There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.
Doug Lewis: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the unofficial emphasis on unofficial Sage Intacct podcast fun episode coming up here today.
Matt Lescault: So this week I was contacted by the corporate communications department of Intuit, who informed me that, um, I might have gotten some things [00:00:30] wrong on our podcast that we recorded a couple episodes or a few episodes ago. Yes, I am not infallible. I do get things wrong and vocab drop though. Hey, I just want to make sure that I still have it and I'm not reading under a sixth grade level. I'll let you talk about that later.
Doug Lewis: We'll get to that in a sec. Yeah.
Matt Lescault: Um, interestingly enough, I sent a message back and I said, hey, I really do care about accuracy. And the Intuit Enterprise Suite [00:01:00] is new and I'm sure I got some things wrong. Can you set me up with a deep dive demo so I can really get an understanding of how it what its capabilities and features are? And I would entertain the idea of a part two episode on our podcast of the difference between Intact Enterprise Suite and Sage Intacct. Now question is, are you two going to join me for this demo, [00:01:30] and are they going to allow me to actually ask all the questions that I need to ask?
Emily Madere: Hmm. I think I think we owe it to our viewers and we owe it to ourselves to investigate.
Matt Lescault: I do too. That's that's why I responded.
Emily Madere: Yeah. So I mean, I'm in to watch their watch their demo and have them on, um, to discuss their new product.
Matt Lescault: Well, I don't know that they're going to come onto our podcast. I specifically just asked for a deep dive, a demo. I figured this would be done outside of a recording session, [00:02:00] because I'm pretty sure you have to get legal involved. Of course, what I really wanted to do is I wanted to have the ERP deathmatch podcast. I wanted to get like the product owner of intact, the product owner of Intuit Enterprise Suite, and I want to bring him on here. They'd have to battle it out to who had the best product, but I don't think they'll actually agree to that. So we're going to stick with me doing a demo. Uh, and, Emily, you should join me. Doug, I don't think you really care. Uh, and.
Doug Lewis: Uh, nailed that one right on the head. And then.
Matt Lescault: We can. And then we can redo an [00:02:30] episode. Correct. Anything that was that was said wrong that I was I was wrong about, uh, or any of us was wrong about. I keep on saying myself, but you guys did talk to and, uh, it was just you.
Doug Lewis: It was. You were the only one.
Emily Madere: Yeah you're the head of this podcast. You take all the responsibility.
Matt Lescault: Well, just because I'm a big head doesn't mean I'm the head of the podcast. Okay. Um. So I really like this idea. Emily, will you will you join me on this? Uh, on this adventure.
Emily Madere: Yeah. Let's [00:03:00] do it.
Matt Lescault: Okay. Well, uh, I told him I'd wait till after after Thanksgiving to reach out and schedule it, but we will do that. And I'm really excited to see it, because there's not a lot of information out there still, when it comes to the Intuit Enterprise suite, and to have that level of information to really get into it, to really understand it, I think is important for us as service providers when it comes to talking to our clients about what is available out there. Just because we're pretty aligned with Sage Intacct doesn't mean that sometimes, and [00:03:30] I think we've said this in the past, that Sage Intacct isn't the right fit all the time, and it's good to know what the other fits are.
Emily Madere: I agree, and it's also good to know if it's in fact not the right fit, who to reach out to, who to connect with.
Matt Lescault: Or just like schedule a ERP death match? I'm just saying.
Emily Madere: Or schedule.
Doug Lewis: We gotta wait till everyone's in the same physical room. No, no, no.
Matt Lescault: We do the whole claymation. I bet you that we could we could do this with, like, AI generated video, we could tell the AI to create like a A.
Doug Lewis: Are [00:04:00] you talking like that old celebrity deathmatch thing? Yes. Remember that from like, the 90s? I can't even remember.
Matt Lescault: Yes.
Matt Lescault: You know, I think we could. We could try. This is.
Emily Madere: Two. This is two, man. Like, we need, like, a lip sync or something.
Matt Lescault: This is too man.
Emily Madere: Yeah like fighting?
Matt Lescault: Have you.Ever seen Ronda Rousey? Come on.
Emily Madere: No.
Matt Lescault: Well, trust me, there is women that could kick the living. You know what? Out of all three of us.
Doug Lewis: One of the professional MMA fighters or boxers or anyone. [00:04:30] Any single one of them? Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. In the same boat there?
Matt Lescault: Exactly.
Matt Lescault: Well, I said all three of us at the same time. I mean, I wasn't even I wasn't even entertained the idea of just myself. I'm throwing you in front of him, and I'm running.
Doug Lewis: You're throwing Emily in front of him? Good. Good call. Good call. See, it's like a flight or fight is.
Emily Madere: Freeze. I'm not the one.
Doug Lewis: You just stand there. Pretend. Maybe she's a tree, I don't know.
Emily Madere: Yeah. No. No confrontation. I actually in in high school, I was in a rendition of a Shakespeare play, [00:05:00] and I was the wall.
Doug Lewis: The wall.
Emily Madere: The wall.
Matt Lescault: So you just stood there.
Matt Lescault: Did you have any lines?
Emily Madere: I think I had some lines as the wall, but I just stood there as the wall.
Matt Lescault: And the wall spoke.
Emily Madere: Yeah.
Emily Madere: And the wall is still speaking.
Matt Lescault: I that's I know I don't have anything.
Matt Lescault: To say about that.
Doug Lewis: That's probably for the best. We should probably get into it a little bit here. So this is gonna be a fun one. Um, mainly because none of us have ever seen any of the material we're [00:05:30] about to go through here before, so, um, uh, basically, the goal is we're taking, by the way, completely unaffiliated with Sage Intacct. Let's be clear about that up front. What we're going to do today is it's going to be pretty cool. So our our brilliant producers in the background have put together this G2 crowd review. Uh, we got two good ones, two middle of the road ones and two negative ones all about Sage Intacct. And we're literally going to read them live, which is going to be horrible. Uh, go through them. And these are other independent [00:06:00] opinions. So again, not us, not the official opinion of anybody. Uh, G2 crowd, for those who don't know, is a public forum where, um, everyday people, users, um, employees, everybody can go and give honest reviews about the technology, products that they utilize, everything from cost to implementation to how it works, to how satisfied they are, pretty much everything in between. So we're going to focus on six individual Sage Intacct G2 crowd reviews, all public if you want to check it out. And uh, [00:06:30] we were joking before this, so I think the plan is I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of read off these individual reviews one by one. And then Matt, Emily, if you could chime in, either agree or violently disagree. Whatever. Matt's in kind of a violent mood today with the death match comments. So we'll see how that goes.
