Using Trade Assist with Sage for Your Decorating Business

Sage is one of the most established accounting software platforms in the UK, used by many small businesses including painters and decorators. It handles formal accounting — VAT returns, bank reconciliation, year-end accounts and Making Tax Digital submission.

Trade Assist complements Sage by handling the day-to-day business management that Sage was not designed for — quoting with paint calculations, job management with progress tracking, client CRM, scheduling, snagging and variations. Trade Assist is built specifically for decorators; Sage is built for general accounting.

Together, they give you a complete system: Trade Assist for running your decorating business day to day, and Sage for your formal accounting and tax submissions. This page explains how they work together.

What Trade Assist Does That Sage Does Not

Sage is excellent at accounting — tracking transactions, reconciling accounts, managing VAT and producing financial reports. But it was not designed for the day-to-day workflow of a decorating business.

Trade Assist handles the things Sage cannot do: creating professional decorating quotes with room measurements and paint calculations, tracking jobs from quote to completion with area-by-area progress, managing client relationships with a decorator-specific CRM, scheduling jobs and assigning team members, and tracking snagging and variations.

Trade Assist uses decorating terminology — rooms, surfaces, coats, paint products, snagging — rather than generic accounting terms. It feels natural to decorators in a way that generic accounting software does not.

What Sage Does That Trade Assist Does Not

Trade Assist is not accounting software and does not replace Sage. Sage handles the formal accounting functions that Trade Assist does not attempt: bank reconciliation, VAT return submission to HMRC, year-end accounts, payroll and Making Tax Digital bridging.

If you are VAT-registered or need to submit MTD-compliant returns, you need accounting software like Sage to handle the actual submission to HMRC. Trade Assist keeps your records organised and exportable, but it does not submit directly to HMRC.

The recommended setup is to use Trade Assist for your day-to-day business management and Sage for your formal accounting and tax submissions.

How to Use Trade Assist Alongside Sage

The typical workflow is simple: use Trade Assist to create quotes, track jobs, invoice clients and log expenses throughout the month. At the end of each month or quarter, use the Tax Export feature to produce a summary of your income and expenses.

Provide this export to your accountant or import the data into Sage. Your Sage records stay up to date for VAT returns and MTD submission, without you needing to enter data twice in Sage itself.

This division of labour means you get the benefits of decorator-specific business management in Trade Assist and the accounting power of Sage, without duplication.

Tax Export for Sage

The Tax Export feature in Trade Assist produces a complete summary of your income and expenses for any tax year or any month. The export includes all invoices, expenses, payments and VAT amounts, categorised and totalled.

Your accountant can use this export to populate Sage with your trading data, ensuring your Sage records are accurate and up to date for VAT returns and MTD submission. The categorised expense data aligns with standard accounting categories.

This saves hours of manual data entry in Sage and reduces the risk of errors from double-handling data.

VAT Handling Across Both Systems

Trade Assist calculates VAT automatically on every quote and invoice when you set your VAT rate in your settings. The VAT amount, net total and gross total are shown on every document. Your VAT registration number is stored in your business details.

The Tax Export includes a VAT breakdown by period, showing the VAT you have collected on invoices and the VAT you have paid on expenses. Your accountant can use this for your VAT return in Sage.

This means your VAT figures are calculated and organised in Trade Assist, ready for your accountant to submit via Sage — no manual calculations required.

Expense Tracking for Sage

Trade Assist lets you log expenses against each job — materials, fuel, subcontractor costs and equipment. These expenses are included in the Tax Export, categorised in a way that aligns with standard accounting categories in Sage.

The mileage log feature tracks business miles for tax-deductible travel costs. CIS records can be tracked for subcontractor payments with verification numbers and deduction rates.

All of this expense data feeds into the Tax Export, so your accountant has a complete picture of your costs for Sage without you needing to enter them separately.

Frequently Asked Questions