Accounting Software

Article Autumn Hines

Healthcare organizations are buried in data – patient data, claims data, financial data, operational data, and more – and that includes finance leaders, the finance team, and the C-suite. But just how much of all this data is being organized and leveraged for practice success?

Respondents to our recent Healthcare Finance Team Leadership Survey told us that manual, time-consuming reporting and a lack of real-time visibility into key metrics and performance were the biggest internal frustrations their organizations are facing today. Further, our respondents are overwhelmingly looking for automation when it comes to reporting – to enable turnkey, on-demand, self-service reporting so they can free up the finance team to spend more of their time on strategic work.

There’s clearly a need for data, so the question becomes: What do you measure? How? And what do you do with the insight? To answer these questions (and more), I sat down with Linda Pinion, Sage Intacct’s Principal Solutions Consultant (and resident expert on all things KPIs, dashboards and reports) to uncover tips and tricks for healthcare finance leaders looking to take measurement and reporting to the next level for practice success and how financial and accounting reporting for healthcare organizations can help with that.

Linda’s advice? Focus on a few key areas for the most impact:

What to Measure? Everything!

Linda urges healthcare finance leaders to go beyond traditional revenue and expenses when thinking about measurement. Dig into the details! Consider comparing supplies versus equipment, or direct versus indirect expenses. Compare provider performance or location against location, revenue by insurer, or the profitability of certain treatments or services over others. Challenge yourself and your team to look beyond the “standard” financials and explore how things like capital improvements, revenue, and expenses related to patient care and procedures, participating in new payment models, or offering new products and services, will impact the bottom line.

Sage Intacct customer Paige Oldham, CFO of Health Solutions, did just this, and now enjoys more visibility and streamlined efficiencies, telling us, “We can combine different kinds of KPIs all in one report for a much clearer picture of what’s going on with the business. I have [everything] all in one place and can drill down as needed, which helps immensely.”

The lesson learned? You won’t know until you measure.

Communication & Collaboration

What good is measurement if it’s done in a vacuum? Practice success hinges on everyone working towards the same goal and clearly understanding the health of the business today, and where it is trending for the future. Linda recommends that healthcare finance leaders find ways to enable members of your team and broader members of the practice to access tailored dashboards and reports. That way, whether it’s a specific provider, department, entity, location, or other functional area of the business, they know where they stand, what they are accountable for, and how they directly impact and influence practice success.

If you have a means to communicate and collaborate in an automated way within your finance system, that’s even better – your team will spend less time creating reports and more time on strategic work that will help move the practice forward.

Go Beyond the Financials

While strong financial reporting is critical, don’t underestimate the power of combining financial, clinical, and operational data to uncover a deeper level of understanding and a more sophisticated way to measure the success of your practice.

Consider how Virginia Jones, PhD, and COO of Village Family Dental, took reporting to the next level:

“The system identifies which offices or service lines are making money (or not), so we can decide which lines of business to expand or reduce. Expanding on pediatrics and OR cases and reducing certain insurance carriers has increased revenue by as much as $40,000 per month. After we started offering frenectomies and sleep apnea services, it was simple to evaluate each one’s profitability and determine contributing factors.”

Perhaps your providers want to see revenue or expenses by patient, per visit, or procedure. Perhaps executives want to understand profitability by provider, the impact of entering a value-based contract, or the potential revenue from adding a new service like Virginia and her team at Village Family Dental. Combining financial, clinical, and operational data all in one place enables healthcare finance leaders to move away from simply reporting on the events of the past and shift gears to strategically predicting the future of the practice.

Authored by Melissa O’Dowd

Melissa is a leader within the Healthcare practice at Sage Intacct, having spent the last 18 years working within the healthcare industry, helping healthcare technology, consumer health, medical devices and diagnostics, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology companies change the lives of the patients they serve.

Article Autumn Hines

The madness doesn’t just happen on college basketball courts—it also happens when your finance team is stuck using a legacy on-premises accounting system like Microsoft Dynamics GP. If your accounting playbook is filled with outdated software, manual processes, and desperate workarounds, you’re in for a season of frustration. Let’s break down why running your business on legacy accounting software is the real full-court press of inefficiency.

The Shot Clock is Running Out

Modern cloud-based accounting solutions are running a fast break, while Dynamics GP is dragging through a slow-motion half-court offense. Every second spent on manual data entry, slow reconciliations, or system crashes is eating away at your ability to execute a winning financial strategy. With Microsoft shifting focus away from Dynamics GP in favor of cloud-based solutions, the shot clock is ticking—how much longer can you afford to play this outdated game?

Too Many Turnovers

Relying on Dynamics GP is like a team that just can’t stop giving the ball away. Manual data entry? That’s a bad pass. Limited automation? That’s an unforced error. Lack of real-time reporting? That’s like playing without a scoreboard. Without the agility of modern cloud-based accounting systems, every extra step increases the risk of costly mistakes and slows down your ability to make fast, informed decisions.

Getting Blocked at Every Turn

Trying to integrate Dynamics GP with modern financial tools is like trying to drive the lane against a seven-foot shot blocker—it’s just not happening. Dynamics GP was built for an era where standalone systems were the norm, meaning its compatibility with new cloud-based applications is clunky at best. Cloud-based accounting solutions, on the other hand, offer seamless integrations, allowing you to move the ball with efficiency and precision.

Your Bench is Running Thin

One of the biggest issues with Dynamics GP? The dwindling number of IT professionals who know how to maintain and support it. It’s like relying on a star player who’s past their prime with no solid backups in sight. As Microsoft gradually phases out support and fewer experts can troubleshoot problems, your organization is left vulnerable to unexpected downtime and expensive fixes.

