The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast

This episode explores the journey of evaluating and implementing Sage Intacct for mid-market businesses. Emily, Matt, and Doug discuss common pain points that drive companies to seek new accounting software, provide insights into the buying process, and share tips for evaluating both vendors and implementation partners. They also delve into Sage Intacct's strengths in areas like multi-entity management, cloud-based solutions, and dynamic allocations, offering valuable guidance for businesses considering a software upgrade.


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: This is a weird episode. Let's just start the thing there. We haven't. Technical problems all over the place. Matt, you have to jump on a flight. In what? 30 minutes now or something like that. But it doesn't matter because we are. We are all here. So. Matt, where are you? Number one? Let's start there.

Matt Lescault: Me? I'm in Johannesburg, South Africa. I'm trying to get to Cape Town this evening [00:00:30] so I can get into meetings tomorrow by 8 a.m. and yeah, I'm having technical difficulties galore.

Doug Lewis: I absolutely love that because it's hilarious to me. Number one, when things don't work, because every, every single time I get on a zoom call or a teams call or some other weird software call, something just doesn't work right anymore because you just jumping through all these different hoops. But today's kind of a weird one. Um, if it's cool with the two of you guys, I kind of want to do this a little bit differently today. So [00:01:00] when we when we're talking about Sage, obviously Sage Intacct is kind of it's the flagship. That's what everybody knows. Sage for Sage Intacct. Right? And there's so many of these companies out there that are trying to evaluate their software knowing, you know, what do I need to make a change? How do I do it? How do I implement it, what's the right choice for me, all that kind of stuff. So I thought it would be kind of cool, honestly, to walk through, you know, some of the signs of why? Why am I in the market for a new software? What what kind of pieces should I be looking at when I'm evaluating these software choices? And [00:01:30] then who should I use to either implement or purchase it, whether it's a VAR or somebody else out there in the marketplace, just kind of helping some of these entities out there that either need help streamlining their accounting software or some type of support system in place to try to figure it out. You know, okay, if I'm going to enter this thing, how am I going to start? And subsequently it's kind of cool because it'll also help all those Vars out there. Anybody else in that Sage ecosystem who's selling this stuff really try to get in mind as some of these buyers. So, um, if that works for you [00:02:00] guys, Emily, do you want to maybe just give everybody we've talked about Sage Intacct a lot already, but just a 50, you know, 100 zero zero zero foot overview of what Sage Intacct really is.

Emily Madere: Yeah, yeah. No, I think you did a good job. Sage Intacct is Sage is, um, standout product. That's where they're putting all their R&D dollars right now. Sage Intacct is is cloud based. It's best in class. So it's able to connect out to other systems and really build an environment that works best for not only the accounting team, but every other team as well, because it's able to connect in. [00:02:30] And yeah, there were there were tons of dollars being spent on AI within Sage Intacct, which I'm excited to. I think we'll touch on that a little bit today or in another episode. Um, so look for that.

Doug Lewis: I love that. And Matt, this one is kind of more up your alley, I think, because this is quite literally what you do day in and day out. It's what your whole entity does. It's why you're in South Africa right now. So let's just go on a limb and pretend I'm I'm a Rube I know nothing about. I'm running a construction company or something goofy that I know nothing about. Accounting. All right.

Matt Lescault: I was gonna start with. [00:03:00] Are we pretending? But you don't run a construction company, so I'm pretending I.

Doug Lewis: I don't, but let's pretend that I don't know what I'm talking about. Like, let's let's stretch everyone's imagination, okay? And get to that point that I have no clue about anything accounting related. So if you were to kind of come in and talk to me and evaluate my business, Matt, you're like, all right, I want I want to pitch these guys. I want to I want to get them on board. I think they'd be a great client. What, like how would you kind of start that process? Like what? You know, where would that conversation begin?

