The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast | Breaking Down Intuit Enterprise Suite

Sponsors
Corpay - https://unsage.promo/corpay
Avalara - https://unsage.promo/avalara
Bookkeep - https://unsage.promo/bookkeep

Doug, Emily, and Matt dissect Intuit's September 2024 release of their Enterprise Suite, examining how this cloud-enabled solution might impact the mid-market accounting software landscape. The discussion explores whether this move represents a defensive play to retain growing QuickBooks customers or a genuine competitive threat to established players like Sage Intacct and NetSuite. While many details about pricing and capabilities remain unclear.

{campaign_start}}

• (00:00) - Welcome to The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast
• (00:10) - Discussion on QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions
• (01:41) - Intuit Enterprise Suite vs. Competitors
• (04:42) - Multi-Entity Management and Cloud Solutions
• (13:01) - Pricing and Market Strategy
• (32:57) - Integration and Payroll Solutions
• (36:55) - Final Thoughts and Recommendations
• (38:39) - Closing Remarks and Humor

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

Get free CPE for listening to this podcast
https://www.earmark.app

Download the Earmark App
Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/earmark-cpe/id1562599728
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.earmarkcpe.app

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: Let's let's jump into something. So it's kind of a weird world now. But, you know, this is the unofficial Sage Intacct podcast, of course. So we don't always have to be super friendly, uh, to, to intact, uh, and all that fun stuff. And, uh, apparently neither does QuickBooks anymore, because QuickBooks Enterprise [00:00:30] Solutions. Boy, this is going to be a fun one. Um, what is the thing? Uh, why did they roll it out? Is it competing directly with Intacct or are they going after Intacct customers? All this fun stuff? Emily, do you want to maybe just kind of chime in and give people some some baseline here on what the new QuickBooks product or suite is really looking to do.

Matt Lescault: And before we before Emily, you jump into this, I want to make sure we're all under the same. It's the Intuit Enterprise suite. So they've removed [00:01:00] QuickBooks out of the name for this one. I just wanted to be very specific.

Doug Lewis: Left it in there for name notability because, uh, they are the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room. But, Emily, why don't you kick? Kick it off? What? What is this thing? Um. Good. Bad. Ugly. How does it compete? Just give people some baseline knowledge of what we're going to work off of here.

Emily Madere: Yeah, no, I can definitely talk about this. So this is relatively new I think Intuit released this on September 17th. Um, they released their Intuit Enterprise [00:01:30] suite, and I think it's going to directly compete with Intacct. Um, a lot of the times QuickBooks releases their, their pricing. So you know exactly what you're going to pay for QuickBooks. But in this instance, Intuit hasn't released their pricing for this enterprise suite. And it's really going to compete with Intacct in the multi entity area. It's going to compete because it is a cloud based. It's really geared towards those folks who are, um, on QuickBooks right now, and they typically lose to [00:02:00] to Sage Intacct. It's going to take up that Sage Intacct customers away from from intact because I can say probably 80% of the clients that I move, um, to Sage Intacct, ah, QuickBooks online or desktop clients. So I think we're really going to see an area where, um, Intacct might lose some clients because of this.

Matt Lescault: You know, I when I heard about this, I initially went into [00:02:30] like, what is this? How is this going to affect our sales process? How is this going to affect our decision making on whether we consult our clients to go from a QuickBooks to an intact and so forth? And I had some really pointed questions around what this product looked like. And as Emily mentioned, this product is very new. So some of the information that we have out there is still kind of gray, in my opinion. And so I want to create my own disclaimer and saying, I think there's a lot of unknowns that we're still dealing with, but I think that we're really going to as [00:03:00] intact evangelists. I think we're going to have to really understand the battle card and what our talking points are between the two products. I actually started off feeling very much in a place where, oh, this is this is going to, uh, this is going to limit the target audience to a point in which I think there's a lot less impact than what will be the initial market sentiment. What I mean by that is I started asking [00:03:30] the simple questions around, is this truly cloud native? And the answer that I got back was, no, this is cloud enabled. So what means is that it is still the back end of the product is still the old QuickBooks enterprise. Well, that's.

