The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast

Dive into the world of Sage Intacct's latest product release notes with hosts Doug, Emily, and Matt. This episode breaks down key updates across four main areas: strengthened financials, industry insights, ease of use, and platform power. The hosts explore exciting new features like enhanced project reporting, construction-specific improvements, and revamped list views, while also discussing Sage's strategic partnerships and acquisitions.


  • (00:09) - Welcome to The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast
  • (00:38) - Diving into Product Release Notes
  • (03:28) - Strengths in Financials
  • (05:47) - Reporting Capabilities
  • (11:56) - Nonprofit and Construction Insights
  • (16:08) - Bank Matching and Automation
  • (19:15) - Construction Enhancements
  • (24:05) - Introduction to Sage Construction Management (SCM)
  • (25:35) - Sage Field Operations: A Game Changer for Project-Based Businesses
  • (28:38) - Donor Perfect: Enhancing Nonprofit Management
  • (30:44) - Sage Intact's Versatility Across Industries
  • (32:29) - The Role of Customer Reviews in Product Evaluation
  • (33:28) - Sage Intact's Competitive Edge in SaaS
  • (36:55) - Exploring Sage's Strategic Acquisitions
  • (41:58) - Platform Power: New Features and Enhancements
  • (45:59) - Ease of Use: Intelligent Time and Fixed Assets
  • (49:40) - Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes

Connect with the Hosts:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilybmadere
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattlescault
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dlewis715

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Creators & Guests

Host
Doug Lewis
Host
Emily Madere
Host
Matt Lescault

What is The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast ?

The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast is your inside track to the world of Sage Intacct and the broader accounting industry. Hosts Emily Madere, Doug Lewis, and Matt Lescault bring their unique perspectives and expertise to explore the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in this rapidly evolving space.
In each episode, the trio explores topics like the power of the Sage ecosystem, best practices for CAS, new Sage product features, and the impact of artificial intelligence. They'll be joined by industry experts and Sage insiders who share unfiltered insights you won't find anywhere else.
Whether you're an accountant looking to harness technology, a business exploring Sage solutions, or anyone fascinated by the future of finance, this is your show. Tune in for an unvarnished, unofficial look at the Sage heartbeat powering accounting today.

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Doug Lewis: All right. Welcome back everybody. The unofficial again emphasis on unofficial Sage podcast Doug Lewis along with my I'll call him trusty Sidekicks. Uh, even though I report to them most of the time. Emily and Matt this. So, guys, this this is going to be an exciting one. Honestly, this might be the sexiest episode we ever put out into the ethers. Oh, [00:00:30] boy, I know.

Emily Madere: And sexy. You guys know where I'm going.

Doug Lewis: I did, I did, Emily, and I think you both know where I was going with that. We're talking product release notes. This is. Oh, boy. Yeah, yeah, well, we should try that again. We'll rerecord that. How about that, Matt? No, no, let's keep it in. Let's keep that, uh, that I'll call it semi enthusiasm. Uh, in there because that's great.

Matt Lescault: Some cool stuff. Right.

Doug Lewis: It is. Um, it sounds boring. It is boring. It's technical. But you know what? It's [00:01:00] pretty cool if you're in this world or thinking about jumping into the Sage world. So it's going to be pretty high level. We'll do our very best to stay out of the weeds as much as possible. I do need a promise from both of you on that. I know I'm good at that, but I don't know anything. So, Matt, Emily, are we good to stay out of the weeds on this one?

Emily Madere: Yeah, I'm gonna keep it very high level. And I'm going to I'm going to talk about, you know, the features that were released. But I think I'm going to spend more time talking about the value that our customers will receive from these new releases.

Matt Lescault: I'm hoping to achieve [00:01:30] the same thing. Emily, I've been told I'm long winded at times. I guess maybe that's why I'm on a podcast, but it should be high level.

Doug Lewis: Good, good. Now that we're all in agreement, this will be, uh, hopefully educational and somewhat interesting, but we've got to go through it because it's important stuff. So what are we really going to hit? What are the product release notes? We're going to walk through some of the changes, the updates, the features, the enhancements, all that fun stuff. Uh, when we can expect some more of these, and at the end we'll [00:02:00] kind of leave it a little open and we'll open ended, if you will. But I want to know kind of what everyone wants from the next release notes. So once we kind of go through all the stuff we're going to hit, listen again. What are they the strength in the financials, some industry insights, ease of use of these things. Platform power. We're going to go through a little bit of everything by the way. These are pretty comprehensive when they do come out. So we're going to hit it at a really high level like we hit here in a moment ago. So all right Emily I will turn it over to you. What are the product release notes. And before [00:02:30] you jump in, let's go out on a limb here. All right? The three of us. I think we all know that. I don't know anything. I don't know what I'm talking about at any given time. So please, as you explain this, explain it like I'm a five year old.

Matt Lescault: You know.What was the first time you heard that saying?

Doug Lewis: Oh, boy, that might honestly been the US version of The Office. Uh, when? When the accountants were explaining a surplus to Michael Scott. That might have been it for me.

Matt Lescault: Mine [00:03:00] was the movie Philadelphia. Denzel Washington, lawyer Tom Hanks. And he goes, explain this to me like a two year old. I think it was two year old at the time, but I'm gonna bring it all the way back then. And maybe I'm I'm sharing my age. Uh, at least in this, uh, in this audience.

