Sage briefly suspended its early-access Copilot assistant in January 2025 after a customer’s invoice query reportedly returned unrelated business information from other Sage customer accounts. Sage said a small number of customers were affected, that no invoices were exposed, and that it had implemented a fix. The company did not disclose the precise number of affected customers or a technical explanation of the issue.
What happened with Sage Copilot?
On 20 January 2025, The Register reported that a customer asking Sage Copilot for a list of recent invoices received information associated with other customers’ accounts, as well as their own. The issue was reported to Sage support and verified. Sage took Copilot offline for several hours while it investigated and implemented a fix.
Sage described the incident as a minor issue affecting a small number of customers. A company spokesperson said the assistant showed “unrelated business information” to a “very small number of customers” and said, “At no point were any invoices exposed.” The statement is Sage’s account of the incident; the public reporting did not establish a precise affected-customer count or independently explain what information was displayed.
Did Sage Copilot leak another customer’s invoices?
The reported incident involved cross-account retrieval or display during an invoice-related query. It is not evidence that invoice files were stolen or exposed. Sage explicitly denied that any invoices were exposed, but the public accounts do not explain exactly what unrelated business information appeared or whether invoice content was technically accessible. Those details remain unresolved.
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#1 Best Overall
- TRUSTED ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE: For 42 years, Sage has supported small businesses with reliable accounting software to grow their business. Sage 50 Premium Accounting (formerly Peachtree Accounting Software) includes a one-year Sage Business Care plan with access to online support. Trusted by accountants and bookkeepers for decades.
- SIMPLE TO START: Powerful 1-User Accounting Software designed for small businesses. Choose from various business models to create the right chart of accounts and easily manage billing, invoicing, and costs with confidence.
- PAY BILLS & INVOICE: Spend less time on administrative tasks with bookkeeping and invoicing software that lets you easily pay bills, invoice customers, and track billable and non-billable costs for each job. Improve efficiency with Sage 50 Accounting.
- CALCULATE JOB COSTS & MANAGE INVENTORY: Use job costing by phase and cost type to calculate job profitability and make informed business decisions. Track inventory to ensure you have what you need, when you need it, with inventory management software designed for small business operations.
- MANAGE FINANCES: Audit trails and advanced budgeting tools help you stay on top of business performance and finances. Create purchase orders, manage expenses, track spending, and maintain accurate financial control using accounting software for small business.
What is Sage Copilot, and when was it available?
Sage introduced Copilot in February 2024 as an AI assistant for administrative and repetitive accounting tasks, including identifying errors and suggesting actions. At the time of the incident, it was an invitation-only early-access product used by an unspecified number of customers. Sage’s 27 January 2025 announcement said it would become generally available to UK small and midsize businesses from March 2025. That announcement describes the planned UK rollout; it does not establish availability in other countries or for every Sage plan.
Sage describes Copilot features related to tax regulations, profitability, cash flow, overdue payments, customer activity, and receipt and invoice processing. These workflows depend on access to sensitive accounting information, making correct customer-data separation and authorization essential.
Rank #2
- TRUSTED ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE: For 42 years, Sage has supported small businesses with reliable accounting software to grow their business. Sage 50 Premium Accounting (formerly Peachtree Accounting) includes a one-year Sage Business Care plan with access to online support. Trusted by accountants and bookkeepers for decades.
- SIMPLE TO START: Powerful 1-User Accounting Software designed for small businesses. Choose from various business models to create the right chart of accounts, easily pay bills, invoice customers, and track costs with confidence using Sage 50 Accounting.
- PAY BILLS & INVOICE: Spend less time on administrative tasks with bookkeeping and invoicing software that lets you easily pay bills and invoice customers while tracking billable and non-billable costs for each job. Streamline daily financial management and reporting.
- CALCULATE JOB COSTS & MANAGE INVENTORY: Use job costing by phase and cost type to calculate job profitability and make informed business decisions. Track inventory to ensure you have what you need, when you need it, with powerful inventory management software and reporting tools.
- MANAGE FINANCES: Audit trails and advanced budgeting tools help you stay on top of business performance and finances. Create purchase orders, manage expenses, track spending, and utilize payroll and financial reporting capabilities to support business growth.
What does the incident establish—and what does it not?
- Established in the public accounts: Sage paused Copilot for several hours, investigated the reported cross-customer display, and said a fix was implemented.
- Not publicly established: the technical root cause, exact number of affected customers, whether a regulator was notified, whether invoice content was technically accessible despite Sage’s denial, or whether an independent audit followed.
Without those details, it would be inaccurate to characterize the event as a confirmed theft of invoices or to claim that a particular system component failed. The available information supports a narrower conclusion: a reported query returned unrelated customer business information, and Sage says it corrected the issue.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How should businesses assess tenant isolation in accounting AI?