Doug Lewis: So that's why I kind of at the top, I said, you know, the new QuickBooks because everything I'm seeing is the Intuit Enterprise Suite powered by QuickBooks. Yep. You know what I mean. So they're they're trying to kind of have the cake and eat it too like both, you know. Oh, we still have our old great product that everyone knows and in the small business [00:04:00] market, but it's this new big, fancy, you know, shiny thing to look at now that does all these other, uh, tools and can handle bigger enterprises, more complex setups and all that fun stuff. So there's it seems like they're trying to really still keep that QuickBooks, uh, branding front of front of mind in, in kind of this new rollout.

Matt Lescault: They're taking a, a interesting approach. It's sort of like saying, hey, it's a new suite. And we now can compete with Intact and Dynamics and uh, and NetSuite. [00:04:30] But they so they want to shift away from the QuickBooks name, but they also want to give a comfort level to their current client base. And it's this game that's being played. But when we talk about cloud enabled, let's talk about what that really means. That means that QuickBooks enterprise, the desktop version that we all have known, is sitting on a cloud computing center, and they've skinned a cloud interface, so it feels like QuickBooks online, but it actually still operating like [00:05:00] the old enterprise product. Why is this important for me? I also ask the question, can I just migrate from QuickBooks Advanced to Intuit Enterprise Suite? And the answer was no, because it's two different platforms. There's no automatic migration from their from their flagship product or into their more into their mid-market product, which means that they still have the whole concept of how do we [00:05:30] data migrate? How do we do this, that, you know, would happen with any product out there? The other question that I started trying to unravel is really how they're handling multi entity management.

Matt Lescault: How are they really handling the upper level components of uh of these industries. And it and it does it. Now let's let me not take away it does multi entity. It does intercompany transactions. It does eliminations. It does all of these these pieces. But in [00:06:00] a much more standardized, normalized way. What I mean by that is non-custom. So a lot of the clients that I run into when it comes to multi entity management and a shared chart of accounts and an approach on doing intercompany eliminations and things of that nature, we need a little bit of flexibility about how we handle that. And so I look at Inuit Enterprise Suite right now as a great option for a simple, uh, set, a simple [00:06:30] group of companies that want to go over into that. And I will say that what we're hearing is that their inventory is still stronger than what Intacct standard inventory is. And so when it comes to manufacturing and so forth, they have an upper hand. So that's I think they're.

Emily Madere: Going to they're going to play well in the project space. Um, so I think they're going to come out with more functionality when it comes to, to projects, job costing, I think Intacct is is very strong in that area. So our firm is a construction [00:07:00] certified partner. So I still think intact is a stronger player. But I think it is something if you're out there evaluating software, I think it's another reason why you might want to evaluate this solution.

Matt Lescault: It's just really important for us to be able to identify what clients should go there and what clients shouldn't. Now here I don't want to do this, but Sage 50 is cloud enabled. What have we said about Sage 50? Every time we've talked about it on this podcast.

Doug Lewis: Glowing [00:07:30] reviews, just glowing.

Emily Madere: It was absolutely stunning. Yeah, I actually I just went out and bought Sage 50 just because of it.

Matt Lescault: Oh, man. You know, I'd done such a great job talking it not up. Um, the that makes that gives me pause to why would I want to invest in if I'm a mid-market organization, why do I want to invest in a product that that's underlying, uh, development is not native cloud is not where technology is going in the future. Why am I [00:08:00] why would I want to invest in that? And it feels a lot more like I'm put I'm I'm I hate to say it, it sounds a lot more like Intuit's putting lipstick on a pig.

Doug Lewis: I don't think you're gonna offend anyone here. Um, you seem like that was a hot take, and it's like, I know I'm just. But both of you have mentioned a couple of the buzzwords, uh, a couple times already and all the press release and marketing materials that are out there right now, um, from Intuit on this product in the sense that the, of course, the multi entity, they've [00:08:30] come back to that so many times. Go look at the first press release they had on this product. Multi entity appears in every every third line almost. And Mid-Market was mentioned a lot Matt. You just hit Mid-Market quite a bit from what I see. Uh you know most most of the transitions occur away from QuickBooks because the company simply outgrow them. They just outgrow the functionality. Right? So they're they're known for their small business platform. That's what so many of the small businesses run on, um, you know, for their accounting software. And [00:09:00] when they reach a certain point, they kind of graduate out of QuickBooks into something like, you know, Intacct NetSuite, uh, take your pick of other comparable providers out there in the market. So it seems like, you know, from the outside looking in, I don't view this as like an offensive thing. Um, they're not on the offense to try to go take market share away from, uh, you know, Sage or NetSuite or any of these other providers. This is more of a defensive mechanism to say we already have these these clients. Now we can handle them as they [00:09:30] grow, whether they can or cannot, whether the functionality is going to be there. God only knows. Time will tell. But that's kind of what it seems like from the outside looking in. And Emily, you mentioned pricing, uh, on this new suite, which doesn't exist to the public yet. Um, at the time that we're talking about this anyway. So we'll see if that changes. But, uh, from what I understand, they've moved entirely to just contract sales, uh, at this point. Correct?