Matt Lescault: Well, I mean, [00:03:30] interestingly enough, the conversation starts before the conversation, right? It's understanding the audience that you're talking to. I don't want to pretend that there isn't work that goes into understanding your buyer before you ever speak to that buyer. So understanding the industry, understanding the size of the organization, understanding who in the organization you're talking to. Am I talking to the owner? Am I talking to the CFO? Am I talking to the controller? Um, and when it comes to the industry, what industry? Uh, [00:04:00] what that industry's pain points look like the most. So let's pick an industry that I actually know. Instructions. Not one of them. Actually, I know it, but not when it comes to intact, uh, in a detailed way. So don't don't don't hold me there. But but I know most of them. So. Doug, give me a give me a give me a this this hypothetical mode. You are the what of what type of company.

Doug Lewis: Oh, boy. I will be the owner of, let's say, a US based manufacturing company.

Matt Lescault: You want manufacturing? [00:04:30]

Matt Lescault: You're kidding.

Doug Lewis: You know what I love? You're like, I know all this stuff. I throw two at you and you don't know him.

Matt Lescault: Well, I don't do.

Doug Lewis: I throw two at you, and you.

Doug Lewis: Don't. You don't damn well know.

Emily Madere: Matt. Matt, I will throw you one. Okay? I am the CFO of a healthcare organization, but I specialize in assisted living. You're Your.

Doug Lewis: In.Your in your scenario, you're the seat. You're not even the CEO. No, she's the CEO that you want to be the CEO of. Okay. Because that's where the conversation [00:05:00] is starting. And then you can move down to the CFO.

Matt Lescault: This is great. I have a call at 10:30 p.m. my time here in South Africa. One was one of the with the direct sales reps about an assisted living organization. So I'm like thank you. It's like.

Emily Madere: I'm in. It's like I'm in your computer.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. Wow.

Matt Lescault: So so thank you.Now questions. I start off with I like to understand how many employees, how many residents, when we talk about assisted or assisted [00:05:30] living, do we have independent living with it? Do. What is the makeup of your organization? How many entities are we talking about and what products are you using today? Emily.

Emily Madere: So I use QuickBooks right now to manage my accounting along with, um, Pointclickcare for my EMR. Okay. And I have about 150 employees across five different states.

Matt Lescault: Five states, all one entity.

Emily Madere: All one [00:06:00] entity. Yep.

Matt Lescault: All one entity.

Emily Madere: But I'm looking I'm looking at potentially growing.

Matt Lescault: Potentially growing okay. So currently you're using QuickBooks to get this done. And what are the biggest pain points that you you have in QuickBooks.

Emily Madere: Well reporting is definitely an issue. Um, so all my locations are kind of just jumbled and I can't really get an accurate reading across, um, all of my different locations because I'm across five states. Um, there's a lot of manual entry going on. [00:06:30] Um, so I'm, I am rekeying information from PCC to QuickBooks. Um, that's taking up a lot of my team's time as well as, you know, just I want to be able to get timely information out of QuickBooks, um, and into my stakeholders hands and that's just it's so far behind I can't catch up.

Matt Lescault: Great. And tell me a little bit about your team makeup. You're the CFO. How many people work in your department?

Emily Madere: I have about, um, seven people working under me right now.

Matt Lescault: Okay. And [00:07:00] payroll. You're using ADP or a different product. What? What does that look like?

Emily Madere: I'm actually doing that out of QuickBooks today.

Matt Lescault: You're doing payroll out of QuickBooks. So I'm.

Emily Madere: A trooper.

Matt Lescault: You're a trooper and you spend a lot of time in Excel I guess trying to.

Emily Madere: Read my mind.

