Scale for Growth with Sage Intacct
Percipient Sage Intacct Consultant, Jimmy Ashcroft looks at how to scale for growth with Sage Intacct,
and explains some of the benefits of reporting, intelligence and agility.
Rigour for the Next Chapter
Many organisations opt for an entry-level or small business accounting solution, such as Xero, in their start-up phase. However, if left in place for too long, these entry-level systems can quickly impede growth.
In our experience as a long-standing Sage partner and Sage Intacct Partner of the Year 2024, solutions such as Xero serve very small companies incredibly well as a core accounting system until they need greater intelligence and reporting from which to move into their scale-up phase.
But when a business is in the throes of a growth phase, dedicating the time to selecting the right platform can be daunting. Systems at this level require more investment, necessitating a more comprehensive and robust business case.
Designed for Scale
With its cloud-native, intuitive and flexible approach, Sage Intacct represents a natural progression from Xero. Because both systems are built in the cloud for the modern finance professional, the feel and intuitive capabilities bring some familiarity. However, this is where the similarities end.
Sage Intacct has been designed to allow any company to segue seamlessly into a more intelligent, flexible, and scalable way of working. Its dashboards bring real-time intelligence to support visibility and allow informed decisions to be made on the fly to hone planning and strategy.
Sage Intacct brings deep capabilities in the following areas to support the scale up phase of a business:
Reporting
Intelligent reporting and dashboards deliver live visibility into financials and operations to make better, faster decisions based on comprehensive and detailed insights.
Consolidation
Sage Intacct supports financial consolidation for organisations with variable management structures. From group accounts to reporting on individual divisions or entities, it has the scope and flexibility to support financial management at the group and individual entity levels.
Multi-Entity Management
Because entities can be added with a few clicks, new acquisitions or restructured operations can be included in Sage Intacct to empower business leaders and provide cohesive insights and clarity.
Dimensions for Greater Analysis
With entry-level account systems typically only allowing for single-dimension accounting, Sage Intacct offers a completely new way to track and report on both financial and operational data while simplifying the main chart of accounts. Dimensions can cover anything from department, hotel, floor, or month to extend greater granularity in the way financials and performance are analysed.
Custom Fields for Deeper Insights
Custom fields can be added to Sage Intacct’s reporting to add greater depth to the analysis and intelligence within it. They can also underpin additional explanation or commentary on a particular area. For example, they could add payment terms to a supplier or contract hours for an employee to support whatever insights are needed. With informed data, more tailored and considered decisions can be made to optimise operational performance.
Dedicated Sage Products to Enhance Performance
With a plethora of third-party products and enhancements available, extending Sage Intacct’s capabilities can be achieved in a few quick and simple steps. With APIs to support seamless integration, adding new functionality to support specific goals is easy.
The Other House: A Story of Scale & Success
According to The Other House, an exclusive residents’ club, moving from Xero to Sage Intacct was a natural step in the company’s journey from its start-up phase to becoming fully operational.
Having conducted an extensive review process to select Sage Intacct, Tom Haley, CFO, of The Other House, commented: “Having witnessed Sage Intacct in action, and talked to existing customers, it represented the best digital platform to support our business. Underpinned by Percipient’s expertise and experience, its ability to integrate and provide intelligence was unrivalled in our search and selection process, and we went live after a smooth deployment.”
Ashley Slinger, Senior Finance Manager at The Other House, explains: “We now benefit from massive automation across the business. Because of the impressive integration via APIs, we can view pretty much anything via an easy-to-navigate dashboard, daily, weekly, monthly, or by any other configuration we choose. This unprecedented speed and intelligence means we can distil key data in minutes rather than days. In practice, this means that when, for example, we report to the bank, we can access and download the information needed in ten minutes rather than the two days it took previously.”
“Crucially, it can be used by anyone, not just finance, which promotes transparency and allows intelligence to be applied where relevant,” adds Tom. “Our quarter-end accounts are produced at a click of a button and we can plot and compare any insight we need to create a comprehensive picture, so that when viewing, say, profit and loss, we can look at the numerous variables associated with that.”
This data accuracy and integrity, in conjunction with its timeliness, means that any subjectivity is removed. Conversations focus on ‘the numbers’ and associated data points rather than a discrepancy, and decisions can be made faster, and in a more informed way. Because mundane tasks are automated, our people are able to focus on insight to drive both the customer experience and profitability. In keeping with our employee engagement, it means that we can keep our people focused on supporting the company’s targets, values and vision, rather than searching for data.
Intelligence Planning
When choosing the right platform for a start-up’s scale-up phase, opting for a cloud-native platform with reporting, intelligence, and the ability to scale in a few clicks is paramount. In parallel, selecting a system whereby updates are released at regular intervals to ensure you’re always on the current version is key to the scale necessary for long-term performance and profitability.
Sage Intacct Specialists
If you’re considering upgrading from your Xero accounting solution and would like to learn more about the scalable benefits of Sage Intacct for your business, please contact us or call the team today on 01606 871332.