Matt Lescault: Violent at all.
Doug Lewis: No, no, you're you're one of those dinosaurs that just eats the leaves. What is it? Herbivore, right. Is that you?
Matt Lescault: There you go. Look, look, look at you.
Doug Lewis: You know, I learned a lot in in middle school and elementary school, which is really interesting. So [00:07:00] Zach, our producer on this thing, um, looked this up because we were joking about it beforehand. None of us have ever seen this. So when I read these, they're going to be live for the first time, which I'll probably stumble through it because I joked, oh, I read it like an eighth grade level, right. And Zach, our producer, chimed in and actually looked this up. 54% of us adults read below a sixth grade level.
Matt Lescault: It's a good thing they're listening.
Doug Lewis: It's great. So they can see me two levels above them. Um, so I won't feel quite as [00:07:30] bad if I butcher some of this as we go live, but I think it'll be fun to kind of go through these one by one. Um, the plan, I think unless you guys want to kind of switch it up on the fly, here is go. Best. Great. Two phenomenal reviews right out of the gate, then middle, then bad.
Matt Lescault: Hey, you you're running the show, so we'll do it any way you want to. I want to go back to one thing that you said, that the unaffiliated part. Let's be clear. We were actually contacted by, uh, Corporate affairs, uh, the public relations office of Sage and [00:08:00] said, can you please put a disclaimer on your podcast that you're not affiliated? They don't even want to be affiliated with us. So we're really unofficial. I just want to make sure everybody's clear about that.
Doug Lewis: Everything's opinionated. That's that's all I have to say. Um, so this this will be fun. And we're getting we're now we're getting second hand opinionated, which is going to be even better. So, um, I'm going to hit the first five star review. Now this is from Courtney D on November 24th. All right. The question is what do you like best about Sage Intacct and Courtney's [00:08:30] answer? There's really efficient design in just even the basic package of Sage Intacct. The automations in the app module and the general ledger can save so much time and energy. They're really intelligent rules that can be created in the cash management module to save much time and basically automate what used to be a very arduous bank Reconciliation. Sage Intacct has real presence in the market. So when we're using a third party service for payroll or any other solution, they're really familiar with the product [00:09:00] and provide APIs in most cases. I really appreciate the ease of import in general, uh, or the ease of import in general. Sage Intacct. And it goes for almost everything. Jas bills, bank transactions. So that was a pretty glowing review from Courtney D. Uh, this past November here, right out of the gate. Matt, thoughts on any of that?
Matt Lescault: Well, I don't I don't I mean, it's accurate. There is I really think this, uh, reviewer, uh, talked about what the core [00:09:30] functionality of Intacct is. And, you know, they mentioned a base package or basic package, which there's not really such a thing as a base package or a basic package, but they were really focused on the core modules of Intacct. What makes up the core component of it. And the reality is I think that's, you know, we've talked about in other episodes, that's where it shines, the user interface. The UI of it is easy to use, easy to navigate, and then really the the piece that's been so much, so much invested into intact from the days of [00:10:00] pre Sage to post Sage has a lot to do with how to automate the tasks around the finance function, and I think that this reviewer username is Courtney. Uh, really, uh, really highlighted in the review the thing that I like about it, uh, about the approach for the review, is it really talks about some of the most basic components of this, that it's important to understand that we can talk about all the funny, the fun and flashy components of the of the advanced modules and all those things. But if you don't get the basics done right, [00:10:30] if you don't get the core of your solution done right, you don't have a great solution. And I think we've all seen products that espouse being, uh, specific to this industry or that, and it'll do things around the industry. Right. But then the core financials just like, don't make it at all, uh, from a capability perspective. And so I think that's a that that's an important part of this. Emily.
Emily Madere: Yeah. So you kind of hit on everything I had. The only thing you didn't hit on was Courtney said and, quote, Sage Intacct [00:11:00] has a real presence in the market, and that's something I really don't hear a lot of folks say, because people just assume that NetSuite has a bigger presence in the market. So I like that she pointed that out. Um, in relation to connecting to, uh, third party solutions like payroll.
Matt Lescault: You know I wonder if she's in the nonprofit space, because I think it has a very big presence in the nonprofit industry, but you start getting outside of that. And I've had a lot of conversations around this where we need thought leadership and more discussion [00:11:30] around what Sage Intacct is because it misses, uh, from a marketplace in some, some of those industries. Uh, I think that it if you look at the marketplace, uh, partners in the marketplace that Sage Intacct I mean, there's over 1400 software vendors that integrate with Intacct just to just to, uh, kind of highlight what Emily was saying on sort of that, uh, that side of it. But there's still a lack of knowledge [00:12:00] in the general accounting community, in my, my opinion, that aren't within the partner ecosystem of intact.
Emily Madere: Yeah, I get that all the time. People just assume that NetSuite is the the bigger, better product just because it has more market presence.
Matt Lescault: Yep, yep.
Doug Lewis: I think we talked about that before. A lot of people think NetSuite is like the enterprise option out there when you're looking at these things. Um, so it's interesting, there's a little bit of a misconception, um, kind of across the board there. So finishing off Courtney D's, uh, review here, what [00:12:30] do you dislike about Sage Intacct? Courtney's answer admittedly, I was not on the team for implementation, so I can't speak as much to that. Having come in after implementation, I did need to take some time to learn the system. Unfortunately, I found that was part of the implementation team still needed to do the same as over a year later, we're still only using the basic functions to get the day to day done. Three years later, we're using almost every available feature to us, [00:13:00] and we could have eliminated a full time role with the automations and efficiencies we now have in place. Honestly, you just have to take the time to read and learn how to use the system.