Matt Lescault: So look, you know, we're going to stop this sort of this silly back and forth in the conversation. But what I had the opportunity to do there, Doug, was to really understand where the organization stands today. So we have a pretty sophisticated organization. [00:07:30] We're talking 150 employees over five different states, uh, especially in the health care. And we didn't even get into whether they're dealing in Medicaid and Medicare. We're not talking about whether they're dealing in private pay or, uh, insurance, uh, specific, uh, Coverage. We're we're starting to understand the picture of the organization. And from a finance side, what's causing them a lot of pain points. We know that QuickBooks I'm gonna assume it's QuickBooks online. I didn't ask the question, but we're gonna assume it's QuickBooks online. We know [00:08:00] that one. We can't import data. So their EHR is sitting outside of their, uh, of their accounting accounting system. And it's not talking to their accounting system, which means that either they're bringing the data in in a mass journal entry kind of blanket way without having a lot of detail. Or they're importing, not importing, or they're manual keying a lot of information, not just from a journal entry. We also know that they're using QuickBooks payroll, which with 150 employees, is a huge undertaking and a huge risk, uh, when it comes to compliance [00:08:30] from a payroll plus benefits management, onboarding of new employees, things of all, all of the all of this nature when they were 50 employees and maybe one location, it was not a big deal.

Matt Lescault: This was an organization that that lived in in QuickBooks and thrived in QuickBooks and probably had an accounting team of two to manage that. Maybe a third, you know, for accounts payable and receivable, Comptroller, that CFO that that really reported up. And the reason they're [00:09:00] talking to me today is probably they're talking to me as a, as a Sage Intacct, uh, solution provider, but they're also probably talking to NetSuite. They're probably talking to Microsoft, uh, dynamics as well. And they're trying to assess which one of, uh, us is going to best solve those pain points. Pain points being, how do we get a system that talks between the three main products that we talked about, the PCC, the the the payroll and the GL background back end, but also gives me ability [00:09:30] to do customized reporting within my system, eliminate the need to pull the data out and to extract that and use pivot tables in Excel and go into what I call Excel hell. And I probably talked about that in previous podcasts and manage all of my reporting there. And then they're probably also dealing with the fact that they want to be true GAAP accrual compliant.

Matt Lescault: And the way that QuickBooks works is it's not it doesn't allow for that. It doesn't really allow for what we call Subledger. Uh subledger [00:10:00] close into the GL. And so what this CFO has identified is that of a very inefficient accounting function with limited data sets and a very manual process. And if I want to expand from 5 to 10 locations, and maybe I want to split those locations into entities from a legal structure perspective, I don't have the infrastructure that I need and why intact in that moment. And the question and that's the question that's trying to be answered and saying, why am I going to invest from [00:10:30] going from QuickBooks advanced? Probably what they're they're in today, you know, which has a, uh, what would be a $1,800 price tag to, uh, Sage Intacct. And if we just went with kind of, you know, I'm thinking dynamic allocations with project tracking for the dimension and so forth, probably closer to a $20,000 a year system. The question is why? Why are they going to see a value in into that system and public [00:11:00] service announcement? I'm not actually pricing this in my head, so I'm probably way off on my numbers, but I want to talk about it. The big difference in price where you're going to from a yeah, you're.

Doug Lewis: Just ballparking it. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: I'm not even ballparking I'm just giving you an exam idea.

Doug Lewis: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Doug Lewis: Um, that was a shockingly more eloquent than I imagined it being, uh, your explanation. Um, but along the way, I did hear a couple, a couple acronyms, um, that I don't believe were fully explained. Uh, so I had EHR, [00:11:30] gap and GL as acronyms that were used, which were not fully explained. And I don't think we've explained any of those in the past. Emily, am I wrong there?

Emily Madere: I don't think I'll. I don't think I'll dock in for GL. It's pretty self-explanatory.

Doug Lewis: Well, we'll give you a pass on GL, so air and gap. I know we have not covered either one of those.

Matt Lescault: General accounting.Generally accepted accounting policies. Principles.