Doug Lewis: Uh, your age was shared long before that comment, I think. But, Emily, why don't you kick it off? Listen, what are these product release notes? Uh, just kind of walk through really high level.

Emily Madere: So high level. Sage really [00:03:30] broke down these product release notes into four main categories, I think, Doug, you mentioned all four, one of those being strengths in financials. So Sage Intacct, of course, is a best in class cloud based accounting solution. So they really added some value into um, into the financial statements, which we're going to go into a little bit of detail today. They've added some great power into industry insights. And this is in the nonprofit and construction space. So Matt has really great visibility in experience in nonprofits. And [00:04:00] of course, my firm kind of we work in construction. So I think we have some some great pieces to talk through their ease of use. So Sage Intacct has been voted number one in ease of use and customer satisfaction year over year by its customers. So they've added some more power in the ease of use section. And then what I'm really excited to talk about and that is platform power. So how is Sage Intacct changing their platform to benefit their customers?

Doug Lewis: And you know, we hit it kind of at the beginning. We're going to go through some of these four, four sections piece by piece here. But product [00:04:30] release notes Emily, how often do these things really come out? Yeah.

Emily Madere: So Sage Intacct releases, um, feature function releases four times a year. So every quarter and these are automatically pushed out to their customer base because Sage Intacct is a cloud based solution. So there is no downtime when these upgrades are being pushed out. And they're typically being pushed out at like 3:00 in the morning. Hopefully when you're not working. But a couple recent examples of of releases that I've been excited about is Sage Intacct [00:05:00] released a Sage Intacct data flow in 2024, which we'll have a little bit more detail about that one. Sage also introduced Sage Intacct payroll, powered by ADP. So previously Sage Intacct did not have a payroll capability. You always had to outsource your your payroll. But now since we've partnered with ADP, there's a pretty robust integration that a lot of my clients are taking advantage of. And then as well as, you know, adding and updating features to AR app inventory, etc.. [00:05:30]

Doug Lewis: And Matt, I know you you had mentioned you're a little long winded at times, which I don't think anybody would disagree with whatsoever. Do you want to kind of touch on the first section, the really strength and financials piece? Because I think that's something that's kind of up your alley and something that's, that's, that's near and dear to you. Well.

Matt Lescault: I think like any of us, we love reporting. We love to know the data that, uh, our organizations, uh, are telling us. And what I mean by that is what is the story that [00:06:00] the financials and the statistical information within our accounting products, our GL, our ERP are and I got a question real quick. You know, we have this rule around if we use an acronym, uh, and we don't we don't say it. The acronym. Correct. Explain it that we have to put $50 in. Now if we've already explained it in a previous episode, do we have to explain it again? I just want clear, you know, rules here.

Doug Lewis: So [00:06:30] I think for me and Emily. No. For you. Yes. Every single time. No, I think it's fair game. If it's been explained, explain.

Emily Madere: What a GL is.

Matt Lescault: We did GL last time actually an ERP last time. Um, yes.

Doug Lewis: We did.

Doug Lewis: Know you're safe. If we've explained the acronym before in the past, it's safe.

Matt Lescault: I just want to make sure, you know, because we're still defining the rules of engagement in this game. And Doug will do anything to make me put as much of my money in this pot and as little of his as possible.

Matt Lescault: Yep.

Doug Lewis: That's you've you've [00:07:00] described the the strategy to a tee. So that's perfect. No I think we've explained it. You're in the clear. If we've never touched on an acronym before. Ooh. Big red flag coming up. 50 bones in the bucket.

Matt Lescault: Yeah.

Emily Madere: And we're we're expecting our listeners to also make us accountable. Right. Because we can only catch so much fair.

Doug Lewis: Yes, we are, we are. We are really counting on our listeners to make Matt responsible. You're right. Emily. Yes. You're right. Yeah. Just just.

Matt Lescault: Matt, just thank.

Matt Lescault: Thank you, both of you. Appreciate that. Anyway, what [00:07:30] I'm trying to say is that the data that is in your ERP, in your accounting system, allows you to tell a story, allows a story to be told to you in a lot of ways as an organization and where intacct has always Succeeded and has been a leader in the industry, really centers around the capability on the reporting side. Now there's multitudes of reporting modules within intact. And this isn't all about the release notes. As I as I mentioned and as [00:08:00] Emily mentioned, we want to keep this high level, but I think it's important to to understand the, the full ecosystem when we're talking about strength and financials. So within intact you have the financial reporting which is the baseline reporting that everybody gets. And it is very capable. It is customizable. It allows for dimensional reports. So when I talk about dimensional reports I mean across your your departments and your classes, your projects, your contracts, you know, any of those type of things. And we can get into more detail later on what, what all that means. [00:08:30] But for for the system, there's also interactive Custom Report Writer, which allows you to go even further, which is kind of in tax version of Crystal report writer. And then you even have things like the Interactive Visual Explorer, which allows for more graphical representation of your financial reporting. And this is why Intacct continues to be a leader when it comes to the reporting side. Before the release notes. And the thing that I was really excited to see [00:09:00] come out was A investment, and what I believe will be a continued investment in the reporting around the projects capabilities. The Project Dimension Projects is one of, I think, one of the most sold add ons to the core financials of intact, and it could be the project dimension only from a project tracking to project costing to project tracking and billing, which is the full on projects module.