Matt Lescault: I think that's beautifully said. I one of the things that I'm talking, you know, within Sage about is this the the customer journey and what it means to really utilize the product. You know, the, the go live or the moment once it's implemented is really the beginning [00:13:30] of the journey, not the end. And I think too many organizations look at the go live or the implementation as the end of the journey. Um, and maybe that's not being fair, but I don't see as much thought and effort being put into continuous review of not only the feature set and capabilities of intact, but how it's designed, how it's utilized, and how it can it can create those efficiencies. The key is these type of products can eliminate, uh, positions. Uh, and I [00:14:00] and I should go back to because me and Emily in a previous episode sort of went back and forth around sort of that. Do we want to eliminate roles or not eliminate roles? But I would say reassign, uh, people's tasks and people's responsibilities into higher value, uh, higher value, uh, responsibilities.
Emily Madere: I thought it was interesting because we don't we don't learn about Courtney in what we talked about is she's the she was the CFO of her organization. So I thought it was interesting that [00:14:30] she wasn't on the implementation team or she didn't attend any calls. So I'm assuming for the implementation. Um, but I think it goes to show for any of the accounting folks, CFOs out there that you need to play an avid role in the implementation just so you don't get kind of behind, like Courtney was, um, you know, reading finished reading it and she looks like she has she loves Sage Intacct and she's helping her automate. Um, but the learning part of a new system can can be very strenuous. And I think, um, [00:15:00] you just you just need to be there with your implementation team learning. And it does have to do with whoever your implementation partner is.
Matt Lescault: Well, I'm just going to defend Courtney real quick, and I'm going to say maybe she wasn't at the organization when they implemented it and she became the CFO.
Emily Madere: Maybe. We don't.
Emily Madere: No. Courtney, if you're listening, please, please come on.
Matt Lescault: But I think you made a really good point there. You know, if you get the buy in of the full team that is going to utilize and consume the data coming out of your ERP, no matter what ERP it is, [00:15:30] you're going to get a better a better result and a better product than if you sort of, uh, I don't want to say delegate, but delegate it down to a small team that only has a small purview in what's important to them. So I, I completely agree, Emily, with what you're, uh, what you're saying there.
Emily Madere: Virtual high five.
Matt Lescault: Yeah.
Doug Lewis: So, uh, that was Courtney died in November of 2024. Moving on to another five star. Another five [00:16:00] star review from G2. This is Randy. Also from November of 2024. All the information we have available on Randy. What do you like best about Sage Intacct and Randy's response? We use Sage Intacct for all of our accounting and finance needs. We love that it's in the cloud, and all of our division leaders have their own custom dashboards so they can monitor the revenue and expenses in real time. This allows them to make better and informed decisions about their budgets. They have access to their data 24 [00:16:30] hours a day. We also use it for all invoice approvals and allows us to have record for those approvals. All of our reports come directly out of the system, so there's no need to use Excel or other software to manipulate reporting. What are your thoughts there, Emily?
Emily Madere: Chef's kiss. Mwah! This is beautiful. I love this review. Um, I think he really hit all the the important pieces. I think I really like the part where he, um, is sharing reports to his. I don't [00:17:00] know what he called it. His his.
Doug Lewis: Division leaders.
Emily Madere: Division leaders. Um, I think that that's a very important part. When you have Sage Intacct, it's meant to be shared out. There is the only access into the system where people can have, um, viewable reports and dashboards. And I think that needs to be more widespread. The accounting and finance, they don't have to print out reports and then send them via email or walk down the office anymore. They can. People just have logs into the system.
Matt Lescault: My my idea is go to [00:17:30] the same place, but I love that this person is having the people, the leaders in the organization consume their that data. Because you know what that means. Those people have ownership of those panels. Those people now are going to give feedback in real time. Whoa whoa whoa whoa. This isn't allocated. This isn't my cost or hey, I'm missing this. Where's my revenue in this? And it's making the data within his own system that much more profound to the organization because so [00:18:00] many, so many times when we don't have our division leaders or the people that are responsible for panels actually incorporate into the into the software, we don't really have accurate data, and you're relying on your finance team to really know the inner workings of every transaction, which is unrealistic. Uh, so I'm I'm super stoked on that. On that answer. Forget the review. I mean, I don't care if you have Intacct or another, another solution, but what the result is going to be for that organization at the [00:18:30] end of the day is, I think, a high, more highly competitive organization to their peers and to to the competition that they're going against a more nimble organization that is going to be able to change and adapt quicker. Uh, it's it's that's exactly the type of value that we want to see coming out of finance departments we want to shift ourselves from. And I'll talk about this today. I've talked about it before, and I won't stop talking about it later. Get him away from being tactical, transactional departments into truly [00:19:00] strategic, visionary departments that help drive and deliver for the, uh, for the for the business itself.
Emily Madere: So chef's kiss. Chef's kiss.
Matt Lescault: I mean yes.
Doug Lewis: Well, we got it. We got to offer the balanced the full randy view here. So Randy continues on. What do you dislike about Sage is the question and his response. My employee users need to be able to print dashboard reports on demand. That is missing. One of my department department heads wants an app version [00:19:30] for easier invoice approval while he travels. Maybe make reporting a little more straightforward with account groups. A couple different thoughts to take in there. Matt. What do you think?
Matt Lescault: Christine?
Matt Lescault: Interesting. Sage Intacct does not have an app and it is something that I think is a completely missing component. Um, Sage intelligent time, which is now Sage Intacct time does have an app. I will say that, but for the general utilization of the accounting software [00:20:00] and this is where QuickBooks got it right. Quickbooks has a very easy to use app to to access things. Um, that is a missing, uh, missing function.
Matt Lescault: Now, Branded,
Emily Madere: You Could use an iPad. I know some some of my clients use an iPad, but, yeah, they don't have an app.
Matt Lescault: Yeah.
Matt Lescault: I mean, people expect an app experience.
Emily Madere: There's an app for everything.