Doug Lewis: Principles. Yep. There you.Go. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Um, EHR is electronic medical health [00:12:00] records. So really that's an acronym that's that's used for a multitude of products out there. It's really how medical practices. And it doesn't matter whether you're in a assisted living or you're in a primary care clinic, uh, behavioral, so forth. Dentists go on and on and on. That's where your HIPAA compliant data is going to live. Now, let me just say Sage Intacct has their HIPAA compliant, uh, advanced audit capabilities. [00:12:30] And so you can bring in HIPAA data into intact. But sometimes you just there's not a big point in doing so. And what you do is you only bring in the non HIPAA financial information through a connection, um, between the two. Uh thank you for that. What I think is important from a, from an acronym thing is that I'm not speaking outside of what people are, are know in the marketplace. So that being said, [00:13:00] the whole concept here of what is Sage Intacct, it is a product that allows for easy integration, whether that's import of data and the ability to find products in the marketplace that really, uh, expand its own capability as a, as a general ledger product.

Doug Lewis: I like that that actually makes shockingly, uh, a high amount of sense from you, um, which I appreciate that. And, you know, you mentioned [00:13:30] if they're evaluating Sage Intacct as a potential solution, they're likely evaluating 2 or 3 other opportunities as well to to really figure out what that fit is. Um, Emily, this is kind of where you live. Um, it really helping people figure out what what is that best fit? Good, bad, ugly of each option out there in the marketplace. So is there any kind of checklist? You know, let's say unofficial checklist, since we're the unofficial Sage podcast. Um, that any organization who thinks they need to start evaluating [00:14:00] some of these tools out there in the marketplace, whether it be Sage or some of these other competitors that Matt mentioned, is there any kind of checklist that they can kind of start with to go, okay, here's what here are the core pieces I should really be thinking about as I go through this process of evaluating these tools.

Emily Madere: Yeah. No, there there definitely is. So you're right, I work in this this space all the time helping companies evaluate intact. And I've seen a lot of different things, um, in the time that I've been doing this. So I kind of want to take it before you start talking to, to, [00:14:30] um, competitors and organizations, because that's where I think the the work begins. Um, so I kind of have six steps that I want to talk through. Um, the first being, you know, gather requirements. You could you probably already doing this when you're working in QuickBooks or various other systems. You think to yourself, man, it would be better if my system did this, or man, it would be better if I had a cloud based system, because I'm tired of logging on to a server. Um, you're probably already thinking about those things, but just [00:15:00] write them down. I think that's probably the first thing. And then the second is in a team meeting. Ask your team because they're having thoughts as well. During their different AP processes. There are processes that you may not know about it. Um, because they don't tell you. So just ask. Once you kind of have a list of okay, I'm looking for x, y, z. And this is kind of what I want to stay in budget. Go ahead and rank those. So, um, having a cloud based solution may be higher than having a system [00:15:30] that has a payroll function inside the system, because it's very hard to find what we call the unicorn in systems.

Emily Madere: It's you're really not going to find a system that can do everything you need to, um, what's done nowadays is just being able to connect in other systems so that you, you can kind of do that. So go ahead and, and and identify your top priorities, rank them. And through that you kind of create a requirements matrix. And it's going [00:16:00] to kind of it's going to look and feel kind of how you look and feel. Um, but you're going to provide this, um, to your team and say, what do you think about this? You're going to get their feedback, make changes if need to. But what you're going to have by the end of that is a document that's that has everything you're looking for. And so that you can start researching your options. So the easiest place to go is online. But that is a scary, scary place. Um, so there are a couple sources that we recommend that you look at like G2 [00:16:30] truss radius. These are two sites that you'll hear me talk about a lot, but that's where end users can go out and put reviews and comments on software. Also, I think a really underutilized group that you can talk to is your trusted advisors. So your CPAs. They've seen a lot of accounting systems, and they can kind of give their recommendations onto what accounting system they might think you should use.