Matt Lescault: And again, [00:09:30] I don't want to get too far into the weeds here, but each one has a separate set of capabilities and is important to organizations, especially in the nonprofit world, professional services world. And even there's kind of a correlation on how projects work into CRE or construction real estate, which I'm going to let Emily jump into this a little bit just to make sure that that we hit. But what the release notes and it's it's minor from a user perspective, [00:10:00] it doesn't seem like a lot, but it is a big shift or a big update to what reporting capabilities in the projects. And what it does is it allows for a multi-project reporting capability. And if anybody understands how reporting works in from a software perspective, from a database perspective, is you kind of have objects that you're reporting against and objects have to be cross-referencing to be able to, to query appropriately. And so what [00:10:30] Intacct has invested in is to bring some of those capabilities out of the interactive custom report writer, what you'd have to do custom directly into the financial To reports section of of the reporting. Bring it to general availability, meaning that anybody that uses it that has intact can use it, which is pretty impactful and shows really where we're going. Uh, from a roadmap on their financial reporting, on the project side, I'm going to stop there and say, Emily, please [00:11:00] throw in anything that you got.

Emily Madere: Yeah. So I think a baseline intact reporting capabilities are just the standard are phenomenal. You can get a lot of information out of our standard reports. And I think out of the box. Intacct has over 100 different reports available to you right after you've gone live.

Matt Lescault: There's 142 or 144, right?

Emily Madere: A lot of of financial and other type of reports are available to you as far as the, the project [00:11:30] piece of it. So just because of where I live, I'm in Louisiana. So we have a lot of project based businesses. So we utilize our the project capability. Often now, what we like to do with our clients is maybe start them with the with the basic project and then move them up to project billing. Project costing, because you definitely don't want to take on a lot at one time. You just want to get little pieces.

Matt Lescault: Yeah, there's there's that. And I want to just give a quick shout out to [00:12:00] the nonprofit side. So it happens on the nonprofit side is it turns into grant tracking and billing, but it's still just the project dimension that's being used, renamed. And so many nonprofits are using that Project Dimension or Grant dimension for their federal and state grant tracking. The big difference in how Intacct works versus, say, a QuickBooks or a lot of other project products and why Intacct is the platinum, uh, program [00:12:30] for nonprofits has to do with this module by itself, and why this reporting is so, so important. The fact of the matter is that most grants are not managed on the fiscal year that the organization is. So if a organization is a calendar year, but you have a federal grant that is on the federal year ending 930, it's a different it's a different fiscal year that you're reporting on. Other products don't have that same capability to truly track around the needs and that you run into with single [00:13:00] audits, grant reporting, things of that nature. Grant billing and so forth.

Matt Lescault: So, so and.

Doug Lewis: Some of the other products, Matt, that don't have that specific feature. I mean, what can that lead to, you know, from from an implementer or a consultant standpoint, somebody who's actually managing those clients?

Matt Lescault: There you go. Hell, just.

Matt Lescault: Lying on Excel every day. It's one of my first questions. I talked to a nonprofit. I'm like, how are you doing those grants in Excel? Oh, do I have a solution for you?

Emily Madere: Yeah, [00:13:30] I was working with a prospect the other day, and, um, all of their grants are being held in a spreadsheet right now. And they showed me that spreadsheet, and they kept on scrolling and they kept on scrolling. And it's this it's this one guy who's putting in and tracking everything manually. It takes him a forever to do that.

Matt Lescault: And and with the release note, let's think about this real quick. The difference between having to run one individual report for every grant or every project, versus being able to run a one report with [00:14:00] all the information for all your grants. It seems simple, but it's really impactful.

Doug Lewis: All right. So moving moving on Matt. Uh, listen, the reporting for projects is obviously a pretty key feature. What else has come out in the strength of financials portion of the release notes.

Matt Lescault: Yeah. So there's there's an increased capability around bank reconciliations and matching and so bank integrations uh, which is all about automation and continuing to drive the [00:14:30] efficiency of I so with with automation of bank matching and the integration of bank connectors into Intacct allows the system to automatically match up transactions from from a bank feed to the transactions happening within Intacct. So what we're seeing here with this release is an enhanced feature set of being able to bring that information and increased number of banks that are being available and just an overall continued investment [00:15:00] into that component. If I'm being completely honest with where Intacct is when it comes to their bank connection and feed component, it is not as successful as a QuickBooks. Quickbooks basically can connect to every bank, has a strong bank feed, has a strong bank match. It's been one of the things that Intacct has lacked as a product for some time, and this is a great enhancement that we're going to see. That's going to create additional capabilities and bring it closer to [00:15:30] what kind of the SMB world would expect? Small business? Ha ha. You thought you got me.

Matt Lescault: Small business.

Doug Lewis: I was so close. Oh, son of a gun. All right, you're safe. No. He's good. He's good at.

Matt Lescault: What.

Matt Lescault: The SMB world is expecting when they're going to upgrade or migrate to a a mid-market product. And quite frankly, intact is really focused on kind of that higher end SMB market currently. And I think there's going to be a big, big, [00:16:00] big opportunity to show and get and gain the trust of that, that client base.