Matt Lescault: Yes.The thing that surprised me and Randy, I don't know you and don't and don't hate me for this, but who's printing anymore? I [00:20:30] don't even own a printer. So I mean, that part of it. I understand some people like to print and make notes and things like that, but that's just not where I live. You know, I just I don't print things. The only things I print are when people force me to print, like, hey, I need you to print and sign this for the bank. And I'm like, banks, come home, let's get it together. Uh, so that part of it I. I understand, but I don't think it's a huge impact on the day to day use of, uh, use of intact. [00:21:00] Uh, so that's that's my thought there.
Doug Lewis: And just for the record, I print stuff all the time.
Matt Lescault: Do you really?
Doug Lewis: Yeah.
Emily Madere: He has these notes printed.
Matt Lescault: Yeah, I saw that. You.
Matt Lescault: Do you have your notes printed?
Doug Lewis: I actually, I actually do, yeah. Everything I do, like my dad is paper all over the place because I print it. I do what I need to do, and I get rid of it. Uh, very, very economical.
Matt Lescault: How old are you, Doug?
Doug Lewis: Old. Just old enough to party, you know.
Doug Lewis: Just old enough.
Doug Lewis: I always like to tell people I could still play a teenager in a Netflix series. That's how old [00:21:30] I am.You know,
Matt Lescault: I have so many comments I'm not going to make. Um, but there was a third thing that Randy mentioned there because we talked about the app, we talked about the reporting. There was something else that you mentioned.
Doug Lewis: Yeah. Make reporting a little more straightforward with account groups.
Matt Lescault: Oh, I want to mention.
Matt Lescault: I wanted to hit on this. So there are account groups in intact. And this might be just a A. There's so many different capabilities within tax. Sometimes it gets lost. And trust me, sometimes I gotta like stop. I had one [00:22:00] scoping I was doing and I was like, I don't know the answer. Can I put you on mute? I need to call somebody on my team to get the answer. You just you can't keep up with everything. But there are account groups. There is the ability to slice and dice that information from a reporting perspective very easily. Now, what I would say is intact. Don't shoot me for this. The interactive Custom report writer does leave some things from a want perspective. Um, there's certain objects that you can't really cross-reference in reporting, and you need to use third party products to really to [00:22:30] really dive into that, that level of reporting. So there are some gaps there truthfully, but it wouldn't be in the account groups component of it, in my opinion.
Doug Lewis: No, that makes sense. And there's actually a third part of Randy's review here. So this is fun too. What problem is Sage Intacct solving and how is that benefiting you? Bear in mind I'm reading reading this for the first time. So if I stumble, I stumble. The availability. The availability of data in real time has helped with better decision making. Instead of dealing with paper invoices, we can get department heads approval electronically. [00:23:00] We're able to get rid of the on site server for the old accounting system. Glad to be in the cloud. As a CFO, my core job is to ensure we automate and streamline as many processes as we can. We have a very intricate accountability structure for our government grants of restricted funds. It was a huge consideration when choosing this software. Sage was able to accommodate this requirement for us with the accounts payable module, the way we code expenses and track our restricted spend. The GL allows us the ability to [00:23:30] set things up that met all of our needs. So that answered a lot of questions about who Randy is, which.
Doug Lewis: I know it did.
Matt Lescault: Yeah. So he's nonprofit. He's a CFO. He's really focused on the automation component. Yeah. No, I mean, I think I think that summed up a lot of what we have talked about already on this review. Uh, I'll do is I'll throw it over to you, Emily. But I really do think it sort of sums itself up.
Emily Madere: Yeah, I think I think it sums itself up. And, um, Randy sounds [00:24:00] like a pretty well-rounded CFO, and I kind of understand why he needs to print reports now.
Doug Lewis: Well, you want to elaborate a little bit on that one?
Emily Madere: Well, just because he's a nonprofit and some some nonprofit grants for reimbursement, they require you to print out stuff and send it to them so I can get it now.
Matt Lescault: And that's fair. Um, and some of those dashboards, you know, maybe he has his grants manager, uh, you know, has an employee. User. And and that person can't, you know, you know, print the, uh, the backup documentation [00:24:30] to some of those grant, uh, I grant funds.
Doug Lewis: I want to move on to middle of the road reviews. Now, we got two of these lined up that we're going to go through.
Matt Lescault: I'm more I'm more excited about the bad reviews.
Doug Lewis: But we're getting there. We're going downhill like, you know, we're we're getting there. So we're middle of the road ones. Now. This one's from Christina. What do you like best about Sage Intacct? Christina said, I like using dimensions. They are mighty. No, can't make this stuff up. As a nonprofit, we [00:25:00] migrated from QuickBooks to Intacct in 2021 for two reasons. Number one, we can track, we can track grant restrictions. And number two, dynamic allocations, which I know has been brought up a lot of times already to date. Um, Emily, thoughts on Christina's thoughts?
Emily Madere: Yes, dimensions are mighty. I love that phrase. I think I'm going to use that more often. Um, I think there's nothing really I can dig into here. Um, maybe we read the next section and we [00:25:30] can piece some more things together about Christina.
Doug Lewis: Let's see what Christina dislikes about Sage. And then. And then just give the whole the whole picture. So what do you dislike about Sage Intacct? Christina says export to Excel does not include formulas. I waste so many hours recreating formulas. It's infuriating. I love these. This is a good review so far. Implementation required a third party that messed up our configuration, and there was no help to fix the configuration error, which cost additional money for [00:26:00] another third party to correct. Quickbooks credit card processing was streamlined. Intact, does not have a native credit card processor, and one has to build a and one has to build for stripe with a third party. So they had to integrate stripe into this thing. Product releases are confusing and slow. Uh, announcement of artificial intelligence for billing in 2021, but did not follow through until 2023, with no straight forward implementation instructions. Dashboards [00:26:30] are not very dynamic and visually unappealing. Basic dashboards are weak compared to QuickBooks. Report writing is complex and not user friendly. Quickbooks out of the box reports are super easy in comparison. So that's a lot to take in.