Emily Madere: Um, as well as talk to your talk to your your friends, your groups. I know down here in Louisiana, [00:17:00] we have a, um, a CFO, controller accounting group, um, that people get together and they talk about all things accounting and systems is one of them. So once you kind of have that, then you can start excluding options. So if you're looking for a system that does really well in project accounting okay, you can scratch off. You can scratch off the ones that don't. Um, so then you kind of have a short list of, of 3 or 4. And then you engage with short lived solutions. So you've done your research. You kind of know what you're talking about. Provide the matrix to them so [00:17:30] that they can see what you're looking for. It'll make it a lot easier and you have to evaluate them. And unfortunately, this is this is a long part of the process because if your short list is 3 or 4, then you're sitting in 3 or 4 demos, 3 or 4 discoveries, 3 or 4 proposal review calls. So you're going to have to put in the time. But if you think about it, putting in this time now is going to help you and save you time later because you're not doing manual work anymore. You are in a system that works for you instead of against you.

Doug Lewis: That's that's actually [00:18:00] helpful. I'm curious. There's really probably not a lot of statistics or metrics around this, but how much of the buying process do you think is really done before any one of these providers is even contacted directly? I mean, with all the with all the different, you know, sites out there like you mentioned, G2 and Trustradius, you know, how much of that process do you think is really done to that point? Once they start contacting people directly, I.

Emily Madere: Would say probably 80%.

Doug Lewis: No tie.

Matt Lescault: I get the feel that a lot's [00:18:30] weeded out, but I see net sweep so frequently up against intact. I think that a lot of buyers, unless they've used the products before, sometimes get on the fence between the two of them. Now I don't I don't even see Microsoft Dynamics or, you know, Business Central, uh, as frequently by any means. But I've had I've had a couple deals go sideways and go to NetSuite over a very specific functionality [00:19:00] that that that suite had, even though we know that that functionality is no different than what Intacct has, but the way that they sold it, and I've seen it us sway from NetSuite to Intacct because of the education process within the demo. I mean, there I've been on 7 or 8 scoping calls since being here in South Africa, just as an example. And it's really interesting to me the different personas of the buyers and what their knowledge [00:19:30] base is, you know, and what they glean on when we're going through that. I had one, uh, CFO of a nonprofit organization who is purchasing intact for the first time coming out of QuickBooks, and they didn't understand the grant tracking and billing module, understand what it really solved for them. They were living in Excel and everything else. And, um, I was able to get on and talk them through what that value was. [00:20:00] And that shifted their whole buying decision kind of in that moment. I remember one that I lost and it was on the financial services side, and NetSuite did something really kind of smart, even though it's it's no different than what we do in intact but created a a deal module basically.

Matt Lescault: And this was a fun. So this was a a kind of a wealth management organization that had funds and they were specialty funds and they had to track [00:20:30] deals because not all funds come to fruition. But you have costs that go into those and you have to take and reallocate those that costing. And in fact, the solution that we had would have been more eloquent, but it wasn't named in the same way, in the way that NetSuite demoed. It shifted the deal over to NetSuite. And it was it was a shame. So that's a long winded, winded answer to say I've seen a lot of people on the fence when it comes to those two products. Now, I've also seen and you know, where where Emily's coming from. [00:21:00] I have one right now for a for an organization in the general business area. I don't want to give it away because it's such a small little niche industry group, uh, in which the entire, uh, team is ex intact users. So they they're they're on here. Go. We know intact. We want intact. There's not another player in the game. We just need to make sure that you can actually integrate to the specialty software that, uh, that we have. [00:21:30] So it's, it's hit or miss in some in some ways.

Emily Madere: Yeah. No, it definitely is hit or miss. But I think, you know, the the process I just explained is a good process for evaluating the vendor. What is equally as important is evaluating your implementation partner.

Matt Lescault: Absolutely. Um, you know, I think that's I think the implementation partners that do the best can describe what they're actually achieving in that implementation and how they're going to support. I mean, you [00:22:00] probably see it, Emily, the biggest question that you run into in the implementation is talk to me about support. We go live when we're transitioning. What what do we get from you in a support mentality or a support function? And it's not just it's not just user acceptance testing. When it comes to a go live component, it is truly the the transition training that people are looking for. A lot of times in their accounting department. [00:22:30]

Emily Madere: It's it's that and it's they they've gotten burned in the past of using QuickBooks or Microsoft GP. And they don't they don't have any support. So what happens if something something breaks. What do they do. Where are they. Where do they get stuck?