Matt Lescault: Absolutely. That's what they're talking about. I mean, obviously I don't I [00:10:00] don't work for Intuit. I don't know the inner inner workings, but my understanding is that they're going to keep it that way. And that gives them a lot of of ability to negotiate on it. And I do think it's a play into the mid-market. I do think it's not just about maintaining their customer base. I mean, if you look at it. Uh Sage. As an overall organization, their cloud computing, uh, department, uh, their business, cloud resources or whatever, [00:10:30] as an entire organization grew by 18% in the last 12 months. That's a pretty sizable growth for, you know, for an established firm, uh, you know, that's thrown out software. And really, let's be honest, Intacct being the leading, uh, product within their cloud computing environment. So it wouldn't surprise me if Intuit isn't seeing that and seeing the conversions that are happening from QuickBooks into intact and seeing some of the conversions or conversions from QuickBooks into NetSuite and so forth. And going, we're [00:11:00] a little concerned. We're a little concerned about what this what the longer term, uh, outlook looks for us.

Doug Lewis: Well, that's kind of what I'm saying is it's not I'm trying to take market share away from these other ones. It's I'm trying to keep the market share that I have. That's kind of what it seems like, at least from my point of view. But pricing. Uh, Emily, do you have any guidance on just if you had to just shout out the cannon shoot from the hip here. What do you what are we looking at for pricing? Uh, because I know this is kind of the area you live in.

Emily Madere: Yeah. And [00:11:30] to be honest with you, Doug, I really don't even know what to expect from a dollar value. I can probably assume that it is going to be an annual subscription. Same as as intact. Same as NetSuite, same as any other big market accounting solution out there. Um, I would almost guarantee they would have annual price increases, but from a from a dollar value. I mean, they're probably trying to compete with intact NetSuite Acumatica Microsoft Dynamics, so it's going [00:12:00] to be pretty comparable.

Doug Lewis: Do you think that hurts them? Let's just again, we're we're just assuming so many pieces right now that we know the information that we don't know, but let's just say they are priced comparably with some of the other competitors who play in that middle market and enterprise space right now, you know. Does that kind of hurt them because their brand is essentially we're we're for small businesses, more affordable. You know, we help people grow. We do all this great stuff. Do you think that that if they start to price themselves out of that market, essentially, you [00:12:30] know, if I start looking at kind of an economy car and it starts getting priced the same as a luxury car, and I'm like, well, I don't know. The luxury car looks a little nicer. It's the same price. Why don't I get that?

Emily Madere: See, that's what that's what I'm not sure of. Because, you know, everyone who I talked to in until QuickBooks is no longer working for them. They are ride or die QuickBooks. They are a a a QuickBooks person. So I think they just have loyalty. They have customer loyalty. And if [00:13:00] if QuickBooks can show the value. Um, I, I do think customers will will choose will choose QuickBooks.

Matt Lescault: Maybe the reason is contract pricing is that for all of their current QuickBooks enterprise clients saying at the end of liking this and moving over to here, they're going to have the, you know, back room conversation and say, hey, we're going to give this to you for five grand, but all our new customers are going to pay ten. As an example, I'm not saying that that's the that's exactly what's [00:13:30] going to happen or that's the right pricing. Um, by the way, uh, I haven't bought or sold QuickBooks enterprise and I don't know, ten years. So I don't really have a gauge on the on the pricing side, but there's it wouldn't surprise me if it went modulated like module pricing, you know, because you're seeing things around like the revenue recognition capabilities, inventory, things of that nature going more into that, that realm, but I don't I don't really have a gauge as to [00:14:00] what what this is all going to shake out to, you know.

Emily Madere: And I'm actually kind of surprised it took Intuit this long to come out with this solution.