Tenant isolation means that one business’s records and context remain inaccessible to another business using the same service. For AI features that search or summarize accounting data, a vendor should be able to explain how it enforces both data partitioning and authorization—not just how the underlying accounting database is separated.
Rank #3
- TRUSTED ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE: For 42 years, Sage has supported small businesses with reliable accounting software to grow their business. Sage 50 Premium Accounting (formerly Peachtree Accounting Software) includes a one-year Sage Business Care plan with access to online support. Trusted by accountants and bookkeepers, it continues the legacy of Sage Peachtree Accounting Software.
- SIMPLE TO START: Powerful 3-User Accounting Software designed for growing businesses. Choose from various business models to create the right chart of accounts and manage billing, invoicing, and costs with ease.
- PAY BILLS & INVOICE: Spend less time on administrative tasks with bookkeeping and invoicing software that lets you easily pay bills, invoice customers, and track billable and non-billable costs for each job. Improve efficiency with Sage 50 Accounting.
- CALCULATE JOB COSTS & MANAGE INVENTORY: Use job costing by phase and cost type to calculate job profitability and make informed business decisions. Track inventory to ensure you have what you need, when you need it, with inventory management software designed for small business operations.
- MANAGE FINANCES: Audit trails and advanced budgeting tools help you stay on top of business performance and finances. Create purchase orders, manage expenses, track spending, and maintain accurate financial control using this multi-user accounting software.
Before enabling an accounting AI assistant broadly, ask the vendor:
- How are customer records and AI conversation context partitioned between tenants?
- What authorization checks prevent prompts or search results from retrieving another customer’s records?
- What audit logs capture AI queries, retrieved records, and access decisions, and who can review them?
- How are cross-tenant access attempts tested, including through red-team exercises?
- How long are prompts and outputs retained, and are customer records or conversations used to train models?
- What human approval controls apply before the assistant changes records, sends communications, or initiates actions?
- How quickly and through what process will the vendor notify customers about a suspected data incident?
- Which accounting workflows, regions, editions, and plans are actually supported?
For a practical evaluation, use test accounts with deliberately distinct records and ask the assistant questions that should be answerable only from each account’s own data. Confirm that users cannot retrieve another test tenant’s customer names, balances, invoices, payments, or other records, and ask the vendor to show the corresponding access logs and test evidence. Do this in a controlled environment and agree on the test with the vendor; do not probe other customers’ live data.
Rank #4
- TRUSTED ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE: For 42 years, Sage has supported small businesses with reliable accounting software to grow their business. Sage 50 Premium Accounting (formerly Peachtree Accounting) includes a one-year Sage Business Care plan with access to online support. Trusted by accountants and bookkeepers for decades.
- SIMPLE TO START: Powerful 3-User Accounting Software designed for growing businesses. Choose from various business models to create the right chart of accounts, easily pay bills, invoice customers, and track costs with confidence.
- PAY BILLS & INVOICE: Spend less time on administrative tasks with bookkeeping and invoicing software that lets you easily pay bills and invoice customers while tracking billable and non-billable costs for each job. Improve efficiency with Sage 50 Accounting.
- CALCULATE JOB COSTS & MANAGE INVENTORY: Use job costing by phase and cost type to calculate job profitability and make informed business decisions. Track inventory to ensure you have what you need, when you need it, with powerful inventory management software and reporting tools.
- MANAGE FINANCES: Audit trails and advanced budgeting tools help you stay on top of business performance and finances. Create purchase orders, manage expenses, track spending, and utilize payroll and financial reporting capabilities with this multi-user accounting software solution.
A useful comparison of accounting AI services should therefore look beyond feature lists. Tenant isolation and authorization, auditability and incident response, data-retention and model-training terms, human approval, supported workflows, and availability by region and plan all affect whether a feature is suitable for real financial records.
Quick Recap
Best Value
- TRUSTED ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE: For 42 years, Sage has supported small businesses with reliable accounting software to help grow their business. Sage 50 Pro Accounting (formerly Peachtree Accounting) includes a one-year Sage Business Care plan with access to online support. Trusted by accountants and bookkeepers for decades.
- SIMPLE TO START: Powerful 1-User Accounting Software designed for small businesses. Choose from various business models to get the right chart of accounts started and customize reports in real time with no prior accounting knowledge required.
- PAY BILLS & INVOICE: Spend less time on administrative tasks with bookkeeping and invoicing software that lets you easily pay bills, invoice customers, and track billable and non-billable costs for each job. Improve efficiency with Sage 50 Accounting.
- IMPROVE CASH FLOW: Use job costing to calculate job profitability and make more informed business decisions. Monitor cash flow, track payments and expenses, and manage finances with confidence using accounting software for small business.
- MANAGE INVENTORY: Keep track of inventory to ensure you have what you need, when you need it. Create purchase orders, manage expenses, and track spending with ease using inventory management software built for growing businesses.
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