Doug Lewis: It's amazing that the biggest players in every single technology vertical are just horrible on support. I do find that just the most ironic thing in the world. Um, but that's a whole separate conversation. You guys both mentioned kind of the buying process. Uh, both for the vendor side and for the implementation side. [00:23:00] Matt, you mentioned the buyer persona a little bit. Um, I'm curious for, for everyone listening, how many decision makers, on average, understanding the size of the company can, can really sway this? How many decision makers are usually involved in choosing a vendor and or an implementation partner.

Matt Lescault: No more. No less than two. I've seen upwards of ten decision makers in the process.

Emily Madere: And these are people that. I'm sorry, Matt. These are people that can be CFOs, controllers, owners. [00:23:30] I've seen a lot more recently, um, technology people became becoming a part of my deal. And they are probably 60% always bringing in, um, Microsoft 365.

Doug Lewis: Emily, are you referring to, like, CIOs or CIOs?

Emily Madere: Yep.

Doug Lewis: Cto. You know what? Okay.

Doug Lewis: Got it.

Matt Lescault: Those are the ones that always kind.Of worry me when they come in, because then they start asking me things about servers. I'm like, this is all this is a cloud based product. Did you want to talk about single sign on? What are we talking about? I don't know. But [00:24:00] yeah, I mean the CIOs are definitely because on the bigger organizations, Emily, I assume that you're seeing them come in and really being involved in that integration process, especially with products that aren't on on the marketplace and wanting to help make sure that that is that is fully vetted as a process and not, um, uh, not overlooked. You know, we had and they're.

Emily Madere: Asking for for things [00:24:30] like the Soc2 report, which I'm more than happy to send them. Um, and then here recently, I actually got on a call with, um, Sage myself and a couple other individuals from the IT team, and we got into the weeds about the, the servers that Sage is hosted on. What is their their disaster recovery processes? Um, so it's getting it's getting pretty advanced. And I think it was a couple of years ago.

Matt Lescault: Well, I mean, I think, you know, a previous episode, we brought Eric Nielsen in from Data Bland and I see and the [00:25:00] deals that he gets involved in, you probably see them to that far more likely to bring in their, their, their technology side of the house when we start getting into those level of implementations.

Emily Madere: Yep. Speaking. Speaking of of him, he. I just got an email from him.

Matt Lescault: I was on the I was the phone, uh, right before this with with him and a deal. It was a ten minute call, which is good because we should be hearing. But yeah, he seems to always be around.

Emily Madere: He is always around.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. [00:25:30]

Doug Lewis: He's he's just a he's a lurker, I guess. So kind of moving through the buying process here. Uh, in a previous life I sold enterprise SaaS solutions, uh, software as a service. You're not kidding me there, Matt. And, um, you know, I was pitching a pretty, pretty comprehensive product to a relatively smaller entity at the time, and I got to the end of the sales process with this guy, and he said, you know what? I don't need an 18 Wheeler to move my one bedroom apartment. That [00:26:00] was his analogy. He said, this software is just too complex for me. It's too big. It's more than I need to run my sized entity. And you know what? It probably made sense at the time. Pissed me off at the time. But yeah, he was probably right. But that kind of stuck with me. So, you know, kind of moving back to that, that top of the funnel, you know, what are what are really good targets, what are really good fits for someone where Sage Intacct could be a great solution for them? A do either of you see any kind of common trends, like really common pain points and some of these, some of these industries, some of these industries or verticals that are great [00:26:30] fits for Sage Intacct, you know, sizes, what are they struggling with? What are some of the presales components that you would really want to understand about a potential client if you were going to implement or sell them? Sage Intacct.