Emily Madere: I think I'd also like to add in, I think Matt was was spot on. Sage Intacct can can definitely reach out to your banks. It's very specific banks. It's normally the bigger ones. So you think your Capital One, your Chase's, your whatever TD banks they are working on adding in the rest of the banks. But this is a really great opportunity. And I just want to point it out for you to leverage AI in accounting. So if you [00:16:30] think about if you think about your manual bank rec, you're you're just doing that very manual. This is a great opportunity for you to adapt some, some AI into your workflow and really cut down on that manual work.

Matt Lescault: Absolutely. And what you said that I think is most impactful is they have bank feeds. Bank of America PNC you're you're spot on. But it's those regional those local banks that were not seen as successful of a bank feed [00:17:00] historically where I think this this plays a role. And part of this is also enhancing the capabilities of the import of bank files. So even if the bank is not part of the network, they were able to bring in the bank transactions pretty easily from an import file and then use the matching capability, which has another, uh, another great efficiency opportunity for whether it's outsourcing firms or internal accounting departments.

Doug Lewis: Shift [00:17:30] in shifting gears a little bit. Kind of moving into the industry insights portion of the notes. Um, obviously there's a there's again, a lot to go through. We're only picking off some of the really high level or key ones that we think are important to kind of walk through from a, from a 10,000 foot overview. So donor perfect is obviously something we want to hit in a minute. Matt I'll come back to you on that. But Emily, the construction enhancements in the in the most recent notes, do you want to maybe just walk through that. Because I know that's kind of right up your alley. What you do, you [00:18:00] live and breathe it. What's going on in that world?

Emily Madere: Yeah, I switched between construction and healthcare quite often. Um, but there are some really great construction, um, enhancements out there. So just a little background. Sage Intacct is relatively new to the construction space. They have, um, Sage 300, which Sage 300 is is very much a construction software where Sage Intacct is adopting some of the functionality that Sage 300 had. So I think Sage Intacct [00:18:30] construction is a great solution. I think if you're going to evaluate it, you need to evaluate it with the right partner so that they can help you walk through it to make sure it's the right solution for you. I'm just going to kind of leave that there. As for what they're doing to the product, I think probably in every product release notes, we're going to see some construction enhancements just because, like I said, they're adding to it. They are constantly, you know, innovating it. But in this release, notes Sage Intacct has added are retainage to [00:19:00] invoices. So now it includes a project contract, billing information. And this is really giving people visibility that they need.

Matt Lescault: So one of the things that I want to mention here, I'm not my firm is not a one of the licensed partners like Emily's firm is or Amper for the CRE Module, and doing that is only a very few select firms. Let's be very clear there. I don't know all the firms. Emily might might know that. The [00:19:30] reality, though is that we're intact. Did not succeed for four construction firms prior to the release of CRE prior, you know, prior to any of the the release notes that we're talking about here. But even before the the core module happened has everything to do with what is called work in progress or whip in the construction world and Retainage and how Retainage correlates back into work in progress. So what was happening in some instances [00:20:00] is that we had partners out in the ecosystem that were kind of building their own, uh, how do we want to put it, their own add ons, using platform services to try to to achieve the necessary the necessary feature set to support the construction. But it wasn't really, truly there, as Emily mentioned, Sage 300, which was, I think, the old timber line. Is that right, Emily? Yep. Well, it's still a server based product. And this is another movement into intact being the [00:20:30] platform or the feature platform. The flagship product of of Sage. The addition of Retainage into the R module and being able to track that is key to what we call air invoicing in, uh, in the construction world and that air invoicing. And look, Doug's giving me this look. And, you know, for those people that are listening, who's going, this guy's getting into the weeds again here. Yeah, I've.

Emily Madere: At least kind of two.

Doug Lewis: I gotta I'm getting close to pulling you out of there. But go. Go ahead.

Matt Lescault: Go. [00:21:00] The point.

Matt Lescault: The point here is what I want to see and what I'm hoping that these release notes continue to, to handle are these kind of nuanced aspects of what what is required from air invoicing, which is the in the Association Institute of Architects or something like that. Again, I don't live in this space, and where that goes into certified payroll and things of that nature. And so as we're looking to future release notes, I know that we're supposed to end with this. Those are the kind of things that I'm looking for to see how we continue, [00:21:30] how intact, continues to elevate the product and support the needs of the construction side.

Emily Madere: Yeah. And you you added an important piece, especially with the I, I building billing my gosh. And the, the certified payroll. So we have a we have a couple different workarounds if you would for for those aspects I think probably every partner does. But I think you're right. If Sage can figure out how to integrate AI billing into intact, it's going to be a huge [00:22:00] win for our construction clients.

Matt Lescault: So one of the things I wanted to mention was the fact that Sage also acquired Core Con, a third party product in the construction management side of things. Emily, what have you seen on that?

Emily Madere: Yeah, I think the acquisition between Sage and Core Con, it definitely added a lot of functionality that Sage was losing before. So QuakeCon has turned into Sage Construction Management, also known as SCM. So we're really actually able to leverage the construction management side and intact and integrate [00:22:30] the two. So your information that goes into your, your your construction management software, um, like, you know, your, your progress billing, all that good stuff can now be automatically, you know, moved over to intact. And this is really taking the place from, from people who are using like a Procore. I think Procore is a great solution. The only issue with Procore is that it's very expensive. So this is a relatively inexpensive option for people who are wanting to either [00:23:00] move away from Procore or not even go that direction anyway and have, um, automated integrated financials.