Matt Lescault: Well, I think there's I think there's a lot there to unpack. And I think there's some things that are fair to say, and I think there's some things that it would be a it would be a help [00:27:00] from an education perspective to allow this person to understand what they're getting, what they're not getting. Um, I there's a couple of things that come to mind, like Intuit Payment Solutions is still technically a third party business of Intuit. It's not QuickBooks. You know, Intuit has QuickBooks and MailChimp and, uh, and Intuit payments and so on and so forth. They have a multitude of products and it is integrated and incorporated into QuickBooks, [00:27:30] and it's a great product, and it is one of the places where Sage Intacct falls short. But there are marketplace partners that that that produce the same capabilities of, uh, of Intuit payment solutions. Uh, just just in Intacct it just doesn't have the same name. Imagine it like this. Let's pretend that Sage Intacct decided to purchase one of these merchant service providers and call it Sage Intacct payments. It'd be the same thing as what you get from a from a QuickBooks perspective. Um, now QuickBooks makes it really easy. I [00:28:00] mean, it doesn't feel like two different products. And so I think that's where there's there's a degree of reality to that statement.
Matt Lescault: And I actually recently honestly asked this question. I said, you know, why hasn't Sage Intacct or Sage in general gone into the sort of payments arena? And I was told it was a business case that Sage from a regulatory perspective, I think specifically coming out of the UK and being, uh, being and this is not what they said, but this is my this is the assumption part of [00:28:30] the statement being out of UK and being publicly traded on the UK on the London Stock Exchange, I think has deep regulatory requirements than some of the publicly traded component, uh, components here in the US. Um, you know, we all know about GDPR over there and we don't have the same level unless you're in California, but you have to be a bank to be a payment processor. And Sage decided that's not the business model that we're that we're in, nor do we want to, uh, manage that level of scrutiny that, that, that, [00:29:00] that requires on the side of reporting. That's the piece that surprises the most, uh, surprises me the most in this whole conversation, because what QuickBooks is, is it has a set of reports that you really can't do anything with. The reports are what the reports are. And, uh.
Doug Lewis: From a customization standpoint.
Doug Lewis: Right? Is that from a customer's data?
Matt Lescault: Yes. From a customization standpoint, look, every implementation of Intacct comes with 140 something reports in it that if you don't ever customize, [00:29:30] we'll do the same thing every time, just like your QuickBooks reports. And a dashboard is just a combination of reports that you're adding to a dashboard for ease of use and to into sort of bucket in a way. So it just surprised that that that piece of it really surprises me because I, I find so much value in that custom report capability, those dashboards and delivering information to for my company and for my decision making. So yeah, that there's there was a [00:30:00] couple other things that she said, but I think, I think I should let somebody else talk for a minute.
Doug Lewis: Well, the big one, I'll kick it over to you, Emily. There's seems like there was the implementation initially failed. The third party implementer didn't go well, so they had to bring in another third party implementer, which I know is not uncommon with software, but I know that's kind of the world you live in on the, the front side of, of implementation. So you want to hit that notion a little bit.
Emily Madere: Reading between the lines, maybe they contacted Sage directly, and then Sage put them in contact with implementation partner and [00:30:30] then that's first implementation partner messed up, messed up their configuration. So I had to reach out to another one. So that's that's what I'm kind of reading. Um, and that doesn't really happen often. I mean, it happens, um, but I'm, I'm helping a client right now evaluate NetSuite, and it happens more with NetSuite than I think with Intacct. So I don't know. And, you know, Christina, she's she's a nonprofit. So I'm very surprised that [00:31:00] she's having this experience, honestly, because like we've talked about intact and nonprofits, they go hand in hand.
Matt Lescault: We see quite a number of situations in which you have one party that implements, and then you have another party that comes in behind. Um, there's a couple reasons that this happens. You know, one is you have an implementer that just does a bad job. It it happens. Another thing can be personality. Honestly, you know, every business [00:31:30] is, you know, your implementers are people, and some people work well together and some people don't work well together. And it may not even be a skill set. It could just be a communication style. And so I've seen ones break down because of that. We've come in behind other partners, uh, to help, and we've been able to quickly identify that maybe it wasn't the partners, the issue with the implementer, um, but it was the way the implementer, uh, drove the implementation from a communication expectation perspective. You know, every [00:32:00] client needs to feel like they're being heard. And if they don't feel like they're heard, it breaks down. I can tell you, I was scoping a pretty big deal, uh, earlier this year. And me and the other person, me and the client, just we we just didn't jive. There was just. There was just a piece of this in which it was. You could tell that there was just, like, it just wasn't working and I backed out of it. I technically backed out of the deal because of it, because I knew [00:32:30] that this was going to challenge the implementation, even though I'm not the one implementing it. So sometimes you need to you need to know that. But it's the implementation is I always say this, I'd rather be the one that comes in afterwards and fixes it than be the implementer. It's easier to be the savior than it is to, uh, to be the migrator, if you want to put it that way. Uh, and I get, I get hesitant to, to, to quickly blame, uh, blame other partners. And it was, [00:33:00] you know, I like stories. I don't know if you've ever figured that one out, but I was.
Doug Lewis: You like talking and telling stories. I never would have guessed.
Matt Lescault: Yeah. Uh, I was in Atlanta, uh, recently, and, uh, at a kind of roundtable with other business partners. And one of the partners there said, you know, hey, sometimes these partners don't do a good job and so forth. And it wasn't really his intention. We had a conversation afterwards, and I just sort of said, hey, I just want to be careful on the message that we're sending, the rhetoric that we're sending, [00:33:30] because it's a small partner community is a small partner community of a lot of really capable partners. And really, I've seen enough problems with implementation happen that is not related to the ability or skill set of the partner, but the match and mesh of the partner and the and the client. And I never want to go in behind a another partner, even if I'm asked to, and start assuming [00:34:00] that they just did a bad job. They're not a good partner. That's that's not, uh, that's not my mentality with it. It's to try to understand how to solve it and how to solve it respectfully, and sometimes communicate back to that partner of where we saw the breakdown potentially happen so that they could learn for the next time. I believe in a strong community and a feedback loop. So I say all that kind of. On a side note from this review, I completely understand when when a bad implementation I shouldn't say a bad, but a challenging [00:34:30] implementation happens. But there's always more than one side of the coin.