Matt Lescault: I have to say I am too. I'm just surprised that they didn't figure a way to actually incorporate it into what is QuickBooks online, and they've kind of relied back on their old stack. Um, and it really gives me pause and question as to whether the way that they develop QuickBooks or there's really a plan a, an [00:14:30] ability to get to a true multi entity native cloud approach. Now they have more money than God. So, you know, I'm sure they can figure it out at some point. The uh, you know, we take a step back. If we go back to QuickBooks enterprise you know that that was their multi entity solution. Like you could have multiple desktop files, but there was a way to connect them from a reporting perspective. And I'm wondering if that's the same thing that's happened in the background. I mean, there's so many questions like that. And if I was buying, if it was my choice, [00:15:00] these are the questions I'd be asking. I'd really want to know how it's operating. What is the scalability of this? What is it going to? What is it going to give me? Um, you know, how do I handle base currencies and multi multi currency. So it's it's interesting. Now I let's go back to what Emily said for those companies that QuickBooks online works for. There's almost not a better product than QuickBooks online here in North America.

Doug Lewis: What even would be the alternative for like small [00:15:30] business. You know Xero didn't go quick. Xero there's not many. Yeah. Out there can you think are there any more that you've even really seen?

Emily Madere: Sage 100, Sage 100, Xero, QuickBooks? I mean, those are really your options.

Doug Lewis: Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a pretty small, small field when you get down to it.

Matt Lescault: I've run into like FreshBooks. Um, there's some, there's some products that are kind of on the fringes, you know, like I said, FreshBooks, there's another one that I saw that was specific to some industry. That was [00:16:00] that was for for small business.

Emily Madere: Here I can actually help with this. So on my computer I'm looking at it right now, I was looking at the mid-market grid report for accounting software by G2. So G2 is like an Amazon review of accounting software in software in general. Um, let's see which ones are out here at the top is going to be Sage Intacct NetSuite. You got QuickBooks Acumatica N4, Sage x3, Microsoft Dynamics [00:16:30] Business Central Accounting Suite FreshBooks. I mean, there are a number of them out here.

Matt Lescault: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: I think Zoho has an accounting platform these days, but you run into it. No, no, I run an Excel. I, I run into Excel more than I do some of those other ones. Um, but QuickBooks online, I mean, what they've done from an from a investment [00:17:00] of that product and how that product is for a single entity organization that doesn't have advanced accounting needs and is privately owned. It's really hard to compete with, you know, and there's there's only specific reasons why we, uh, we push on smaller organizations and move to intact. And it has to be very kind of focused and it's very industry specific. Um, so I, I am less afraid than I think the general community is over what [00:17:30] Intuit Enterprise Suite means to an intact or NetSuite or a dynamics. What I am afraid of is the uneducated buyer and the uneducated seller. Meaning if you don't know how to communicate what the differences are and you don't know what questions to ask when you're evaluating what purchase what's what software to purchase, you're going to make a bad decision, and that's the bigger concern that I have. And when you.

Doug Lewis: Have a bad decision, like I recognize [00:18:00] the brand, so I'll at least go with that one. Is that kind of what you're referring to or just it seems like they're the biggest one, you know?

Matt Lescault: Oh, I.

Matt Lescault: Think it's more it's the, uh, it's the biased. I'm in QuickBooks. This is another QuickBooks product. I love QuickBooks for what it does. Today I'm going to love what it does for me tomorrow without actually asking the questions that that make sense or saying, hey, this is going to be easier to use because I know I've used this product for so long and really [00:18:30] actually becomes harder to use it because it doesn't do the general functions that you want it to do correctly. Look, there's going to be a market that, you know, Intuit Enterprise Suite fits for and should go to. Like, I'm not I don't want to act like it's just this product that nobody should go to. But if you're going to make that decision, make it with all the facts and make sure you're making the right decision for the five and ten year thought process, not the one and two [00:19:00] year thought process.

Emily Madere: And I'm actually going to have a differing opinion from you. Matt, please. Um, yeah. So I think you're 100% right. I think you're going to have uneducated buyers and uneducated sellers out there and who are just going maybe to buy into it because they think it's going to be an easy transition and they're gonna they're gonna one day work in online, one day work in this enterprise suite. But I think it it might genuinely hurt software sales of NetSuite Intacct, whomever. [00:19:30] Um, I just don't know enough about it yet, so I think I think I'd like it to be out in the market for a year, and maybe we can revisit this conversation after it's had a year of being out there. There's some reviews out there I can go ahead and read. I can talk to people who are using it. I'm just I'm not ready to make a decision and I'm not ready to blanket say, I don't think it's going to hurt in tech because I genuinely think it might.