Matt Lescault: Well, I think.

Matt Lescault: The key here in what we're talking about with air billing and certified payroll, is that what Cauchon did was incorporate some of that components into their product, if I remember correctly. So that's that goes back into like what we're hoping to see from a release in the future around CRE, uh, and the construction capabilities within intact. Uh, again, my knowledge is not like Emily's, [00:23:30] it's just more, uh, from an outsourcing perspective and what construction firms have needed to kind of where I came from before I started my firm.

Emily Madere: Yeah. And, you know, from a from an SEM piece, we really don't we really don't have that. Most of our clients have the Procore or the, um, I think it's called Autodesk, but I am excited about another product that they have and that is ESCO Sage field operations. So, um, this is a great solution for construction [00:24:00] companies, but it's really my project based businesses who need it. They need some sort of field service tool that their their guys can go out and say they've completed a project, they can take pictures. And Sage field operation is really that that product, that field operations people can use to have an integrated solution. Tell me.

Matt Lescault: More. Is this do you see this as directly in competition with Service Titan? Which which is was the go to for service based kind of blue collar trades organizations?

Emily Madere: Yes, I [00:24:30] definitely do. And the professional services I'd say I use professional services loosely. Your your field operation type of businesses. They're really going to benefit from this solution. And that's actually one of Sage's at least one of my biggest focus is that vertical. I think Intacct is is a good space for it. And I think by them, you know, developing in, in, in integrating SFO, I think is a great place and puts them at a really competitive place in the market.

Doug Lewis: So I'm [00:25:00] gonna I'm gonna pull I'm gonna try at least to pull us out of the, the semi weeds that we're starting to sink into a little bit. Um, one piece though, in the Industry Insights portion of the release notes, uh, mention it at the top of this thing. Donor. Perfect. Matt, do you want to you want to give that a little love? I want to, I want.

Emily Madere: To I want to first go in and ask you. So nonprofit is a big piece of your business. Yeah. So like do you have a percentage?

Matt Lescault: I think we're at 15 to 20% of our, of our business [00:25:30] is nonprofit. So it's it's probably the number one leading industry within our organization.

Matt Lescault: I'll take it a step further.

Doug Lewis: Size of nonprofits that you generally tend to work with.

Matt Lescault: Oh, just ballpark it.

Matt Lescault: I mean, we have our small nonprofits that are, you know, a million, 2 million up to some nonprofits that are 100 million. I would say sweet spot ends in that kind of 5 to 15, 5 to 20 range. In a lot of ways, we find that those are most, uh, and I should say this. There's a difference between on the outsourcing side and the implementation side. So we [00:26:00] range higher on the implementation side only. And we, we uh, we lean kind of smaller on the outsourcing side as it just is kind of the natural way of things. I'm really excited about what the donor perfect partnership means for Intacct in general. So I'm going to hit on the donor perfect thing. I'm actually going to be less detailed on this than I was on some of the other stuff, because of where we're where I think this is going. Uh, donor [00:26:30] perfect is basically a CRM or a customer relationship management product for donor based nonprofits, or 501 C three seconds, those nonprofits that are trying to get corporate giving or individual giving or board give gets and they want to track who is giving them the money. They want to send out thank yous. They want to they want to, uh, hit their list throughout the year and provide value added information about the organization and so forth, uses this product, and it is a widely, widely popular product. I've worked [00:27:00] with donor perfect probably almost since the start of us. Working with nonprofits was probably somewhere like 2008, 2009. So it's been it's been around for quite some time.

Emily Madere: I and if and if our listeners you know, if you haven't picked out it I know Matt has already said it, but nonprofits are one of Sage Intacct biggest industries.

Matt Lescault: Well, I'll go one step further. I would say Sage Intacct was built for nonprofits in a lot of ways, but.

Emily Madere: But and I'll take it from from you [00:27:30] from there. But Sage Intacct does a great job of building a product that many people can use. So if you're a nonprofit, if you're construction, if your project, if you are hospitality, whatever you are, I think finding the right partner to work with you.

Matt Lescault: And please forgive me, what I meant was way back when it kind of started in that nonprofit place. It is so much more today. I mean, it is a leader in nonprofit, is a leader in healthcare. It is a leader in professional services, family offices. [00:28:00] You know, Emily talks about construction. Cre is going to take this into a leader of construction. I could go on and on and on. Uh. Point being, is that really the foundation of, you know, call it 2012, 2013, 2014? What led up to the acquisition of Intacct by Sage? It was really known in that nonprofit community. First and foremost, I didn't mention SAS. Sas is another one where it is a leader. In fact. Quick note when it comes to G2 crowd, uh, and those uh and [00:28:30] what's the other one? Gartner Sage.

Matt Lescault: Radius.

Matt Lescault: Trust radius. Now Intacct uh outperforms.

Doug Lewis: Now, who are these people that you're saying for anyone who might not be aware with what these institutions actually offer.

Matt Lescault: Doug, you know this. So you answer.

Matt Lescault: I do.

Doug Lewis: I do, but go ahead.

Matt Lescault: When you actually know something, it's.