Doug Lewis: Yeah, but it seems like in the end it actually worked out okay because this was one of our middle of the road ones. We'll move on to the next middle road one before we get to the the one stars, which will be which will be fun to hit. I know you're both just waiting to jump on those, but this one's from Lexi of September 2024. What do you like best about Sage Intacct? And Lexi said, I like that the reporting capabilities are diverse and you can really drill down on specific [00:35:00] dimensions. Again, bringing up dimensions. I also like the whole methodology of dimensions. They create a cleaner set of records and allow for a lot of customization. Now that's what Lexi liked. What do you dislike about Sage? And Lexi said, I really dislike that we cannot edit A AP bills after they have been paid and our old system which is unnamed. We would often use this to modify coding or split a large bill between the many departments. This was cleaner than doing a manual journal entry at the end. [00:35:30] Kept all the data together in the same record. And why I stumbled there a little bit is because there's quite literally three typos in this one. So as I was going live so that wasn't that was not a comprehension issue. Uh, thoughts on on on Lexi's middle of the road. Uh, Emily, I'll kick it over to you first.
Emily Madere: Okay. I am not an accountant. I'm not. But. And Matt does. Correct me if I'm wrong, but she cannot edit AP [00:36:00] bills after they have been paid. Wouldn't that go against accounting principles?
Matt Lescault: I was maybe going to go there.
Doug Lewis: Only if you get caught. I mean, you know, it's like anything else in the world. Uh.
Matt Lescault: Well.
Matt Lescault: Yeah, this is a this is.
Emily Madere: I'm not an accountant, so I don't know.
Matt Lescault: This is a process issue. And this this person probably came from a QuickBooks or Xero or product like that that has very flexible around these type of things.
Emily Madere: Or honestly from the sounds of it, it could be even [00:36:30] more manual than that.
Matt Lescault: I mean, maybe, maybe, yeah.
Matt Lescault: You would think you would know your allocation methodology upon purchasing whatever it is that you're getting a bill for, and therefore you'd be able to potentially associate what we call a transaction allocation to that bill upon entry of the bill that would then go ahead and make those splits, uh, to it. Um, but once something is paid and you apply that payment and this is, this is important [00:37:00] because she could also do is receive payment against that vendor without applying it to the bill. If she wanted to edit the bill before, uh, reconciling the bank, which is again, process, uh, process orientation. But you would think that the individual would sort of know what those allocations are, know where that should be posted, and the need to edit is minor, minimal, and therefore [00:37:30] an entry, a journal entry or a credit memo or things of that nature would be a great audit trail of saying, hey, we posted it like this first, and then we came back and we needed to make an adjustment. And now we have a set of a true record of that change and the why. Um, just my $0.02.
Emily Madere: So you're chalking it up to kind of process improvement. That's what could help here.
Matt Lescault: It could. There also is the reality is that some people just want but they want no matter what. And if they don't get what they want, they're not going [00:38:00] to be happy. And I can't change that.
Doug Lewis: Yeah. It is tough to change the legacy systems. And honestly, if companies of any size that's just that's just kind of the nature of the game. Yeah. Um, but go ahead.
Emily Madere: Bringing it back to to Lexi statement and a couple other ones we've seen we've heard a lot about dimensions today. Have we talked a lot about dimensions?
Emily Madere: I don't think we have.
Matt Lescault: I think we have sprinkled the concept dimensions throughout, uh, throughout every one of our episodes because.
Doug Lewis: I was going to say dusted. But yeah, we'll go with sprinkled. [00:38:30]
Doug Lewis: We'll stick with that. We've touched on it briefly. Emily, do you want to give a quick just, you know, 45 second on that one.
Emily Madere: I'm kind of thinking maybe we need to do something a little bit longer.
Matt Lescault: Oh, yeah. I have a whole episode on on dimensions.
Emily Madere: Well, like dimensions reporting how that correlates. Absolutely. What does dimension data mean?
Doug Lewis: 2025 part series. I think you're exactly what we need. 25 part series. So, yeah, we'll, uh, we'll dedicate a later episode to that whole thing and dive in [00:39:00] to really what that means. I want to get to the one stars. These are the gems. Okay, I'm assuming I don't know. I haven't read them yet. We're going to start with melodies, uh, from September of 2024. So what do you like best about Sage Intacct. The contracts module is helpful for SaaS companies. It's not very customizable though, so you have to have your contacts set up the way Sage Intacct is set up. Okay.
Doug Lewis: Apparently that's [00:39:30] that's the that's full stop right there. Uh, now what do you dislike? And here's Melody's response, which again, I've yet to read. The general ledger and accounting portion of the ERP is dated, and the implementation of the ERP was awful. We encountered several system bugs that took them weeks to find out. We ended up giving, uh, live a month late. We ended up giving live a month late. I'm reading that right.
Matt Lescault: Going going live a month?
Doug Lewis: I would assume. Yeah. Uh, due to their issue and they were [00:40:00] unapologetic for the issues this caused us. Uh, I have never had such an awful experience. The sales process was difficult, and we ended up being promised things we would. We would work with our structure. That didn't. And then we had to develop our own workarounds and Salesforce for the advanced CRM to work properly. Well, that just seems like a big old pile of fun.
Emily Madere: That's why it's a one star review.
Doug Lewis: It's you know, we knew it was going to be a little bit jaded, but, um, so [00:40:30] like a lot of this, just from seeing this for the first time, seems like this was just straight bad sales process, bad implementation. And that's the problem. It seemed like there were some there was some clunkiness in the actual, uh, functionality to an extent, but this seemed much more focused on kind of what you're going into. Matt, on that, on that last, I'll call it, uh, monologue where the personalities didn't match up.
Matt Lescault: You know every time [00:41:00] I talk, it's a it's a monologue.
Doug Lewis: Well, you know, numbers don't lie. It's it is what it is. But, uh, Emily, since that's kind of more your world and the front end, you know, pre-implementation the whole sales process, what are your what are your thoughts on on Melody's comments here? Yeah.
Emily Madere: So so blanket a blanket uh, I don't know. Description here is she's using the contracts module inside of Sage Intacct. That is that's kind of completely separate than intact. It's it's they're co-mingled, but it's kind [00:41:30] of like Sage Intacct in construction. You have to have a partner that's, um, verified to implement Sage Intacct construction to sell it. So she has contracts. So they had to find a partner that was certified to implement contracts so that they were able to sell it. So I don't know much about the contracts module, so I'm not going to get into that. I don't know, Matt.