Matt Lescault: I can't argue with that statement. I mean, until we see it in action, we're [00:20:00] we're making a lot of assumptions and and conjecture. I mean, I mean, right now this whole entire conversation has been about what we think we know, not what we actually know.

Emily Madere: Yes.

Doug Lewis: Which is great. That's why we're the unofficial Sage Intacct podcast. The official Sage Intacct podcast. Something else to say, if that even exists. Um, so, you know, I'm kind of curious at this point. Let's just assume that some of these components we talked about are true. Like, this is truly just a phenomenal product. It makes sense. They can keep their market share from going outside to other entities if and when they get [00:20:30] to that point where they outgrow it. Let's say it works great. It works flawlessly, right? All the marketing materials are perfect. This thing turns out to be phenomenal. 12 months from now, why would anybody then choose to switch to intact if this product truly works?

Matt Lescault: Well, I think that you're going to see that switching. Like if somebody's already on QuickBooks, there's going to be far harder to to convince or almost impossible if everything you just said is correct. [00:21:00]

Doug Lewis: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: I think when somebody is going from a different product, maybe a zero, maybe a old legacy product, and now they're they're going to go and get quotes from Intact and Intuit and NetSuite and so forth. I think you go back onto onto a more level playing field in that circumstance. So competition usually, you know, at least for me in business, I've never been scared of competition. I always thought that it made me stronger. It made [00:21:30] me have to have to adapt and be better. And so, you know what? If it starts to affect Sage and Sage Intacct and their ability to grow at the pace that they're looking to grow and to maintain their stock valuation and so forth, they'll make changes to make sure that they can compete with Intuit, whether that's on pricing, whether that's on capability, whether that's on whatever it is. And that's just going to make it all make us better in the long run. So I kind of have this viewpoint. It's like we're going to be all right.

Doug Lewis: I [00:22:00] mean, it makes sense. Like you mentioned, if it's going to be competitive, like on pricing, let's just again, wildly assume that, you know, the Intuit suite will come in. Maybe it's a shade under some of their competitors. Maybe it's to gain market share to keep market share, whatever it might be. Do you think that this could lead to some of the other larger players, uh, revisiting their pricing strategies?

Matt Lescault: Absolutely.

Emily Madere: Absolutely.

Matt Lescault: And I'll give you an example. Netsuite in their in their competitive approach [00:22:30] to, uh, intacct is basically giving the software away. They do free implementations. Now, we combat that every day and we haven't had to make the change. But obviously their leadership made the decision that that made sense to do.

Doug Lewis: And so how do you combat that. So if somebody says, well, if I go this way I get you know, I get this, it's free implementation. Why would I go with something else through for you is free.

Emily Madere: Really free?

Emily Madere: It's I'm just leave. There is free. Really free.

Matt Lescault: There. Sweet. Success [00:23:00] is basically a self implementation and a lot of people go, oh, that sounds scary. I don't like that. So I think there's that piece of it. And then on the software side of it, it's, you know, our job is to show the capability. And if you go into a demo and again, if if I'm a buyer of a higher level product and I go into it and I say, show me this, this, this and this, and then they come to me and ask me the same question. But I know that they're talking about Intuit, and I know what the what the differentiation is [00:23:30] and where we win versus where Intuit wins. And I can show that and I can show that on a screen through a demo. Again, price starts. We shift the conversation from price to value. And that's how we continue to win as organizations. Because if we only focus on price, if if I only focus on price for my outsourced accounting, I'd be doing it for $10 an hour, and I'd make no money, and I wouldn't be able to hire good people, and I'd have a whole nother set [00:24:00] of issues on my hand.

Doug Lewis: So do you think leaning on selling the value is still going to outpace a potential potential customers from, you know? Well, I could just stick with QuickBooks because that's what I know.

Matt Lescault: What you have. Right. Go ahead. Emily. My bad.

Emily Madere: Oh, no. I want to add to the value conversation. So from from my perspective, um, Eisneramper is a value added reseller of Sage Intacct. So we sell, implement and support. Um, Intacct. So it's not [00:24:30] only selling the value of the software, but I think for a lot of other VAR partners and it's for Sage themselves, is to sell the value of their support, because a lot of feedback I get from people who are switching from QuickBooks online desktop, whatever, they have no support. So if something goes wrong into the system, they're up a creek without a paddle with their system. So I think I, I would like to see how this new Intuit Enterprise suite has combat that, because [00:25:00] that is the number one thing I hear from from folks switching.