Doug Lewis: Not about it's not about me. It's it's not about you.

Matt Lescault: This is your thought process.

Doug Lewis: This is your thought process. Please just explain who they are. I want to make sure our listeners are not in the weeds like you.

Matt Lescault: All right, all right. So basically these [00:29:00] are organizations that go and get customer reviews. They evaluate products and they assess where the products win in comparison to each other. So that way, as a buyer, you have insights into what the different feature sets are, what the different, uh, what the different modules do and don't do, and then what the customers are saying of ease of use, ease of implementation and so forth and so on.

Matt Lescault: Yeah, I.

Emily Madere: Like to compare it to the Amazon reviews of software. [00:29:30]

Matt Lescault: Oh, there you go. Yes.

Doug Lewis: Except, uh, the majority of these reviews, in theory, are legitimate and they're paid for.

Emily Madere: Yeah, yeah.

Matt Lescault: They are generated.

Emily Madere: No ChatGPT. Um, yeah. Though they are ethically gotten. I don't know the word. I'm looking for.

Matt Lescault: Sourced.

Emily Madere: Sourced, ethically sourced. Yeah. It's it's truly end users that go input put their negative or positive thoughts on these products.

Matt Lescault: So I was just going to say is that now [00:30:00] intact as of earlier this year is beating NetSuite in the SaaS industry, which I think is huge. A huge thing to talk about, especially in the competitive market that we're here.

Doug Lewis: I don't think you did it right. It's huge.

Matt Lescault: Huge, huge.

Doug Lewis: And we won't say who that isn't, you know, impersonating. Yeah. Um, yeah. Next time.

Matt Lescault: Bring this all the way back to where we started with doing it. Perfect. The reason I find this so interesting [00:30:30] is what it means for the future. What I believe it means for the future. I had opportunity this week to talk to, uh, one of the individuals that focuses on, uh, or focused on this partnership with donor. Perfect. And so what we have here is Sage Intacct donor management powered by donor perfect. Just the same way as Emily mentioned earlier on that we have Sage Intacct payroll powered by ADP and what [00:31:00] we're talking about here is they use the term gray labeling, where intact is going out into the marketplace, finding the best in class solutions, and partnering with them to bring a fully fledged software solution to the micro verticals, not just the nonprofit space. But when you talk about donor perfect, you're really talking about 501 C three seconds. A 500 1C3 is a mission based nonprofit. Unlike [00:31:30] a 501 C6, which is an association which wouldn't get really donors. So micro verticalization vertical izing the partnerships that they're having and turning the product into a true ERP. What I mean by that is, if you think about another episode that we talked about, ERP is an enterprise resource planning. I didn't say that because I had to. I said it because it's important to this conversation. The enterprise resource planning really talked about historically being able to do everything well. The vision that [00:32:00] we're seeing is that Sage is going, I don't need to be everything. I need to be a product that has really strong core, really strong set of certain modules, really great reporting. And then I'm going to partner with the donor perfect with an ADP to do what they do best and bring it to the market. So I expect to see additional gray labeling almost every year. Another gray label coming out I need.

Emily Madere: To ask I need to ask Matt.

Matt Lescault: Yep.

Emily Madere: Throw it out. What are you hoping to see? Who are you thinking will be [00:32:30] gray label next?

Matt Lescault: It's not the who, it's what. Micro vertical.

Matt Lescault: Okay. What?

Matt Lescault: And if I have anything to do with. It'll be associations. So go into association management software and partnering up with one of them to gray label into that space.

Doug Lewis: Okay, you heard it here. Corporate Sage. That's what Matt needs. That's what Matt wants. That's what Matt's going to get.

Matt Lescault: No, it's not even needed.

Matt Lescault: I just I go.

Matt Lescault: Back.

Matt Lescault: To what Sage focuses on and I don't want [00:33:00] to take away from the other industries, but I think the largest population of customers is a nonprofit, they're going to double down on where, uh, where it is. So I just that's that's why I believe it's it's going in that, that place.

Matt Lescault: No, that.

Doug Lewis: That makes all the sense in the world. Uh, shockingly, it wasn't even boring. Um, that explanation, which I like, and the gray labeling, uh, concept, you know, in the technology space isn't new. It's been around, of course, but I would also be interested to see what Sage is going to do from the acquisition standpoint. We've already [00:33:30] talked about a few of their key acquisitions, um, over the past couple episodes and even on this one here. And, uh, that seems to be, you know, still the primary strategy for, for growth in a lot of these technology entities or these conglomerates that are consolidating the best in class and doing what they do, bringing it under their umbrella. So, you know, the gray labeling plus the acquisition space, I think Sage is going to continue to really, really type of, I don't want to say explode into some of the specific verticals like you were alluding to, but [00:34:00] I think they're going to continue to drill down and doing what they do best and trying their very best from a technology standpoint, which is almost impossible to keep it simple. Um, that's that's what honestly, I like about Sage. Their messaging doesn't get convoluted very often. Uh, they're very laser focused. And, you know, when you look at these verticals and their acquisitions and the partnerships they do, they're for a reason, which I can't say about all technology companies who simply just acquire everything that moves.