Matt Lescault: You know, I don't want to be a broken record because I think we've talked about this before, but multi multiple entity living in Excel, um, is the two main things that you see that you're solving legacy software that's on a server. It's not cloud based. That's number three. I'm hoping [00:27:00] that we're seeing less and less of that because of the adoption of cloud based solutions in the market, in the marketplace. I mean, those are those are kind of your major things you want to get into industry specific components. You know, again, nonprofit when you talk about grant tracking and and the ability to take care of that. Uh, HIPAA compliance in healthcare, like like we mentioned, Emily, you can speak on the on the CRA and, uh, side of things and where, where that really comes into play.

Emily Madere: Yeah.

Emily Madere: The, the [00:27:30] CRA function, I would also have to say, um, hospitality industry. Um, the general business, anyone who needs project accounting, Sage Intacct is really, really good for or it runs the gamut. But I think Sage Intacct is a good fit for mid-market companies, right? This isn't a small mom and pop. Um, this is a relatively, you know, expensive system. Um, and you're also going to have to, you know, invest in the system, but invest in the implementation. So they're going to be two cost. [00:28:00]

Doug Lewis: So you said.

Doug Lewis: Mid-market companies there Emily. And I'm sorry to cut you off there, Matt. But I want to I want to clarify that for everybody listening because everyone has a different idea in their head of what, you know, an SMB or small midsize business kind of market is. Um, just from a revenue perspective, can you define kind of what what you would say is really that that middle market or medium sized business?

Emily Madere: Um, yeah. So it's taking everything Matt said, like you're having those problems and you're and it's it's different for everybody. [00:28:30] But I would say that the lowest 5 million and up it really it just depends if you're having the problems that Matt, you know just said and you're, you're a, you're a $3 million business, but you're willing to invest in software, then that's a different story. And I'm a I'm a sales person. And I hate saying it just depends.

Matt Lescault: You know, I will say that I'm seeing more and more adoption going downstream into what you'd even call [00:29:00] the higher tier of SMB. I really try to talk to prospects about? Am I allowed to say the size doesn't matter. Um, you know, it really is. I say that for you. I say that for you.

Doug Lewis: That's, um. That's I.

Doug Lewis: Appreciate that.

Doug Lewis: I, you know, but but.

Doug Lewis: That's that'll be a separate episode. We can. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: But and all jokes aside, the the pain points and the investment of time and resources [00:29:30] of getting information, uh, out of your accounting system, the cost of it from a manual, from a manual labor, and from informative or information perspective is really what can drive that decision making. But we only we only scratch the surface. You know, it's one of the most underutilized in my opinion. Modules that Intacct uh, offers is dynamic allocations. You know, many organizations that have costs that they allocate, whether between departments, locations, [00:30:00] entities or other metrics that they do manually in spreadsheets that intact can actually fully automate. And it's something that actually NetSuite can't do, does not do well. Netsuite stops basically at what we call transaction allocations, which is sort of. Saying, hey, here's a percentage and go do it. Dynamic allocation says, hey, we're going. To put a statistical account in for square footage. That changes [00:30:30] for every event and every. Time. And we're going to tell it, tell it to give us a calculation of cost to square foot or. Or revenue to square foot. And I don't even like using the word square, the analogy square foot. Because it's more of a fixed item. But let's think about if you're using time as a metric. Point for allocations, or if you're looking at gross profit or net income, or the or [00:31:00] a dollar.

Matt Lescault: Amount that changes in there and is variable. And now we're actually changing that from a from how we allocate our costs into those different cost pools. I mean this this level of automation and then reporting. Let's think about this when we when we talk about being competitive as a business or organization, whether you're a nonprofit or a for profit, and you have information that allows you to, at a moment's notice, know exactly how profitable [00:31:30] you are within your cost centers, within your projects, within your whatever it is that you're you're you're you're you're tracking your grants, your, your, your, uh, your dimensions. So that right there is something where I could have a 2 or $3 million firm that needs to know that level of granularity in order to make the decisions, to invest in certain things. And it's well worth the money. So we as implementers [00:32:00] and we as partners have to evaluate what that client's need is and then bring them the solution. And I'm happy to say you should stay in QuickBooks. But I'm also happy to say, yeah, you might feel light. You might feel like you only need that QuickBooks apartment. But guess what? You're operating like mid-market house. I just think that that's really important to to emphasize in these conversations.

