Item: Sage Intacct
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We're using Sage Intacct in a multi-entity and multi-departmental matrix structure. We implemented it to provide us with global consolidated financials, a common GL and to access the multi-dimensional architecture that Sage Intacct provides.

Pros and Cons

The multi-dimensional architecture provides real organizational benefits, not least of which is allowing you to significantly simplify your GL. Our pre-implementation GL ran onto 17 printed pages - we got this down to 1.5 with our new GL.
The multi-dimensional architecture has improved our reporting due to the ability to report financials at a high level, but then to be able to drill down into very granular transactional views.
We have benefitted from the multi-entity structure as it has forced the global organization to standardize both policies and processes through the implementation process. Prior to implementing Sage Intacct, we had 4 different accounting packages and many of the policies and processes were almost unique to each entity.
The multi-currency functionality has also provided us with a more streamlined management of FX.

Our UK entity has not found Sage Intacct that useful in managing VAT, despite assurances from sales that VAT could be handled easily.
We have not found the consolidation process as easy to manage as first indicated. Specifically, there seems to be a lack of best practice info around B2A reporting in the multi-entity consolidation environment. Perhaps we should have invested more in training in this area as well.
The reporting engine is not as intuitive as some users would like. Again, perhaps we should have invested more in training our team here.
The lack of 24/7 support was problematic for our UK operation. I think the acquisition by Sage should strengthen this area over time.

Return on Investment

We are neutral overall on Sage Intacct's ROI. On the positive side, we have benefitted from the ease of multi-entity accounting and from standardization of policies and procedures, and the multi-dimensional architecture. On the down side, the frustrations with the inability to push bank transactional data into Sage Intacct like Xero can, the UK frustrations with accessing US help centers with time zone issues and the lack of a robust VAT system have created additional costs and complexities in developing work-around solutions.
We're in the process of implementing Adaptive Insights to improve our reporting and BI capabilities. I think the combination of the two products will finally help us realize the benefits we envisioned at the start of this journey.

Sage Intacct Automation

We are yet to benefit from automation capabilities to any significant extent, but I think this is more due to the nature of our global organization than due to any lack of functionality in the system.

Sage Intacct Extensibility

Already mentioned multi-entity and consolidations.

Ease of Integration

As a NFP, we started the implementation with a lack of internal resource, which was an oversight on our part. We were reliant on consultants and underestimated the complexity of implementing this type of solution over a multi-entity organization without having first worked through much more pre-implementation planning before commencing the rollout. If we did this again, we'd engage consultants earlier to guide us through the pre-implementation planning and do more internal process review / re-engineering prior to implementation. We would also do more work on identifying best practice especially around consolidations and budgeting prior to rollout.

Alternatives Considered

We considered a number of other solutions, but landed with Sage Intacct due to their more extensive NFP experience and because one of our entity CFOs had been through a difficult implementation with another possible solution and would not support a project using that solution.

Likelihood to Recommend

I believe that Sage Intacct works well in the tech space. We were drawn to their broad NFP client base and assumed a greater level of experience with multi-entity matrix structured organizations than perhaps was justified. Being a US-founded entity, perhaps Sage Intacct as a product is primarily a US-centric package, but we believe the acquisition by Sage should be beneficial in the mid-longer term for current and potential users in UK/Europe.

Sage Intacct Benefits

For us, the top three benefits have been:
1. Much improved consistency and standardization of accounting practice around our global network
2. The ability to massively reduce our GL through the use of dimensions (our UK entity had a GL that spanned over 17 pages of printed A4 when we started the implementation - this is now down to less than 2 pages)
3. Simplification of consolidation and multi-currency reporting

Systems Integrated With

Primarily Adaptive Insights as our reporting engine and budgeting / forecasting tool

The actual integration has been reasonably easy compared to the initial Intacct implementation. The key delay for us has been undertaking a full post-implementation review of Intacct, which included reorganizing our global management structure to set up sub-departments and a restructuring of our project coding to map to the new departmental structure. This allowed us to assign budgetary and management responsibility to the owners of the various sub-departments using Adaptive Insights.

Sage Intacct Dashboards

We didn't invest enough in training around report writing throughout the global organization, so struggled to get the most out of the Intacct dashboards. Having now implemented Adaptive Insights (AI), we will rely more on AI for reporting, especially around B2A. Some users will still have reports better suited to the Intacct report writing engine, but most of our staff do not have the tools or interest to wrestle with the Intacct reporting engine.

Sage Intacct Consolidation

The SI consolidation functionality does make it much easier to consolidate than any process we had used in the past. The key for us was ensuring that the consolidation model eliminated the correct accounts, and that the appropriate balance sheet items were excluded. Unfortunately the initial build of the consolidation engine by our consultants was not set up properly, which required additional consulting costs after the initial implementation. If you head down this route be sure to invest enough in training to get the best out of this functionality, which was mission critical for us.

In terms of related processes, the key changes for us came upstream of the consolidation functionality (e.g. setting up the dimensions, overhauling our GL and standardizing coding and data entry across our global organization). This allowed the consolidation to report like for like more than had been the case in the past.

Sage Intacct Mission

In the pre SI era, our global organization was a federation of independent national members, but with global programs and program directors who had very little meaningful data with which to run their programs. The SI implementation was mission critical to ensure that the program directors and their teams had global consolidated data with which to make better decisions.

We had also hoped to make significant improvements in the timeliness of providing these reports to these users in particular, but this is still a work in progress. The difficulty for us here is that half of our national members have volunteer book keepers or treasurers, so although the infrastructure for faster closing exists, we don't yet have the capacity in terms of paid hours to ensure that all members meet the standard close timelines.

Sage Intacct - a NFP view

Overall Satisfaction with Sage Intacct