88 per cent of UK CFOs say they would benefit from finance technology and automation. 66 per cent still depend on Excel spreadsheets. Sage Intacct and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance both now ship AI agents that promise to automate the financial close, reconcile accounts, and answer natural-language questions about your numbers. The promise is real, but neither platform does everything, and the pricing models are structured in ways that make direct comparison harder than it should be.
Why Agentic AI Matters More Than Copilots for Finance Teams
UK Finance Team Technology Adoption
88 per cent of UK CFOs say they would benefit from finance tech, yet 66 per cent still depend on Excel and 35 per cent self-identify as technology laggards.
Source: Grant Thornton UK CFO Survey 2025
The difference between a copilot and an agent is the difference between a tool that suggests and a tool that acts. A copilot waits for you to ask a question. An agent monitors your data continuously, identifies exceptions, takes corrective action where it can, and flags what it cannot resolve.
For a UK mid-market finance team running a monthly close across multiple entities, that distinction is significant. A copilot can summarise your trial balance. An agent can reconcile 80 per cent of your intercompany transactions before you sit down on Monday morning.
64 per cent of finance leaders say the volume of manual day-to-day work leaves no time for strategic planning and analysis. 35 per cent of UK finance departments self-identify as laggards in technology adoption. The question is no longer whether to automate but which platform delivers enough today to justify the cost.
What Sage Intacct Can Do Right Now
Sage shipped five AI agents for Intacct through 2025 and into early 2026. The network comprises a Close Agent, an Accounts Payable Agent, a Time Agent, an Assurance Agent, and the Finance Intelligence Agent announced in November 2025.
The Close Agent automates checklist management for the month-end close. It tracks task completion across entities, identifies bottlenecks, and surfaces items that are behind schedule. It does not perform journal entries or post transactions autonomously — it orchestrates the process and alerts humans to what needs attention.
The Accounts Payable Agent handles invoice matching, tax detail prediction, and line-level matching. An AI-powered import agent lets users bring in data using natural-language prompts that transform, map, and clean transaction lines before posting.
The Finance Intelligence Agent is the centrepiece. Available in early access across the US, UK, and Canada from December 2025, it sits inside Sage Copilot and answers questions in natural language about any report or transaction. Ask it why revenue dropped 12 per cent in Q3 compared to Q2 and it pulls the variance analysis, identifies the contributing accounts, and presents the answer in seconds.
The design matters: the Finance Intelligence Agent works as an orchestration layer that routes questions to the right AI agents and data sources, coordinates responses, and composes a final answer. It is not a chatbot bolted onto a dashboard. It is a routing engine that connects the other agents.
What Dynamics 365 Finance Can Do Right Now
AI Agent Capabilities Comparison
Sage Intacct ships five production AI agents. Dynamics 365 Finance has one agent plus Copilot for Finance across the Microsoft 365 product suite.
Source: Sage / Microsoft product releases 2025–2026
Microsoft's approach layers Copilot for Finance on top of Dynamics 365 Finance and connects it into the broader Microsoft 365 product suite.
Copilot for Finance reached production release in October 2025. It brings ERP-connected data and workflows into Excel, Outlook, and Teams. A finance controller can reconcile bank statements in Excel with Copilot highlighting discrepancies, or ask questions about cash flow variance directly in Teams.
The Account Reconciliation Agent is the primary agentic feature in Dynamics 365 Finance. It supports voucher amount mismatch resolution, handles ledger-not-in-subledger and subledger-not-in-ledger exceptions, and reviews transactions on an ongoing basis. When it encounters an exception it cannot resolve, it presents the issue to the user with a suggested action.
Dynamics 365 Finance Premium, at £230.70 per user per month, includes 1,000 Copilot Credits per user each month, pooled at the tenant level. Standard Dynamics 365 Finance at £161.50 per user per month requires separate Copilot credit purchases.
The strength of the Microsoft approach is platform integration. If your finance team already lives in Excel, Outlook, and Teams, Copilot for Finance meets them where they work. The weakness is that the agentic capabilities — agents that act independently — are narrower than Sage's current offering. Microsoft's Account Reconciliation Agent does one thing well. Sage's network of five agents covers more of the close-to-report workflow.
