Both pull information from Sage and report that information.  Sage provides us with both styles of reports ("canned") that we may use to report information.  You have to have Report Designer subscription through Sage to modify or write any custom reports for yourself.  And for Crystal, I think you have to buy the software, Crystal Reports to modify or write any custom Crystal reports for yourself.  Also, consultants can modify reports for you for a price. 

Thanks, that makes things a lot clearer.

I may end up just using ODBC. Once I figure out the database structure, I'll be a lot more comfortable writing queries in excel.

They'd like it in excel anyway for the extra formatting.