Matt Lescault: Well, what I've what I've witnessed, [00:34:30] what I think I have no basis. No one said anything to me. Don't you know? And I talked to enough people that sometimes I do know what I'm talking about on this one. It feels to me like the acquisitions that Sage has made have been all centered around replicating capabilities that their historic core legacy software Had had a foothold in. We talked about Sage 300 and Timberline and now investing in Cree. And then the Kraken acquisition [00:35:00] makes a lot of sense, because Intech doesn't want to lose those customers that are at Timberline to go to another product. They want to at least maintain or convert. Now, if we look at the Sdmo, which is the Sage distribution and manufacturing operations, I think we talked about it last time. I actually now memorized that acronym, uh, because I also found out that we're one of only three partners in Africa, Middle East that are authorized to sell. That is, [00:35:30] if you look at the products in, uh, in Africa, Middle East that they're trying to convert, which is Sage 300 there, which is a completely different Sage 300, just to confuse people, by the way, and Sage 200 evolution there, they're investing in what will maintain their base. And then it looks like what they're doing is partnering with those organizations that that add capability that they don't have in their core function. [00:36:00] And so that's what I feel is going on, whether I'm right or not. We'll see.

Doug Lewis: Well, it's on record now. So there's no going there's no going back there Matt. I love that you're you're in record.

Matt Lescault: Even on.

Matt Lescault: The CMO. You know, there was an acquisition about a year ago of bright Pearl, which was an inventory management product. And that sort of goes back into that distribution and everything else. So there seems to be a very strategic approach to what they're doing today, uh, around those, those acquisitions.

Doug Lewis: Speaking of [00:36:30] strategic approach, let's try to get somewhat back on track here. So we're again, we're going through kind of the four core pieces of the release notes. Uh, gosh. What do we have left? We have ease of use and platform power I think are kind of the last two. We haven't really hit too much. Emily, do you want to let's let's shift into platform power. Do you want to kind of share some thoughts on what you interpreted out of the release notes there.

Emily Madere: Yeah, there were two really main features that came out of of, you know, our two releases, Platform Power, and that is a new, um, Rest [00:37:00] API and that's in beta and then new list and that's also in beta. I do want to take a second to talk about the list views. So we we, as in myself and my colleague, have been demoing the new list views in intact. And we have gotten so much great feedback from all of our prospects and all of our clients. Our our people, whether they're prospects or clients, are so excited about this feature because this feature is giving them the, I would almost say QuickBooks Live [00:37:30] functionality when it comes to list views. So you can now expand columns, you can move columns, you can filter columns. There's also a subset that that comes out of of the column. So you can have like two screens on one. It's a it's a really great feature, but I think the most important piece of that is it's in beta right now.

Matt Lescault: So you say.

Matt Lescault: This is like a visualization capability within the lists where you can sort.

Emily Madere: Of yeah, I wish this is a podcast I wish I could show you, but yes, I'm trying to describe [00:38:00] it. It's very much a visualization visualization piece of it, and it's customizable and it's available in all list views and intact.

Doug Lewis: And when you say when you say customizable, Emily, is that off the shelf customizable, or do you need a partner that really understands how to do this thing?

Emily Madere: It's it's off the shelf. So right now, anyone who is using Sage Intacct can go to a list view and activate beta, and their list views will change. So the previous list views are very stagnant and they're not really customizable. But these new ones are definitely offering [00:38:30] a lot of functionality.

Matt Lescault: That's pretty that's pretty cool because before it was like, okay, I want to see 20 on a page, 20 on a page, or 500 on a page. And that was about as much. And then you could go to like the show details and add columns, but you couldn't actually put them in the order that you wanted to. That was most easily for you to to sort of review and uh, and navigate. So that's, that's pretty interesting.

Emily Madere: Right. So I think by Sage doing this, they're adding another superpower of, [00:39:00] of intact because everyone uses Listviews. Right. It's probably everyone uses it.

Emily Madere: You can't not um, yeah.

Emily Madere: You cannot use it. So I think I think this is really good. And then as far as another feature they added, they added um, their rest API. So I mean, APIs are just the way that systems talk to one another. So Sage Intacct of course is a cloud based system, and it connects out to other systems by the use of APIs. So by by adding [00:39:30] features and functionalities to their API, they really made it easy to use, more easy to use and it added more integration stability.

Matt Lescault: So what's interesting about this and we don't have any of the answers here is that there's intact API, and then there's what's called Sage network. And Sage network is a is an API in itself, but the concept is that it will be able to attach to any Sage product, which has some really interesting ramifications across [00:40:00] the entire ecosystem of Sage products. But I believe this Rest API is specific to intact. Is that correct? Emily?

Emily Madere: Yeah, it's definitely specific to intact.

Emily Madere: Cool. Okay.

Emily Madere: And if Aaron Harris, if you're listening, I'd love for you to come on and talk about this, this API.

Doug Lewis: That's that's a good segue. I was going to end it with this, but hey, we're starting to fill out our roster of professionals and experts across the industry that we're bringing in. And we got some we got some pretty exciting names coming up here. Um, you know, over the next couple of weeks, next [00:40:30] couple of months already booked up. So it's going to be, uh, it's going to be a good time. Stick along for the ride, I can promise you. Moving through, uh, we'll kind of round things out here. Uh, the fourth pillar. The fourth, uh, real main zone, you know of the release notes, the ease of use. Uh, Matt, do you want to just, again, do your very best out of those weeds? High level. Do you want to cover what what you feel? Uh, all the listeners and anyone looking at Sage or involved in the Sage world should know about the ease of use portion of everything.

