Maximize Your Investment in Sage Intacct

Moving your accounting and finance operations onto Sage Intacct delivers many benefits.

Once integrated and set up correctly, CFOs and finance teams can streamline workflows, automate processes, and access real-time multi-dimensional reporting.

Sage Intacct is a best-in-class core accounting platform with robust technology infrastructure, making it easy to share data across organizations and integrate with leading third-party tools without expensive IT costs.

Businesses making the switch to Sage Intacct should review the full range of applications on the Sage Intacct Marketplace to take full advantage of its automation capabilities. This frees finance staff from manual data entry and allows them to focus on higher-value tasks and initiatives.

With a resource like the Marketplace, organizations can continuously optimize their experience as their needs change and grow before deciding to transition from Sage Intacct to a more expensive ERP vendor.

A Market Leading ERP Solution for SMBs

Sage Intacct is suitable for fast-growing companies seeking to scale up their accounting software as they grow. The company was founded in 1999 and was acquired by Sage Group PLC in 2017.

Over 17,000 businesses use Sage Intacct across a range of industries, including construction, financial services, healthcare, and hospitality.

Designed for small and medium-sized businesses with up to 500 staff, Sage Intacct’s capabilities allow it to meet the needs of multi-entity businesses that require group consolidation, as well as single entity companies.

While positioned as a mid-market product, Sage Intacct’s scalability means even larger and publicly traded companies can continue to use it instead of transitioning to an enterprise-level ERP solution like NetSuite.

Many users switch to Sage Intacct when they have outgrown their smaller ERP solutions, such as QuickBooks. This is due to its rich feature-set related to real-time data and multi-dimensional reporting, which doesn’t require exporting data to an Excel spreadsheet.

Additionally, it fulfills several compliance requirements, such as GAAP, ASC 606, and IFRS 15, not provided for by QuickBooks. This could increase the likelihood of accessing equity funding or debt finance.

Sage Intacct is in the unique position of being the only endorsed ERP accounting system by the AICPA, the professional trade body for licensed CPAs.

The software has also received several accolades over the years, providing CFOs with peace of mind, including the highest product score for Core Financials for the Lower Midsize Enterprises use case in Gartner’s Critical Capabilities report.

Pricing

Sage Intacct is sold as a monthly subscription (billed annually), as it’s a cloud-based service. Pricing differs based on the functionality provided, the number of entities covered, and how many user licenses are required.

Negotiating discounts can be possible if you commit to signing up for a multi-year contract or if sales reps have end-of-month sales targets to hit.

In addition to monthly license fees, you will also need to pay an upfront implementation, ranging between $10,000 to $35,000.

Sage Intacct’s Main Features

Sage Intacct has modules covering both finance and operations.

It aims to keep the entirety of your finance teams’ workflows in the cloud without needing to download, manipulate, and re-upload data. This allows finance teams to access real-time data and free up their time to focus on value-adding activities, such as providing insights on company strategy.

Core Financials

• Accounts payable automation (real-time visibility throughout your AP workflow)
• Accounts receivable (automation of invoicing and collection processes)
• Cash management (accelerates monthly close and speeds up cash management activities)
• Intelligent general ledger (AI-powered GL to enable continuous accounting, trust, and insights)
• Order management (streamlines quote and order-to-cash processes)
• Purchasing (enhanced visibility through the entire procure-to-pay workflow)

Advanced Functionality

• Dynamic allocations (understand business performance with fully automated allocations)
• Fixed assets (complete, flexible, and automated asset management system)
• Intelligent time (increase revenue via AI-powered timesheets)
• Inventory management (track value and manage inventory to minimize costs)
• Multi-entity and global consolidations (consolidate hundreds of entities within minutes)
• Project accounting (see all your time, expenses, and project-based accounting data in one place)
• Revenue recognition (automated and compliant revenue recognition with support for ASC 606 and IFRS 15)
• Sales and Use Tax (end-to-end global tax solutions with centralized visibility)
• Spend Management (efficiently control spending and stay within budget)
• Time and Expense Management (streamline time sheet and expense report processes)
• Vendor Payment Services (automate vendor payments)

Dashboard and Reporting

• Collaborate (improve communications and teamwork, allowing for seamless company-wide collaboration)
• Dimensions (real-time reporting and up-to-the-minute financials)
• Interactive Visual Explorer (make strategic data-driven decisions with interactive virtual insights)

Billing

• Contract and Subscription Billing (custom tailor pricing models and billing schedules for SaaS businesses)
• Project Costing and Billing (issues invoices quicker and automates billing and revenue recognition)

Use Sage Intacct Platform for End-To-End Integrations

The Sage Intacct platform allows companies to further automate and streamline their processes by customizing and integrating third-party apps via their marketplace.

These tools use Sage Intacct’s open API framework, so they can be configured and customized by finance teams without requiring developers to program and code scripts. Unlike with other ERP vendors, integrated tools continue to work after system updates without needing to update them one at a time.

Popular integration categories include CRM, payroll, manufacturing, and AP automation.

While Sage Intacct has many rich features, implementing third-party solutions helps optimize the software to be suitable for the specific needs of businesses and customers.

For example, the AP automation function is far from perfect as it isn’t a full end-to-end solution.

Limitations include:

• Manual payment processes that cannot be personalized to customer needs
• Paper invoices, purchase orders, and receiving reports
• Manual data inaccuracies
• Missing supplier W-9 tax forms

This creates several issues, including increased risk of inaccurate data, scaling barriers, and difficulties for finance teams to add value-adding insights due to siloed systems and slowdowns in financial reporting.

Organizations should implement integrated AP tools to create a fully end-to-end automated AP process, from a self-serve portal for supplier onboarding to payments and reconciliations. This helps save time on accounts and eliminates the need to increase headcount as the finance department grows and adds layers of complexity due to forming subsidiaries and handling payments in different currencies and geographical locations.

Wider Efficiencies from Integrating with Third-Party AP Automation Tools

Using AP automation, available on the Sage Intacct Marketplace, for payables will allow global and scaling businesses to run their entire financial and operations processes from the cloud via a single connected login.

With a fully automated AP solution, businesses can eliminate 80% of their AP workload. This is achieved by the full lifecycle of payables being taken care of, with time-consuming manual compliance and tax activity being fully automated with AI, machine learning, and RPA.

Companies can also close their books faster and remove reconciliation-related bottlenecks by leveraging OCR, PO-matching, and payments. Bill payments are made using Global ACH, wire transfers, eChecks, SEPA, EFT, and PayPal, with support for 196 countries and 120 local currencies—accessible from a single dashboard.

Once implemented, finance staff will benefit from increased bandwidth which can be directed towards higher value activities, including:

• Providing input into the company’s strategy and planning
• Optimizing business performance to exceed targets
• Financial planning & analysis (FP&A)
• Managing and providing insight into the uncertainty of current economic conditions

Next Steps

You can learn whether Sage Intacct is the right ERP solution for your company by signing up to view an interactive demo and live Q+A. A free 30-day trial is also available.

When you are ready to make an informed decision and switch over, seek out a Sage Intacct professional services expert to get you up and running on your new ERP system.

As transitioning will likely take some time, it’s worthwhile considering moving over to AP automation tools that integrate with Sage Intacct before moving operations over. Doing so now will allow finance teams to take advantage of streamlined AP processes and master this new efficient way of working before transferring everything over to Sage Intacct.