Sage 300 Construction has been a fixture in construction accounting for decades, and odds are you fall into one of three groups reading this. You're evaluating whether Sage 300 makes sense for your business, you're in the middle of implementing it, or you've been running on it for years and you're looking for ways to make it work better.
Formerly known as Sage Timberline Office, Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate (CRE) is one of the most established ERP platforms built specifically for contractors and real estate developers. It handles construction accounting, job costing, and project financials at a level few competitors match. It also has well-known gaps in field operations and mobile workflows that most contractors solve with the right integrations.
This guide covers what the platform does well, where it has gaps, and the integrations contractors use to close them.
Sage 300 Construction (formerly Sage Timberline Office) is an ERP platform built specifically for the construction and real estate industries. It brings construction accounting, job costing, project management, estimating, and service management into a single system, with deep functionality for the workflows contractors actually run.
It's built for mid-market and enterprise contractors. General contractors, specialty contractors, and real estate developers running multiple jobs across multiple entities tend to be the sweet spot. Smaller contractors with simple bookkeeping needs usually find it heavy for what they're trying to do.
The platform has been around for decades under various names, which means a mature reseller and consultant ecosystem, broad third-party integration support, and a deep pool of accountants who know it inside and out.
A quick look at what Sage 300 Construction does out of the box.
Accounting and financial management. General ledger, accounts payable and receivable, cash management, and multi-entity consolidation built around construction-specific accounting needs.
Job costing and project accounting. Granular cost tracking by job, phase, cost code, and category. Real-time visibility into committed costs, actuals, and variance against budget.
Estimating. Tools for building accurate, competitive bids with historical cost data and assembly-based estimating.
Service management. Dispatch, work order management, and service billing for contractors with a service line of business.
Document management. Centralized storage and retrieval for project documents, drawings, and contracts.
Reporting and analytics. Customizable reports, dashboards, and financial statements built for construction reporting requirements.
Where Sage 300 Construction is strong:
Where it has gaps:
The accounting side is rock solid. The friction shows up the moment data needs to move between the jobsite and the office.
This is where most contractors running Sage 300 invest next. The platform handles the back office well, and the field, payroll, and AP workflows benefit from purpose-built tools that sync directly into Sage.
Closing the field-to-office gap. Foremen and superintendents need to enter time, capture costs, and document conditions from the jobsite. Paper timecards and end-of-week data entry create lag and errors that flow downstream into job costs and payroll. Mobile-first construction time tracking software that syncs directly into Sage 300 CRE job costing replaces the paper trail with clean, coded data the same day work happens.
Speeding up payroll. Construction payroll has more moving pieces than almost any other industry: certified payroll, prevailing wage, multi-state tax, union reporting, job and cost code allocation. Construction payroll software built for Sage 300 CRE pulls field-entered hours straight into Sage, runs the calculations, and handles certified payroll reporting without the spreadsheet gymnastics.
Modernizing AP. Invoice approval routing, GL coding, and check runs are still paper-heavy at most construction companies. Construction AP automation that integrates with Sage 300 CRE replaces email chains and physical signatures with structured approval workflows, faster cycle times, and a clean audit trail.
Connecting HR data. Workforce information sits across Sage, HR systems, and payroll, and the handoffs are usually manual. Construction HR software that syncs employee records, certifications, and rate changes directly to Sage 300 CRE keeps payroll and job costing accurate without double entry.
A week with these integrations in place looks different. A foreman codes time on Monday morning from the jobsite. Those hours land in Sage 300 CRE job costing the same day. By Thursday, payroll is running clean numbers without chasing paper. By Friday, certified payroll reports are filed without the manual spreadsheet rebuild.
Sage 300 Construction is a serious platform for contractors who need real construction accounting depth, and it gets meaningfully better with the right integrations. If you're running Sage 300 CRE and the field-to-office workflow still feels like a bottleneck, the next step is usually integrations, not a platform change.
Already running Sage 300 CRE? See how hh2 extends it for the field. Schedule a demo today.
Is Sage 300 Construction the same as Timberline? Yes. Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate (CRE) is the rebranded version of Sage Timberline Office. The product has evolved, but longtime users still refer to it as Timberline.
Does Sage 300 Construction have a mobile app? Sage offers some mobile functionality, and most contractors who need robust field tools layer in purpose-built mobile solutions that integrate with Sage 300 CRE.
How does Sage 300 Construction handle payroll? Sage 300 has a native payroll module with construction-specific capabilities like certified payroll, prevailing wage, and job costing integration. Many contractors extend it with specialized payroll software to simplify the workflow, particularly for union shops, multi-state operations, and certified payroll reporting.
What integrates with Sage 300 Construction? Sage 300 CRE integrates with a wide range of construction-focused tools, including time tracking, payroll, AP automation, project management, and HR systems. Purpose-built integrations like hh2's are designed to sync directly with Sage 300 CRE without manual exports.
Is Sage 300 Construction cloud-based? Sage 300 CRE is traditionally an on-premise deployment, and it can be hosted in the cloud through Sage's own hosting option or through certified third-party hosting providers. Many contractors run a hybrid setup, keeping the core ERP hosted while using cloud-based integrations for field, payroll, and AP workflows.