Matt Lescault: Are you I'm not certified. I have some insight into it. There's a there's a couple buzzwords in there that that kind of piqued my interest [00:42:00] and probably explains a little bit of the challenge, but I'll jump back into that after you're done.
Emily Madere: Okay. Um, so for the sales process, yeah, I live, eat and breathe that every day. My question to Melody if the sales process was bad. Like what made you want to go forward with intact? But it's kind of along the lines of what Matt has been saying. If you find the right partner, they're going to help you during the implementation and the sales process. So I think it's it's like it's like dating. You gotta you gotta find the right person.
Matt Lescault: Well [00:42:30] said. I mean, it is a lot like dating. There was a couple of things that was said there that really probably shines a light into, uh, what happened or why that implementation, uh, took a turn for the worse. How about we say say it that way? I don't think enough time was spent in the sales process, setting expectations and diving into the unique needs of [00:43:00] this organization. And the reason I say that is when I hear contracts, it's a pretty complex module within intact that has a lot of customization, but has a set of base rules. And I'm not I'm not certified contracts. I just know how the advanced modules work and how databases kind of talk to each other and things of that nature, and has a set of base rules that you can't really shift around, sort of like the person you know said the contacts, the [00:43:30] structure of the contacts is what kind of drives that that capability in some ways. So the other thing that was said there, which gets really interesting, is the advanced CRM module. Okay. This is specifically for integrating Salesforce with intact. Um, but it's not the only way to integrate Salesforce with intact. It is the more canned approach. What I mean by that is it's a predefined, uh, [00:44:00] integration.
Doug Lewis: Is that right now is that native or is that a plugin?
Matt Lescault: It's it is uh, I mean, what's native, what isn't Sage Intacct planting is technically technically a standalone, but it's part of the product. It is a Sage product built to, uh, to facilitate the data transfer between Salesforce and Intact. But it's template driven, which means that there's a template that connects, and you have to use certain fields [00:44:30] and objects and components within Salesforce in the same way that it needs to be used in intact, which limits, uh, your functionality, maybe. And when I hear workarounds within Salesforce, I'm guessing that they they had a structure within Salesforce. That structure didn't meet that template. They had to do workarounds to make the template work when they could have done a custom integration between the two products, [00:45:00] and probably not have to do those workarounds. But a custom integration would be far more expensive than a than the out of the box solution. So it's like balancing that return on investment. Now, in the sales process, if I sat there and said, hey, I can get you your complete customization, here's what you're going to get, and you get it every which way you want to do it, but it's going to cost you.
Matt Lescault: And I'm making up numbers. Don't quote me. Anybody on this, it's going to cost you $50,000. Or you can use this advanced CRM integration and it's going to cost you $5,000. [00:45:30] And you pick the $5,000. I'm going to spend a little bit more time making sure you know what you're buying and what your limitations are. So when I get to implementation, you're not throwing your hands up and be like, this isn't what you sold me. And so I spend especially on on more advanced organizations. I've had I've had scoping sessions. So scoping is the idea of pre statement of work while we're in the sales process really defining the needs of the organizations. [00:46:00] I've had ones that have have spanned ten hours of time Over seven meetings to unpack all the detail needed by the organization, just to make sure that we were scoping what was necessary and what could be successful. That's the level of of care that needs to be taken when you start getting into more sophisticated organizations. It's just the just the truth of the matter.
Emily Madere: Yeah. And I think this [00:46:30] it brings in a good, uh, PSA to anyone who is who is in the in the process of buying Sage Intacct right now, ask to speak to references and ask, you know, ask to speak to someone who's going to be who's using the same modules as you're looking at, um, who's in your maybe your same industry and ask them what they did. Ask them if they liked it because they're going to be honest with you.
Matt Lescault: Well let's also be honest. The fact that Sage Intacct is the leading ERP for SaaS organizations, [00:47:00] it surpassed NetSuite just recently. This is a product that wins and wins often in this industry. So this is either an implementation partner issue of building expectations. Maybe it's a client issue in which they didn't spend the time necessary to pass that knowledge to the to the partner. I've run into that as well. Like, I don't I don't know this individual. I don't want to be hated. But I've I've had people that come into scoping and they don't want to give it the time [00:47:30] of day. They just sort of want to push through it as fast as possible and figure it'll get figured out in implementation. And then we get to implementation. They're like, well, why does it do this? Why didn't you tell me that you needed this? Why why didn't we have that conversation? So it a lot of times I hear these things and it's a breakdown between both parties. And some culpability needs to be owned by the customer as well as the partner, quite frankly.
Emily Madere: And I think I think in I hate, you know, put these words together. But enjoying the sales process is sometimes [00:48:00] hard for, for clients just because it's people just associate sales with car sales. Uh, it's it's not like that. I think with most folks I talk to. So enjoy the sales process. Get to know your your business development person, whoever it is, whatever their title is, get to know them. Um, and nothing makes me feel happier than when when one of my clients says, you know, Emily, you made this process really easy. Um, so you find the right person, date, date, the right company.
Doug Lewis: All right. So [00:48:30] to kind of wrap it up, we have one more beautiful one star review, which just by glancing at this thing, it's it's a mouthful. Uh, so I'll do my very best to get us through it. I'll just read the whole thing, start to finish, the good and the bad, and then just let you guys go wild on some thoughts here. So this one is an unknown name. Good start. Didn't even want to attach a name to it from November of 2023. What do you like best about Sage Intacct? [00:49:00] Unknown name says Sage offers excellent UI and for basic accounting and managing multiple companies books and records. It's an excellent out of the box experience. If during the Sage demo, Sage can walk you through every process you currently do and then actually show you the process instead of telling you it's possible, or scheduling a call with a company that can customize Sage for you will be happy to sell their product. Moving on. Unknown name from November of [00:49:30] 2023. What do you dislike about Sage? And I'm gonna just. I'm gonna throw the warning out. This is the long one, guys. I'm gonna do my best to get through it, okay? Unknown name says ensure that all necessary tasks are completed before entering into a contract with Sage, it is crucial to have the Sage team address your specific system requirements before committing to their services, or consider exploring alternative providers. Customization and Sage is similar to NetSuite, so be prepared [00:50:00] to pay a premium and negotiate a favorable contract up front.