Pricing for a 20-Person UK Mid-Market Finance Team
Annual Cost Comparison — 20 Users
Sage Intacct mid-market deployment costs £15,000–£25,000 per year with AI included. Dynamics 365 Finance costs £38,760–£55,368 per year before Azure consumption.
Source: Sage UK / Microsoft UK 2026
Direct cost comparison between Sage Intacct and Dynamics 365 Finance is difficult because the pricing models are structurally different.
Sage Intacct uses modular annual pricing. The Essentials package starts from £6,570 per year. A typical mid-market configuration — core financials, multi-currency, three additional business entities, and two additional users — runs around £15,000 per year. AI agents are included in the subscription at no additional licence cost. The Finance Intelligence Agent requires no separate purchase.
Dynamics 365 Finance charges per user per month. At £161.50 per user per month for 20 users, the base cost is £38,760 per year. Finance Premium at £230.70 per user per month takes the total to £55,368 per year, but includes pooled Copilot credits. Additional Copilot credits beyond the included allocation are billed through Azure on a consumption basis.
The gap is substantial. A 20-user Sage Intacct deployment with AI agents included costs roughly £15,000 to £25,000 per year depending on modules. A 20-user Dynamics 365 Finance deployment costs £38,760 to £55,368 per year before any Azure consumption charges.
That does not make Dynamics 365 Finance the wrong choice. It makes it a different choice. Organisations already running Microsoft 365 E5, Azure Active Directory, and Power Platform get integration value that does not appear on the licence invoice. The total cost of ownership calculation must include what you already pay for the Microsoft stack.
Making Tax Digital and What It Means for Platform Selection
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment launches on 6 April 2026 for taxpayers with trading and property income above £50,000. The threshold drops to £30,000 in April 2027 and HMRC has committed to extending it to £20,000 by the end of this Parliament.
Both Sage Intacct and Dynamics 365 Finance support MTD for VAT. Neither platform has yet confirmed full MTD for ITSA compliance as a built-in feature, though both are expected to support it through their existing HMRC integration modules.
The practical implication: if your finance team handles self-assessment for directors or partners alongside corporate accounts, confirm MTD for ITSA readiness before you commit to either platform. Ask the vendor for a written confirmation of the quarterly update submission support, not a roadmap promise.
Five Questions Every UK Mid-Market CFO Should Ask Before Choosing
1. How much of your current manual workload can each platform automate today — not on the roadmap, today? Sage has five agents in production. Microsoft has one agent and Copilot for Finance. Map your specific workflows against what exists.
2. What does the total cost look like including Copilot credits, Azure consumption, and implementation? Sage's modular pricing is predictable. Microsoft's consumption-based Copilot credits can produce variable monthly costs that are hard to forecast.
3. Where does your finance team spend their working day? If they live in Excel, Outlook, and Teams, Copilot for Finance delivers value on day one without changing their workflow. If they work primarily inside the ERP, Sage's native agent experience may be more effective.
4. Can the platform prove MTD for ITSA compliance for your specific entity structure? Ask for a demonstration with quarterly update submissions, not a slide deck.
5. What happens when the agent gets it wrong? Both platforms have human-in-the-loop safeguards. Sage's agents present exceptions for review. Microsoft's Account Reconciliation Agent suggests actions for user approval. Ask to see the audit trail for agent decisions — if you cannot explain to an auditor why a reconciliation was approved, the automation creates more risk than it removes.
A Practical Evaluation Checklist
1. List every manual process your finance team performs during month-end close — count the hours, not the tasks.
2. Request a demonstration of each platform using your own chart of accounts and entity structure, not a generic demo environment.
3. Ask each vendor for the current UK customer count and at least two references from organisations of similar size and complexity.
4. Calculate total cost of ownership for three years including licence, implementation, training, and consumption charges.
5. Confirm MTD for ITSA quarterly update support in writing before you sign.
6. Test the AI agents with real questions about your data during the evaluation — ask variance questions, reconciliation queries, and edge cases that your team encounters monthly.
7. Verify that all data remains in UK data centres — both platforms offer UK-hosted options but the default configuration may route AI processing through US or EU regions.
8. Check the audit trail for every agent action — if you cannot produce a clear record of what the agent did and why, your auditors will not accept it.