Doug Lewis: And as a value added reseller, essentially internally, I would imagine that your your organization will get some guidance on pricing a little bit before the general public kind of gets wind of what's going on. Is that is that a safe assumption? Am I off base there?

Emily Madere: No, no. Um, I would assume I would be getting some some communication on what Intuit's pricing is either from, you know, Sage direct. They share that with their partners or from my, my partners [00:25:30] and my colleagues inside the firm. Um, because I'm assuming they're going to run up against it with their clients. And that that brings up another good point. And and this goes to folks who are evaluating software. If you're evaluating different softwares, this Intuit thing, Intacct NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Acumatica, whoever let let them know let them each other know you're evaluating different software, because that's only going to help you because, like Matt said, these partners will will start selling their value so you'll get better value [00:26:00] and more knowledgeable value out of the product. And ultimately that's going to help drive down the price.

Matt Lescault: And Doug, go back to your question. I mean, you're always going to have buyers that are focused more on price than they are on value. And you have to make a decision whether those are the clients that you want to invest in, trying to acquire and to attract, or if you want to focus on the clients that are going to value your services. Now, what I find is that a client that values the services and values what the product is at the end of the day, is a better client [00:26:30] and is more engaged in the process of implementation, engaged in the process of using the software, and therefore it's a more successful, uh, deployment of a product where your where your organizations or your individuals that are focused on price. It's so much so price driven, they'd rather cut corners than Then do it right. And then when it doesn't come out the way that they expect it to, they blame you for it, even though they didn't invest their time in that process. [00:27:00] And I hate to say this, but your QuickBooks base of customers. Not completely, but probably lean more to your price conscious customer base than your, uh, than your invest in the value of an accounting system base. And I don't want to I don't want to alienate myself against anybody. I was a QuickBooks user and so forth, and there's plenty of organizations that currently use QuickBooks that have have a value based [00:27:30] decision making process. Um, but I think it's still it's a challenge.

Doug Lewis: Do you think.

Doug Lewis: And this is something we haven't really talked about. We talked about obviously, you know, the Intuit suite and QuickBooks, you know, being the backbone and all that fun stuff. But I know a lot of the marketing materials, um, are really centered around kind of the seamless integration of, like, their other marketing tools. And, you know, other.

Doug Lewis: Software products.

Doug Lewis: That do fit in nicely to that ecosystem. Is that going to be, um, not a decision factor, but kind of is that going to play a role [00:28:00] in how successful this might be to those SMB sized type businesses?

Matt Lescault: So my thought is they have a great integration with MailChimp because they own MailChimp. And if you're using MailChimp as your email, uh, outbound email tool, then you get you get some value. But let's talk about the value you get. You have your customers and their contact information and QuickBooks, and it brings it into a list of MailChimp. And then you do it. Now you're saving a step of import, export or add and so [00:28:30] forth. But there's some capabilities within any of the other products that will do the same thing. Where I do think that they win more is actually on their payroll side, because it's so integrated into the reporting that we have to rely on third party organizations to invest in deep integration to intact as opposed to intact. Invest into deep integration to their own product. So that's one where I can say they have a definite, uh, [00:29:00] hands up. But yet a lot of people that go away from Intuit payroll because of its limitations as a payroll solution. And so it's kind of like, you know, that that balance as well.

Emily Madere: I, I, I don't I get what you're saying, Matt, but I can count on one hand the amount of people who I work with who actually want to run and do their own payroll.

Matt Lescault: Well, Intuit has their, uh, what do they call it? It was their their [00:29:30] they did everything you you just posted the time and so forth. They they pay the taxes, they file the tax returns. They did all that stuff for you. You just submitted the payroll in QuickBooks as opposed to, uh, as opposed to logging into an ADP and submitting it. Uh oh.

Emily Madere: Okay. I didn't know that the people I work with, they are there doing it themselves, and they don't want to be doing it themselves.

Matt Lescault: They don't. They don't understand the tears that are that are available.

