A fictional account of very real circumstances…

Elsa Markos, co-owner of the Arendelle Ice, an American Hockey League franchise, settled into seat 4A for her flight back home.  Elsa is on her way to secure a new sponsor for her team.  The sponsor is a large public company and could be a huge boost to the team – and the organization’s bottom line – so Elsa herself is making the trip along with a team of top executives. 

Once the plane reaches a safe altitude, passengers can use electronic devices, so Elsa pulls out her iPad.  In addition to reviewing the presentation they are going to give, Elsa wants to review the latest financials for the team and for the other entities, such as the arena the Ice play in.  The potential sponsor has been very interested in knowing how profitable the organization is to ensure their investment in the Ice is not wasted on a team that will disappear due to financial distress.

Fortunately for Elsa, the Arendelle Ice made a change recently to a cloud-based accounting software system called Intacct.  Not only does Intacct fit their needs for a high-powered, flexible accounting system, but also the cloud delivery method allows her anywhere and anytime access.  Elsa and her executive team are no longer tied to their desks in order to get financials.  Nor do they have to call and have reports emailed to them as they did with their previous on-premise accounting software.

Even before Elsa stays at a Holiday Inn Express, Intacct gives her the power to stay up-to-date with real time financials.  In addition, Elsa and the Ice executives are able to use the unconventional General Ledger structure that Intacct provides to produce a myriad of financial reports sliced and diced in the exact manners that they want them.  Her Intacct implementers even thought of ways that Elsa’s team could report that she had not.

Intacct gives the Ice the ability to report revenue by event type, music genre, hockey division, basketball opponent and much, much more.  It has truly reduced the burden of producing financials as well as shortening the month end close cycle and providing access to reports from a plane at 35,000 feet! 

But, how could she get such data in her financials?  How can they break down the arena events by type?  How does the accounting system know what division the hockey opponent is in?  How in the world can she get all these reports with a few clicks of the mouse? 

Stay tuned…