Renew Sage 100 Contractor through your 2026 year-end filings no matter what, because the December year-end update that carries the new payroll tax tables and W-2 changes is a Business Care download for the latest version only. The real decision is the term after that, and it is a two-column sum: everything your last twelve months of Sage invoices say you pay to stay, against a written QuickBooks Enterprise quote plus a one-time conversion. This page is the worksheet, with every Sage and Intuit fact checked on the vendors’ own pages on 1 October 2026.
Sage 100 Contractor, formerly Sage Master Builder, is a construction product. Sage 100, formerly MAS 90 and MAS 200, is a distribution and manufacturing ERP with its own renewal worksheet. That matters here: the rule most people quote about an expired Sage subscription, a 45-day grace period followed by read-only access, comes from a Sage knowledge-base article whose product field is Sage 100, not Sage 100 Contractor. Do not assume it applies to your contractor licence. Ask your Sage partner, in writing, what happens to Contractor on the day the plan ends.
Sage’s own download portal for Sage 100 Contractor (updated 21 September 2026) says its downloads “are available as a benefit of having a Sage Business Care plan.” Today it lists version 2026.3 as current and version 27.3 (2025) as the prior release. Three things ride on that portal:
Staying current also pulls costs behind it. Sage’s version 27.3 release notes (January 2026) drop support for anything older than Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, prompt you to upgrade SQL Server Express instances older than 2019, and block the install until Sage Estimating is on version 21.1 or later. Each of those is a line on your IT bill, not on the Sage renewal notice.
If you plan to run your first QuickBooks transaction on 1 January 2027, your 2026 payroll still closes in Sage 100 Contractor. That means installing the December 2026 year-end update, printing 2026 W-2s and the fourth-quarter 941 from Sage, and filing 1099s from Sage’s vendor 1099 report. So the plan has to be active through January. Treat that as a fixed cost of either answer, then ask your partner three questions before the next term: how long is the term, what notice stops auto-renewal, and can you keep read access to history after it ends. Put the answers in the worksheet; if any are vague, that is a cost too.
Pull twelve months of invoices, not just the renewal notice. Sage’s License Administration documentation lists modules sold outside the core U.S. Edition, including Inventory, Service Receivables, Estimating, Document Control and Equipment Management, and each one you own is a line.
Intuit’s Enterprise pricing page shows promotional “starting at” prices that do not reflect a contractor’s real seat count, so get a written quote and use these facts from the page’s own footnotes, read 1 October 2026:
| Annual line | Sage 100 Contractor (invoices) | QuickBooks Enterprise (quote) |
|---|---|---|
| Plan or subscription (users × rate) | $ ______ | $ ______ |
| Modules or construction apps | $ ______ | $ ______ |
| Server, SQL, hosting (+ RDS CALs) | $ ______ | $ ______ |
| Payroll (per employee × frequency) | $ ______ | $ ______ |
| Partner hours and e-filing | $ ______ | $ ______ |
| Internal admin hours × loaded rate | $ ______ | $ ______ |
| Annual run-rate | $ ______ | $ ______ |
| One-time: conversion, overlap, retraining | — | $ ______ |
| 24-month total | $ ______ | $ ______ |
All figures are invented; none is a Sage or Intuit quote. Picture a remodeler with 6 office users and 30 field employees paid weekly, on an in-house server, running Estimating and Service Receivables. Suppose the left column totals $21,000 a year once modules, partner hours, server share and 50 admin hours are counted. Suppose a Platinum quote for 10 seats with Enhanced Payroll, plus a certified-payroll app, totals $9,500, and the one-time column is conversion plus a month of overlap and 30 retraining hours, call it $8,000. Over 24 months that is $42,000 to stay against $27,000 to move. Change the inputs and the gap moves or vanishes; the point is to see it on paper before the renewal charges.
Write “stay” without guilt if Sage Estimating feeds your budgets and nobody wants to change how you bid; if service receivables and equipment costing run daily; if certified or union payroll is every pay run, every job; or if you need more than 40 concurrent users. If none of those apply and the quote clears, scope the move now so the cutover lands on 1 January rather than mid-year.
This worksheet is not tax advice. Your CPA should confirm the year-end filing plan before you set a cutover date.
Sage’s download portal says Sage 100 Contractor downloads are a benefit of a Sage Business Care plan, and the year-end update is released for the latest version only. The update carries the new payroll tax rates and W-2 and 1099 form changes.
Keep the plan active through your January filings. Your 2026 payroll still closes in Sage, so you need the December year-end update to print 2026 W-2s and file 1099s. The renewal decision that matters is the term after that.
The widely quoted 45-day grace period and read-only rule comes from a Sage article for Sage 100, the distribution ERP, not Sage 100 Contractor. Ask your Sage partner in writing what happens to your Contractor licence when the plan ends.
Gold and Platinum are sold for 1 to 10 users or up to 30. Enterprise Diamond supports up to 40 users, sold in 1–10, 20, 30 and 40 user increments, and is available on a monthly plan only.
When the worksheet says move, the Sage 100 Contractor to QuickBooks conversion page explains how jobs, cost codes and open retainage carry across, with a fixed quote within 24 hours of reviewing your file.
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Founder of Numerawise Solutions, established MMXXIV in Atlanta. Intuit ProAdvisor Gold tier. Former Intuit Technical Support engineer. Has personally led two hundred accounting software conversions for US small businesses since founding the practice. Reachable directly at [email protected].