What is Sage Intacct?
Sage Intacct is a cloud-based, multi-entity, finance system that can streamline your accounts function through its high-quality, reliable features. Intacct’s features can elevate your accounts function from start to finish through its seamless and automated sub-ledger to general ledger posting, to the highly customisable and powerful reporting based on Intacct’s innovative dimensions.
This is just the start of the benefits of switching to Sage Intacct – in addition to its core suite of financial features, Intacct extends further with additional modules such as Projects, Contracts, and Fixed Assets.
If you are looking for a finance system that can scale with your business, then Intacct is the right product for you. Read on to see what Sage Intacct can bring to the table…
What can Sage Intacct do?
At its core, Sage Intacct is a product that enables you to manage your accounts function across multiple entities or at a group level with its top-level and entity-level structure.
This structure enables you to seamlessly access the necessary entity at the click of a button without the need to log off one business and into another. In addition to this, you also have access to Top Level; this is where shared data across the group can be loaded and managed. This can be a key driver for efficiency in your practice as there would no longer be a requirement to maintain various datasets across your entities such as Customers and Suppliers. Instead, a single list can be created with access restricted to relevant locations and departments, ensuring sensitive data is managed appropriately and compliant with your group’s standards.
Moreover, the benefits extend even further when it comes to intercompany transactions. Using an inbuilt inter-entity mapping, Intacct can recognise when one entity is paying or receiving funds on behalf of another and automatically post the necessary journals off the back of your transaction mitigating the risk of incorrect manual journal processing.
One of the biggest features that put Sage Intacct ahead is the ability to tag dimensions against transactions in the system. The standard dimensions that are available in Intacct (Location, Department, Class, Item, Employee, Supplier, and Customer) can be tagged in transactions to ensure that reporting is accurate and supports data-driven decision-making.
Dimensions are not simple, single-word tags; each dimension record comes with its data points and attributes which can be drilled into your reports – are you reporting on purchases per location? With Dimension Attributes, you can pull additional data relating to that location, such as the Location Manager, or a Location Type.
Moreover, dimensions are a key feature in simplifying your chart of accounts and maintaining the scalability of your accounts solution. As your business grows, you will no longer need to expand the chart of accounts to accommodate new locations or departments; instead, the dimensions which are maintained separately, can be updated to reflect the business changes.
What about those businesses that have complex purchasing and sales processes? With Sage Intacct’s Purchasing and Order Entry applications, which are available as part of the core product, it is possible to create a fully customised workflow. This workflow could enable control over the purchasing or sales process by determining what steps must be taken before creating invoices.
Furthermore, the Purchasing and Order Entry applications are an extension of the Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable applications which means your process can seamlessly move from quote to invoice while maintaining the reliability of your subledger to general ledger postings.
Sage Intacct is a product that understands the importance of making reporting easy, accessible, and accurate. By using the available report writers, Sage Intacct can transform your activity into key insights. With Sage Intacct’s Report Centre, you can access all of your reports in one place so you can finally say goodbye to the manual spreadsheets.
In addition to bringing your own reports into Intacct, the system also comes with several out-of-the-box financial and operational reports. These reports can enable immediate reporting and feedback from the start of your journey. Moreover, the out-of-the-box reports also account for your business growth, and, through the account groups and out-of-the-box categories; reports will continue to reflect your new accounts accurately.
The real impact of dimensions becomes apparent when working with reports by enabling accurate analysis through filtering data to key business drivers. Dimension filters can be configured into the data without the user needing to interact with it or, can be available at the point of running the report. This can be used to support key decision-makers to see the important data by choosing the relevant drivers, reducing the need for multiple versions of the same report.
How does Intacct go above and beyond?
Sage Intacct goes beyond the small snippet of the Core product that has been discussed so far and can offer powerful advanced modules that can extend the functions available.
One example of Intacct’s extended functionality could be from the additional Projects module which can enable you to bring project management into the accounts system. From this, you will be able to track transactions relating to projects through two new dimensions; Projects and Tasks. Furthermore, the project application can enable you to manage project resources using the Employee dimension, expenses, billing, and cost all from within one instance.
This extended functionality is beneficial as it enables you to link your project management with your accounts system to streamline invoicing and reporting.
In addition to Projects, the Intacct functionality can also be extended into managing your Fixed Assets register. Using the Sage Fixed Asset Management application in Intacct leverages automatic postings to manage your asset depreciation and lifecycle. Moreover, efficient design allows assets to be created directly from the Accounts Payable and Purchasing applications, reducing the time it takes to acquire, depreciate, and dispose of assets. As part of the Sage Fixed Asset Management application, the dimension functionality increases with the new Asset dimension which will allow you to tag any transaction related to an Asset to ensure the most accurate data is available in your reports.
The power of Sage Intacct does not stop with its native functionality. With its Open API, Intacct can also be leveraged as part of your business’ wider ecosystem to enable streamlined integration and communication with other products. As part of the Open API, Intacct maintains a high quality of readily available documentation covering the various components that can communicate with other products. Furthermore, Intacct has out-of-the-box reports available to assist you in monitoring the health and usage of API calls and the integration.
Moreover, should you need to extend the reach of Sage Intacct beyond its current capabilities, there is also the availability of the Sage Intacct Marketplace. Applications built by trusted sources to expand on Intacct’s functionality are readily available; all that you need to do is visit the marketplace and search by your business requirements to find a suitable enhancement.
Conclusion
This blog was all about pulling out what Sage Intacct can do to benefit you as a business and highlighting some features that can enhance your account’s function and business practices. It is possible to see the immediate improvement that comes from Sage Intacct’s core functionality, such as the efficiencies that come from seamless posting and automation, as well as the effective reporting capabilities that come from dimension tracking and Intacct’s report writers. Extended functionality was also discussed in which it was demonstrated how Intacct expands beyond the core accounts process to include project and resource management, as well as fixed asset management.
While it would be easy to take our word for how Sage Intacct can benefit your business, why not visit the rest of our website to see what our customers have said about the improvements they have seen since switching to Intacct!
Sophie is part of the itas marketing team, working across campaigns, anything creative, and running our social media accounts!
Sophie usually spends her days either working, drawing, or gaming. When she’s not at her desk, she will be out and about walking her dog, Cooper, or cuddling on the sofa with her cat, Rex!