Emily Madere: Yeah, they they must not they must not have the tears. And I and [00:30:00] I quite frankly, I've never been in QuickBooks. I don't want to be in QuickBooks. So wasn't familiar how it worked. Um, but I would agree with you. I think that is where Sage loses is is not building an integration, not building a payroll solution inside of Intacct. They do integrate with with ADP Sage Intacct payroll powered by ADP. A lot of my clients use it. I think the issue there is you're you're working with ADP and sometimes that's really great for people. Sometimes people really love [00:30:30] ADP. But you got the other side of that. Some people hate working with ADP.

Matt Lescault: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Well I'll do a shout out. You have you have ADP which has the premier partnership. Obviously you have Nova uh, which is a third party organization that has deep integration at the dimension level, you know, at timesheet, at everything else you have APS, um, out of Louisiana. They're in your in your, uh, backyard, and they have a full integration into, uh, into intact. Then you have GL integration, uh, through [00:31:00] Paylocity and Paychex and some of these other products. So there's there's offerings out there, don't get me wrong, but.

Emily Madere: A special shout out to miter. They help a lot of my construction um companies with with certified payroll. Um they're they're really strong in the job costing area.

Matt Lescault: So rippling I mean, we could go rippling. We could go down the list of, you know.

Doug Lewis: All this free advertising. Anyone who we mentioned feel free to sponsor will work in organically, even more than we have today. That's an offer out there. Anybody? Um, [00:31:30] it's so we keep kind of coming back to the same concept of it's so early to tell. Everyone's kind of speculating on so much of this right now. So it'll be really interesting to see kind of how this, this plays out. Any, any closing arguments. Um, on your end, Matt.

Matt Lescault: I don't know if I have a closing argument, I would I just want to go back and say, do your due diligence before investing in this product. Now, if you're in QuickBooks enterprise right now and they're giving you a deal to move over to this, I think that's a no brainer. And then you can decide [00:32:00] because you know, you're going to have to make a move. But if you're trying to make a decision whether you're going from QuickBooks or another product, do your due diligence. Have the conversations with intact, with NetSuite, with Intuit, find your three, your your three products that you're going to give a true comparison to and then make your decision. And if and if Intuit checks all the boxes and you love the product and you love the way it works, more power to you. I mean, end of the day, you're [00:32:30] the one that's going to be using it. You have to believe in what you're buying.

Doug Lewis: Emily.

Doug Lewis: Anything on your end?

Emily Madere: Yeah, I would just say if if this new solution is is the one for you, keep in mind you're still going to have to do an implementation. It's not going to be an automatic fee to get your historical data into this new system. It's the same thing for Sage Intacct and Sage 100. Um, you're you're going to have to go through an implementation. You're going to have to get your data in, your historical data in. Um, so, so keep that in mind. [00:33:00]

Doug Lewis: Well, like.

Doug Lewis: You said earlier, there's no such thing as a free lunch, right?

Emily Madere: No such thing.

Doug Lewis: No such thing as a free lunch. I've, uh, I've actually gone to so many of those time share presentations, and I have just time shares all over the world at this point, because I was just hungry at one point. Yeah. Well, uh, this is this is interesting to see how this plays out. We should do, like, an update. We'll revisit this thing, you know, six months, 12 months from now, um, when there's a little more to go off of. Um, but it'll be really interesting to see how the competition kind of heats up, um, between these players in this space, particularly, [00:33:30] uh, Matt, do you do you have a dad joke off the top of your head?

Matt Lescault: Not at all.

Doug Lewis: Oh my gosh, Emily, how about a mom joke coming from your corner to.

Emily Madere: Uh, let me Google one real quick.

Doug Lewis: Oh. Google one. Okay. She'll prepare. She'll prepare for another one. All right. Um, let's see here. Oh, okay. So what? Concert only cost $0.45?

Emily Madere: It's definitely not Taylor Swift.

Matt Lescault: Nickelback.

Doug Lewis: I don't I'm [00:34:00] concerned that you don't understand how much a nickel.

Matt Lescault: If you had.

Matt Lescault: $0.50, the nickelback is 45.

Doug Lewis: Oh, you're so close. It's 50 cent featuring Nickelback. And that is how we're going to cap this one.

Matt Lescault: I was I got 50%.

Doug Lewis: Well, you were close. You were close. Yeah. Although I I'm concerned again that you're as an accounting, uh, professional essentially, uh, that you did think that a nickel was $0.45, but that's okay. [00:34:30] We'll we'll work on that and we will get better. How about that?

Matt Lescault: Always trying to get better.

Doug Lewis: Beautiful. All right. That's a good place to cap it. Talk to you later, guys. See you.