Stephen Little, Sage Intacct Lead Consultant at Percipient, looks at the digital journey beyond Sage 50, and highlights some examples of the path taken by some of its customers for long-term growth, scale and agility.
In their start-up phase, many organisations opt for an entry level or small business accounting solution such as Sage 50.
In our experience, and as a long-standing Sage partner, this typically serves them incredibly successfully to a certain point in their growth trajectory, after which gaps become more prevalent, causing finance staff to lean on manual processes to bridge them, and limitations in functionality can start to impede growth opportunities. Reporting often lacks the depth and live intelligence demanded by senior executives, and cracks deepen with every (increasingly time-intensive) month end.
But when a business is in the throes of a growth phase, dedicating the time to select the right platform to replace Sage 50 and support this shift can be daunting. Not only do systems at this level require more investment and therefore a more comprehensive and robust business case, but the limitations in entry level systems also highlight a need for rigour and strict criteria for the next chapter. Of course, future planning inevitably consists of a whole host of unknowns, so marrying this up takes time, skill and experience to get right.
Designed for Scale
With its cloud-native, intuitive and flexible approach, Sage Intacct plays perfectly into the post-Sage 50, scale-up phase of an organisation’s growth journey.
And it’s not just because it is from the same family as Sage 50. It has been designed to allow any company to segue seamlessly into a more agile, flexible, intuitive and scalable way of working. Its dashboards bring real-time intelligence not only to support visibility, but to allow informed decisions to be made on the fly and help to hone planning and strategy.
Three Stories, One Platform
According to high end bar, restaurant and club venue leader, Inception Group, Sage 50, once efficient, had become a time-consuming and disjointed tool. Manual creation of analysis and intelligence was the norm, and the system’s limitations were hindering potential cost savings and performance improvements. The hospitality specialist’s migration to Sage Intacct marked a significant step in their digital transformation journey, as they sought to modernise their operations and gain greater intelligence in their business management.
“We were incredibly impressed by Sage Intacct’s ability to highlight all key business insights within a simple dashboard in just one click,” comments Govind Raghwani, Group Financial Controller.
“Since using the platform, we benefit from quick, slick reporting and access to the information we need in a matter of minutes. Depending on the query, we simply apply a date range and can see the insights we need at a company level or by site. Reports can be produced instantly. This is music to our Management Accountants’ ears, as they can easily check figures and formulas and produce reports accordingly.
“Month-end has shrunk by half, from three weeks to 10 days, which has boosted morale and given the team space to focus on other areas. It also makes accounting much more enjoyable, and because there is so much more scope for other initiatives, career development is much more interesting, with an increasing number of aspects to explore.
“The time this frees up can be used on other projects, from driving out costs to enhancing the customer experience across our unique venues. Not only does this ability boost confidence, but it expedites our cashflow.”
Laura Johnson, Head of Finance at The Climbing Hangar empathises with this kind of crossroads, having replaced Sage 50 with Sage Intacct based on its flexibility to support both current and future needs, following a market review which included Sage 200, SAP and NetSuite.
Not only has the shift to Sage Intacct allowed the leisure specialist to scale and stay one step ahead of its growth curve, but teams can also distil the right data to run the business, create management accounts concisely, and view P&L in varying levels of detail on dashboards that business users across the organisation can view as appropriate.
This capability affords greater visibility and allows the team to react quickly to trends and anomalies to capitalise on opportunities and mitigate risk.
“Sage Intacct forms a fundamental part of our digital strategy, delivering the speed, intelligence, and flexibility from which to run our business. Through its dashboards and reporting, it delivers a consolidated view of performance across all our centres,”
“Crucially, Sage Intacct has instilled us with the necessary scale to grow our estate to another two sites, including Reading and Edinburgh, without any additional financial resources. We now have a live view of cost commitments and associated invoicing, which ensures month-end accuracy and cashflow forecasting, which is crucial in a business like ours.”
And while built on different dynamics, the not-for-profit sector is embracing its digital journey in a similar way, as award-winning arts charity Aberdeen Performing Arts, which had outgrown its previous Sage 50 financial management system, can testify.
As well as Sage 50 system being overwhelmed and relying heavily on manual workarounds to process, its propensity for errors left the arts organisation open to risk.
Having selected and deployed Sage Intacct, Aberdeen Performing Arts’ financial management transitioned from a manual one-dimensional set of processes to a dynamic, seamless operation. The team can now look at their accounts by department, venue, event, or month, with the option to adjust and move things as mandated by the board or regulatory bodies for complete transparency and visibility.
“We can now get data on all kinds of areas and flex to report accordingly,” explains Matt Godfrey, Director of Financial and Commercial. “The system is so intuitive we can do this in a few clicks. Month end is easy, and we have substantial drillability to get a deeper understanding of the detail behind the headline figures.”
Taking the Sting out of Growing Pains
As each of these examples highlights, business growth typically outpaces system functionality before new digital capabilities are introduced, so making the right decision on what platform to choose for a scale-up phase of business growth is paramount.
Opting for a cloud-native platform whereby updates are released at regular intervals to ensure you’re always on the current version, and that any changes, whether it’s related to VAT, new rules or simply improving the way in which a process is executed, are simply rolled out, is key to the scale necessary for long term performance and profitability.
Recognising the right time to uplift digital capabilities is key to ensuring your platform supports you and allows your potential to be maximised. And moving to the right platform as your business evolves from a start-up to a scale up, is intrinsic to success.
Upgrade From Sage 50 to Sage Intacct
For more information on how we can support your digital journey and expedite business growth from Sage 50 to Sage Intacct, get in touch or call our expert team on 01606 871332.