Matt Lescault: So it's it's, uh, [00:41:00] interesting. There's two main ones I want to hit here, which is intelligent time or Sage intelligent time. And the fixed assets, really high level Sage intelligent time has been around for quite some time. Uh, I didn't mean to do that, but it's been around for quite a while, and Sage intelligent time is now fully incorporated into Intacct. It's fully incorporated as the Intacct time, where prior to this release, it was a kind of add on. You would you would configure [00:41:30] and implement it separately and then tie it into Intacct, where now it is the intact.

Matt Lescault: So it's.

Doug Lewis: Native. It's native.

Matt Lescault: Now it.

Matt Lescault: Is native. Actually part of the release note says that I think it's sometime in July or August. They're talking about completely decommissioning the set aside Sage Intacct time or Sage intelligent time. So that's pretty a pretty big move from from time management and how that goes back to our conversations and project tracking and how that goes into the the use. And [00:42:00] then it has AI capability. It's a really, really interesting product. And when I say interesting, really capable, adds a ton of features into intact in the core. But it's the same features that you're used to from Sage intelligent time fixed asset side I look at, and what I found really interesting was incorporating the ability to enter fixed assets into from the AP module so that basically you can sit there and say this is a fixed asset. It goes into the fixed asset module straight [00:42:30] from AP.

Emily Madere: And and and Matt, not to stop you there, but can you clarify what fixed asset module you're talking about? Is it Sage Intacct fixed assets or fixed asset management?

Matt Lescault: So there's to my knowledge, unless you know something I don't know, Emily. There is the fixed asset module that you can buy as an add on to Sage. And this sort of connects the AP module of intact to the fixed asset module that you typically purchase as a standalone product. [00:43:00] So the fixed asset module that Sage has integrates with Sage, but is technically a standalone product that you can buy by itself as well.

Emily Madere: Okay. And just to leverage, there's a couple different fixed asset solutions that Sage offers. There's there's an on prem one. There is there's two inside of Intacct. One is a lot newer. So I'm not sure which one we're referring to here. There's Sage fixed assets, which is which is a little bit older. And there's a new one, um, Sage fixed assets management. And there are some limitations when it comes [00:43:30] to that one.

Emily Madere: Yep.

Matt Lescault: And I'll be honest, I, I'm not as familiar with the newer one because that just got released at the conference, right?

Emily Madere: Yeah, I've I've sold it. And like I said, there's some limitations when it comes to the type of depreciation you can do in the amount of fixed assets, but you just need to to work with your partner to understand what those limitations are and how what solution might be best for you.

Matt Lescault: I'm sure my team knows I just. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Um, but that being said, [00:44:00] I want to keep it kind of kind of quick on that stuff. It's pretty generic in a lot of ways, and no reason to get too deep in.

Doug Lewis: I love that you're learning already. No. No reason to get too deep in. So I think that covers just pretty high level. Some of these release notes again, they're coming up. Emily hit it at the top of this thing when we can expect some of the next ones, how often to see them as they come through. We'll do this again. I can promise everybody. This was one of the most technical episodes you will ever hear, [00:44:30] uh, coming from us. So we're going to get into some pretty interesting pieces coming up over the next few. We got some guests coming on board. It's going to be a little bit a little bit more of a party. Let's put it that way. It's going to be a wild.

Matt Lescault: Why don't we have one technical one every quarter? Because well, they release it every quarter.

Matt Lescault: Yeah. Well.

Doug Lewis: You you really know how to rain on a parade. And I love that about you. Now, we'll, uh, we are going to have some more technical. This is the most technical to date, so it's going to be a little bit of a mixed bag. It'll be a fun time. [00:45:00] Um, coming up here in the next couple episodes. But to cap this one here. Uh, I didn't have a stupid dad joke prepared. Um, but let's let's roll with one. Um. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. Okay. What kind of breakfast food travels? Well.

Matt Lescault: This is a dad joke. Because this this is wide open at this point. Let's see here. Yeah.

Emily Madere: You just knew this one. That's what is upsetting to begin with.

Matt Lescault: Or scary.

Emily Madere: Yeah.

Emily Madere: Um. [00:45:30] Burrito. I'm bad at these burritos.

Doug Lewis: Good breakfast food that travels well. Okay. Matt, do you have a guess?

Matt Lescault: Um.

Matt Lescault: I mean, this is not funny, so it's not the answer, but it's cereal. I mean, it's cereal.

Doug Lewis: You're right. It wasn't funny and wasn't the answer.

Matt Lescault: It's right.

Matt Lescault: About.

Matt Lescault: Something.

Doug Lewis: A plain bagel. Boom.

Emily Madere: I am in New York right now, which, as everyone knows, I'm from Louisiana. And there are bagels here are [00:46:00] so good.

Matt Lescault: I do like a good bagel.

Emily Madere: They're so good.

Doug Lewis: Oh, boy. Well, that was exciting. Perfect. All right, so we can wrap it there for our listeners sake. For everybody. Uh, tune in again next week. Um, thank you for listening for the again, the Unofficial Emphasis on unofficial Sage podcast, and we will see you soon.

Emily Madere: Bye, everybody.