Day eight of month-end. The board meets on Thursday. Your team is still reconciling intercompany balances in a spreadsheet, and the business opened another site last month.
Nobody gets a new finance system approved simply because the current one is ageing. They get it approved because they can show the board what will change. This article sets out the benefits of Sage Intacct in the terms a board uses: what do we get, what does it mean for headcount and risk, when will we see it, and why now?
The benefits of Sage Intacct at a glance
Sage Intacct helps growing finance teams close faster, report with confidence and take on more entities without increasing headcount at the same rate. The six outcomes that matter most in a board conversation are:
A month-end close that does not depend on spreadsheets
Real-time figures the board can trust
Room to add entities and locations without adding finance staff at the same rate
Stronger controls and an easier audit
A finance team that spends more time on analysis and less on processing
No servers to maintain and no large upgrade projects to fund
The questions your board will ask
A business case for a new finance system usually comes down to four questions:
What do we get? What does it mean for headcount and risk? When will we see it? And why do it now and not next year? The sections below take each one in turn.
What do we get?
A shorter, more predictable close
In most growing businesses, month-end is slow for the same reasons: data from several entities has to be pulled together by hand, intercompany balances are matched in Excel, and journals are prepared outside the system.
Sage Intacct holds all your entities in one system and handles intercompany transactions and consolidation inside it. The steps that used to happen in spreadsheets happen in the system, so the close becomes shorter and, equally important, more predictable. You know which day the numbers will be ready, and so does the board.
Real-time visibility for the board
When the board asks how the quarter is going, the honest answer in many businesses is “we’ll know in three weeks”. Sage Intacct gives leaders dashboards showing current figures and lets them click from a headline number down to the transactions behind it. Board conversations start from where the business is now, not where it was last month.
For detail on how the reporting works, see Sage Intacct Features.
A finance team doing finance
Ask most finance teams how they spend their month and the answer is often the same: chasing approvals, re-keying data and rebuilding reports. Every hour spent there is an hour not spent explaining margins, testing forecasts or supporting decisions.
Moving the routine work into the system shifts that balance. Your team spends less time producing numbers and more time explaining what they mean.
What does it mean for headcount?
This is usually the question behind the question. The honest answer is that Sage Intacct is not about cutting your finance team. It is about not having to grow it at the same rate as the business.
In an older system, every new entity or location adds another set of books to reconcile, another consolidation step and another reporting format. Workload grows alongside the business, and so does the pressure to add another hire.
In Sage Intacct, a new entity or location is set up in the system and reported through the same structure as everything else. The extra work is much smaller, so the team you have can support a larger business.
What does it mean for risk?
Controls and audit
Approval workflows, user permissions and a full audit trail are built into the system. Auditors can be given access to what they need, and evidence comes from reports rather than inboxes and shared drives.
Key-person risk
Most finance teams have a spreadsheet that only one person fully understands, often the consolidation process or the board pack. When that person is on holiday, or leaves, month-end becomes a problem. Moving that logic into the system removes a risk that rarely appears on the risk register but is felt every month.
No servers, no upgrade projects
Sage Intacct is a cloud system, hosted by Sage and accessed through a web browser. There are no servers to maintain, no hardware to replace and no large upgrade project every few years.
When will we see results?
Some benefits arrive at go-live (the day the new system is switched on): a single system for all entities, live dashboards and built-in controls. Others build over the first few month-end cycles as your team gets used to new processes and drops the old workarounds.
How quickly the full value arrives depends less on the software and more on how well it is implemented, how well people are trained and how good the support is afterwards. Training is not a one-off exercise; people leave, and skills fade. A partner who stays involved after go-live, and checks that the benefits in your business case are being delivered, makes the difference between a system that is installed and one that is used.
Why now, instead of waiting?
Most businesses replace their finance system when it breaks, or when an acquisition or audit forces the issue. That is the worst time to do it: the timeline is set by the crisis, not by you.
Waiting has a cost, even if it never appears as a line in the accounts. Decisions are made using figures that are weeks old. The workaround spreadsheets grow with every new entity. And if your system struggles to give you the numbers for the business you know well, it will struggle even more with a business you have recently bought.
Moving on your own terms lets you plan the project around your financial year, your people and your growth plans.
Product plus partner equals outcome
No finance system delivers these benefits by itself. They come from the software, the way it is implemented and the support your people receive afterwards. When building your business case, make sure you budget properly for implementation, training and ongoing support. These are often the first areas to be cut, and they have a major influence on whether the expected benefits are delivered.
TSG is Sage’s longest-standing partner. We implement Sage Intacct and stay with you after go-live, with the same team supporting your system and checking that the outcomes in your business case are being delivered.
Frequently asked questions
A faster and more predictable month-end, real-time visibility for the board, the ability to add entities and locations without adding finance staff at the same rate, stronger controls for audit, and a cloud platform with no servers to maintain. Together, they give the finance team more time for analysis.
Yes, particularly for businesses adding entities, locations or projects. Because new entities and reporting needs are added within the same system, growth does not mean rebuilding the chart of accounts or adding another consolidation spreadsheet. It is particularly well suited to services businesses and multi-entity groups.
Some results arrive at go-live: one system for all entities, live dashboards and built-in controls. Improvements to the close build over the first few month-ends as new processes bed in. The pace depends heavily on implementation quality, training and the support your team gets afterwards.
It reduces the need to grow the finance team at the same rate as the business. New entities and locations are added within the same system and reported through the same structure, so each one adds far less work than it would in a system that relies on spreadsheets.
That depends on what your current system costs you in time, risk and delayed decisions. If month-end relies on spreadsheets, consolidation depends on one person or growth means more finance hires, the case is usually strong. A structured business case will show whether it holds for your business.
If you want to talk through a business case for Sage Intacct, we’re happy to have that conversation.
Get in touch
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