Doug Lewis: If they're out of the box, solution does not meet your needs. It can be surprising that some Sage representatives may not possess a thorough understanding of their own system, and may suggest solutions that are not entirely effective. If you engage their professional services team, be aware that it may take a week or two to begin working with them, and the quality of the work may range from unsatisfactory [00:50:30] to average. Add a $250 an hour rate. Very specific review. Unlike Microsoft, where you can find a variety of skilled developers at different price points that can deliver, locating affordable Sage developers can be challenging. The high hourly rates are not the primary concern, but rather the dissatisfaction of paying for a completion of a task. Unfortunately, the Customer Success team at Sage may not be very helpful is [00:51:00] they may lack knowledge about their own platform. Therefore, do not rely solely on their Customer Success Team or technology services team to deliver. Hindsight I would have approached this differently, entirely differently, or went with an entirely differently platform. I'm reading that right. This sounds goofy, but I'm reading it right. Had we known what we know now? So that was a lot, guys. That's a lot to digest there. This gentleman or lady? Unclear. Unknown name. Uh, didn't have a great experience. [00:51:30] Uh, so I will kick it over to you, Matt first.
Matt Lescault: There's nothing to unpack there. Honestly, I have no understanding of the industry. I have no understanding of the need. I have no understanding of what customizations this person is talking about. There is not a a ounce of information that would allow me to give guidance to another purchaser of Sage. Everything said, uh, or unknown person said [00:52:00] Uh, was vague at best. And so I hate to say it, but I don't. I question if they weren't as vague in the in the buying process as they are in the review. Now, again, I'm not here to to get any enemies, and this person might have completely valid reasons, but there's. But from that, uh, review, I don't there's not an ounce of of valuable information that I can provide or insights I can provide into that experience. [00:52:30]
Doug Lewis: Emily. Thoughts?
Emily Madere: Well, unknown was very unhappy. Really?
Doug Lewis: Is that what you got out of that one?
Emily Madere: Yeah. He's very unhappy.
Doug Lewis: He or she. We don't know.
Emily Madere: Yeah. He or she they they were very unhappy. Everything that we've talked about thus far, I think will apply. So I don't think we need to go into the weeds about this one. But, you know, it could be just what Matt alluded to at the beginning of this call where it just wasn't the right fit.
Doug Lewis: I could not agree more. It was a lot. It was a lot to it was a lot to get to that [00:53:00] thought, but yeah, uh.
Doug Lewis: Nonetheless.
Matt Lescault: Manufacturing, unless he's in the manufacturing industry and he went with, uh, went with Sage Intacct as his manufacturing solution, which would fail immediately. Um.
Doug Lewis: Listen, I'm gonna go out on a limb. All these reviews, any negative portion of the five star reviews, all the way down to the one star, it seems like the common thread or the common theme was really it was the implementation that wasn't great for the most part. Yeah, there's some there's some bugs here or there in the actual software itself, but I think most people who had a negative experience, [00:53:30] it seems like it was really on the implementation side. So choosing the right partner, like it's been brought up so many times already today, is, is just paramount. It's key to successful implementation of this thing.
Matt Lescault: Well, let me tell you. Let me tell you what I say to a lot of organizations that were going down the implementation journey. On the very first meeting, I'll say, how do I do this? Because I don't I don't, I don't I don't have these meetings that much anymore. But what I used to say was, nobody [00:54:00] wakes up in the morning and says, I really want to change accounting systems and go through it. Implementation of a new product. That sounds fun. I've never heard those words, and I've never seen an implementation that doesn't have some level of speed bump or issue that we have to resolve together as a partner and as the client. The more we communicate, the more my team communicates with your team, and your team communicates with my team [00:54:30] often and immediately, the smoother this implementation is. If you wait for every small issue to create a small cut that you don't communicate, there's going to be a point in which we are digging out from a bad relationship. So speak up often, speak up loudly, and make sure that you feel like you're being heard in this process. And it's our job as your partner, as your implementation is to provide you continuous communication. If at any point you're wondering what the heck [00:55:00] are these guys doing? We're not doing our job communicating, and you need to let us know that you're not comfortable with the information that's being delivered to you. If you get that right, whether or not there's speed bumps, whether or not there's there's conflicts in the process. But if you're communicating, you'll get through it. That's that's that that's my message.
Doug Lewis: Agreed. And love the awkward silence.
Emily Madere: Ditto.
Emily Madere: Ditto with the sales process, because it's going to be kind of be the same thing.
Doug Lewis: Yeah, that's the common thread we've pretty much hit [00:55:30] this entire time. So in the interest of time, um, that was actually more fun than I thought it was going to be, even though there was a lot of reading and stumbling through some of it. Uh, it's clearly user generated reviews because there's typos all over this thing, um, which I love. So I'll, I'll cap it here. We can do a dad joke. I'll throw it to either one of you to to throw enough one out there. If not, I'll absolutely.
Matt Lescault: No, no.
Doug Lewis: Emily's is that a hard pass on your end.
Emily Madere: Too. Okay. Not the.
Doug Lewis: One. Um, we need something just really awful. Uh. Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. Ooh. [00:56:00] Okay. That's good. What? Forrest Gump's email password.
Matt Lescault: Bubba.
Emily Madere: Run, Forrest. Run at gmail.com.
Doug Lewis: That would be an email address. His password is oh one. Forrest one.
Emily Madere: Oh, that was close.
Doug Lewis: Oh, yeah.
Doug Lewis: You were close, though.
Doug Lewis: You were close, though, for sure. Yeah. That's it. You take that one home with you. Yeah. Impress your friends. That'll be great. I will.
Doug Lewis: We should, uh, we should do another round of reviews at some point down the road, which [00:56:30] would be fun. Um, but thanks for listening, as always. We'll be back. And more exciting stuff to come. We got more guests who actually know what they're talking about coming on board. So this is going to be a fun couple episodes coming up here, and we look forward to hearing from you again.
Doug Lewis: Take care guys.
Matt Lescault: Thank you.
