Sleep function

I'm new to iMac and Mac on a whole. If I place my iMac in 'sleep' mode, but, I want it to still download data (sync items from Box.com to my iMac) during the night, would that work?

To put it simply, sometimes I set something to download, and with Windows, I'd merely turn the monitor off while it continues to process the download during the night. This operation is slightly different with an iMac, hence the question about sleep mode.