Intacct - Not bad if you don't plan on international growth
June 01, 2019
Intacct - Not bad if you don't plan on international growth
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct is our ERP that is used globally by all entities. It is mainly used in the Accounting / Finance department though we do have other departments using the Purchasing module for purchase requisitions and purchase orders. Sage Intacct solves a few problems for us: 1) Powerful reporting 2) Billing / Revenue recognition 3) Purchasing controls to name a few.
- The reporting is powerful. The ability to create dimension groups (account and department specifically) are, in my mind, understated by the Company. I am able to create different versions of balance sheets and income statements fairly easily that run at the push of a button.
- Push-button consolidation. Consolidation is quick and easy.
- AR and AP revaluation reports. These reports calculate the unrealized FX gain / loss on AR and AP at the push of a button. You can choose from the Intacct daily rates or input your own rates.
- Custom fields are easy to create and can be included in custom reports making reporting even more powerful!
- The contracts module does a poor job if your company is using multiple entities with different currencies. Several key functions of the module don't work (cancel a contract, for example). Also, "Paid Deferred Revenue" is not really paid deferred revenue - so be careful if your policy is to net down deferred revenue.
- Multiple entities with different base currencies: Intacct struggles here. For example, if you have a vendor bill that is to be allocated to two entities with different base currencies, Intacct cannot handle it and requires a complicated work around that introduces the risk you expect a global-capable ERP to eliminate. If two entities with different base currencies enter into an intercompany transaction, the native auto-balancing feature does not work - you have to enter the offsetting intercompany receivable / payable accounts which introduces some risk and unnecessary complexity (albeit, minor).
- AR and AP navigation: A good ERP has customer and vendor "portals" where you can explore the various transactions and master data of that vendor or customer. But Intacct doesn't have that at all. If you want to see the outstanding invoices of a client, you have to click into a sub-menu and then filter for that client.
- Prepaids and Fixed asset modules: These are not native modules. They are clunky and the reporting is extremely poor in these modules. Standard reports you would expect to see such as amortization or depreciation waterfalls are not available. It also has a hard time with different currencies.
- Intacct has helped us close the month more quickly than when we were on disparate systems.
- Intacct's reporting capabilities has helped us provide several powerful reports at the push of a button or with minimal manual effort.
- Though it has plenty of bugs, the Contracts module has helped us feel confident about being ASC 606 compliant and helped us begin tracking revenue by item code (which has never been available to us without multiple element arrangements).
Consolidation of our financial statements used to take more than an entire day and even after spending all that time, I could not assure you that if I consolidated it again or had my accounting manager consolidate it that it would produce the same result or tie out to a separate report. Now, however, I can consolidate my financials in seconds; and the financials always tie out to other reports. For example, if the CFO asks for a detail report of revenue or of R&D costs, it always ties out to the financials - and to the CFO, that's a sign you know what the hell you're doing.
Multi-entity and global consolidations ("IGC") is very powerful as long as all your entities have the same base currency. You run into issues when the base currencies do not match. For example, a vendor bill that must be allocated to more than one entity is accomplished without issue if all base currencies are the same which allows you to accurately spread the cost and still manage the payable in your AP subledger. However, if the entities have different base currencies, you will not be able to allocate the cost and be forced to use a complex work around.
T&E has been very useful, but as I have not been involved in the details, I am not able to provide more details.
Contract revenue management has been as rewarding as it has been frustrating. Again, the main issue is that much of the functionality breaks down if you have multiple entities with different currencies. Another issue is if a sales rep is paid his or her commission in currency A but sells a deal in currency B, the contract module is unable to handle that difference; and you have to find a work around. We have so many work arounds in Contracts.
T&E has been very useful, but as I have not been involved in the details, I am not able to provide more details.
Contract revenue management has been as rewarding as it has been frustrating. Again, the main issue is that much of the functionality breaks down if you have multiple entities with different currencies. Another issue is if a sales rep is paid his or her commission in currency A but sells a deal in currency B, the contract module is unable to handle that difference; and you have to find a work around. We have so many work arounds in Contracts.
I think Intacct competes well with NetSuite if you do not have entities with differing base currencies. Other than that, we are seriously planning on switching to NetSuite shortly because of all the work arounds we have to perform to do many simple activities, which is frustrating because the reporting capabilities in Intacct are fantastic.