on compliance and reconciliation only—instead, they are now partners and advisors that drive business value. Automate the data processes behind the scenes with CData to focus on higher-level strategy, not juggling and compiling manual spreadsheets.