Emily Madere: And you brought [00:32:30] up a good point, Matt. Um, you know, when when I'm talking to prospects, it sounds like you you do as well. If they're not a fit for that semi. I'm going to tell them, because at the end of the day, I want you to be happy. I want us to be happy because we're in a long term relationship.

Doug Lewis: Yep, yep. That's shocking. We didn't even plan that out. But that kind of segues into my last kind of question for both of you. It's really quick, nice and easy. What do you both see as the top two competitors [00:33:00] that Sage knocks out. So when people are looking to reevaluate their current systems, they bring in sage, and sage wins those contracts. What are the top two competitors in that world that are usually knocked out of the gate?

Matt Lescault: Top two competitors are knocked out of the gate. I mean, we see a ton of QuickBooks conversions. We see a ton up against some NetSuite. Look, there's only really three players in that [00:33:30] what we would call mid-market solution. Okay. And they're always coming against each other. And I think the question I hate to say is, you know, what are the industries that Intacct wins and hands over fist always in the top three is nonprofit, healthcare and SaaS. Sorry, I don't I don't live in the software as a service world as of yet, but those are your three number one industries within intact. Now, [00:34:00] what's what's incredible is the investment that Emily talked about earlier and where they're going for the other industries and how they're becoming market leaders in the other industries, and how they're starting to win consistently in the other industries as much as they win in those top three, really speak to where the product is going and where we as solution providers will be able to have these those type of conversations in those industries that we do in the top tier industries, because we're still winning. If you go to general business and I do a lot of work with general business [00:34:30] team, and I hate the name of it because it kind of it kind of doesn't talk about all the intricacies that go into it in intact is winning more and more and more.

Doug Lewis: Emily a rebuttal to Matt.

Emily Madere: They're not necessarily a rebuttal. Um, but I think we've talked about it a lot this episode we've talked with Sage strengths are where it lies in multiple entities, where it lies of getting you out of excels where it lies of just having integrations exist. You're not having to rekey information. Um, so [00:35:00] as far as other solutions, there isn't a lot of players in the games. I do find that Microsoft 365 gets knocked out pretty quick, because it doesn't have the functionality that I think CFOs and accounting teams are looking for. Um, and it's normally a 1 to 1 with intact and NetSuite. But I think, you know, as someone who is looking at software, you need to take your time. You need to evaluate, evaluate systems based on your needs, but also your budget. And just know that if they say they're offering a free [00:35:30] implementation, ask yourself, is that really free?

Doug Lewis: Yeah, well, there's no such thing as a free lunch, right? Yeah. Same with same with any any software provider out there in the world. Um, I think that's a good place to wrap up. We've covered a lot there and kind of the the buying process start to finish here. Um, which, which honestly, something I find shockingly exciting. And I'm not even joking there. Uh, that's kind of cool. I'm weird when it comes to that stuff. So, Matt, you have to you have to hop on a plane here in a moment, if I'm not mistaken. So I want to cap it with a horrible joke for you to [00:36:00] just think about the whole way. Um. Oh, boy. Let's see, what do we got today? Oh, okay, I got one. How do you know that your clock is still hungry?

Emily Madere: Oh, no. I suck at these.

Matt Lescault: I don't got.

Matt Lescault: Time to think this through right now, I gotta go. What is it?

Doug Lewis: It goes back for seconds. Ba ba ba.

Doug Lewis: I'm hungry. Clock that.

Doug Lewis: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You will. Yeah, it'll be a good one. Or [00:36:30] we can wrap it there and everyone can just bask in how great that one was. Um. And it'll just keep getting better next week. So thanks for listening again, everybody. Matt. Emily, we will see you again next week.

Emily Madere: Bye, everybody.