Cloud Accounting is the Championship Move

If you want to stay competitive, it’s time to upgrade to a cloud-based accounting solution. Automated workflows, real-time reporting, best-in-class security, and seamless integrations mean you can execute a championship-level financial strategy. No more desperate last-second shots—just efficient, accurate, and strategic financial management.

Final Buzzer: It’s Time to Move

Sticking with Dynamics GP is the real bracket buster—filled with unnecessary struggles, defensive stops, and missed opportunities. If you’re ready to break free from outdated processes and start playing like a championship contender, it’s time to make your move. Don’t let your accounting team get stuck in the past—make the switch before the final buzzer sounds on your outdated system!

Article Autumn Hines

The financial stability of any K-12 school directly impacts its educational mission. Now, more than ever, academic institutions need tools that provide visibility and help plan for the future. Effective accounting systems should balance core financial functions with specialized reporting needs unique to educational institutions. Selecting appropriate accounting software is a crucial decision that affects the administration, teaching staff, and students.  

So, what are the things K-12 schools should be looking for in an accounting system? 

Cloud-Based Accessibility

You need financial tools that work wherever you are. Cloud-based solutions give you secure access from your office, home, or even while traveling to that education conference. This means your administrative team, department heads, and board members can all see the financial information they need when they need it. 

Multi-Dimensional Reporting

Let’s face it – school finances can be complicated. K-12 schools have complex financial structures that require sophisticated reporting tools. Effective accounting software should offer multi-dimensional reporting across: 

  • Departments and programs 
  • Campus locations 
  • Restricted and unrestricted funds 
  • Grants and endowments 
  • Capital projects 

This functionality is essential to allow schools to track how resources are allocated and maintain compliance with donor restrictions and reporting requirements. 

Real-Time Visibility

You can’t manage what you can’t see. Key stakeholders need accurate, up-to-date information to make informed decisions and ensure financial sustainability. Your accounting software should give you: 

  • Dashboards that you can customize for different roles 
  • Educational-specific performance indicators 
  • Quick comparisons of budget vs. actual spending 
  • Financial metrics based on enrollment 
  • Analysis of per-student costs 

With these tools, you’ll spot trends early, address problems quickly, and make decisions based on live data. 

Process Automation

If you’re part of a small admin team, you probably wish you didn’t have to do the same repetitive tasks over and over. Accounts payable and receivable, bank reconciliations, and expense management are all vital, but they take time. Automating these routine tasks reduces the likelihood of errors and frees time to focus on mission-critical activities. 

Integration Capabilities

Your finances are interconnected, so your accounting software should be, too. You need it to integrate with things like: 

  • Fundraising tools 
  • Tuition management software 
  • Payroll 

When these systems communicate, you eliminate duplicate data entry, improve accuracy, and get a complete picture of your operations and finances. 

What to Consider When Choosing

As you evaluate different options, look for software that addresses these key requirements. A solution like Sage Intacct checks all these boxes – providing education-specific functionality, scalability, appropriate access controls, strong security, and measurable ROI. The right accounting platform will become a foundation that supports your financial operations and educational mission, giving you the insights you need to help your school thrive. 

Article Dean Dorton

The sports and entertainment industry has the same basic accounting responsibilities and priorities as any other industry: keep the books straight, pay the right amount in taxes, stay on-time and up-to-date. But in so many ways, sports and entertainment accounting is unique – from the seasonal nature of demand to the fluctuations in revenue and tax liabilities. 

These factors make it challenging to find suitable accounting software. There are plenty of options with adequate features and sufficient capabilities, but while they “get the job done,” they do little to make life easier for accountants or help companies manage money more strategically. 

Why? Many reasons, but a lack of flexibility is the core issue. Sports and entertainment companies, by nature of the industry they operate in, need accounting software that can adapt, scale, and extend anywhere with ease, and most options aren’t flexible enough to keep up. That’s when cloud accounting options come into play. Cloud accounting is a perfect fit for the sports and entertainment industry, and for many companies, it’s key to remaining competitive and relevant.

Why the Cloud is a Superstar in Sports and Entertainment Accounting

The benefits of cloud accounting are extensive and impressive – from lowering costs to accelerating implementation to streamlining IT management. For companies in the business of hosting events and selling tickets, cloud accounting excels in three important ways:

  1. Conduct Accounting From Anywhere – Sports and entertainment accounting is never static. It bounces between locations, goes on the road, or happens from multiple sites at once. Cloud accounting, with its anytime/anywhere accessibility, gives users access to all their financial data and the complete accounting toolkit from anywhere with internet access. Time and place are never an obstacle to accounting. 
  2. Integrate With Key Systems – Cloud accounting solutions with open APIs can integrate with other businesses systems, including industry-specific solutions, to share data and combine capabilities. Integrated systems are more efficient, accurate, insightful than disconnected systems, and with cloud accounting, building those bridges is easy.
  3. Consolidate Data and Capabilities – Anywhere money is flowing in, out, or through an organization, cloud accounting is there to capture and consolidate the data, forming a single-source-of-truth that decision makers can draw on to inform any decision (financial or otherwise) they make. The cloud also puts financial tools – some for advanced users, others for non-accountants – into the hands of whoever could benefit.

Sage Intacct – Cloud Accounting Built for Sports and Entertainment

Some software does not offer cloud accounting. Likewise, most cloud accounting software does not have features tailored to sports and entertainment. Sage Intacct is the rare solution that was built for the cloud and optimized for sports and entertainment. It’s the exceptional option in a sea of adequate choices. 

Frustrated with your current software? Ready to upgrade? Contact Dean Dorton to implement Sage Intacct and serve as your partner in cloud accounting. 

How the Carolina Hurricanes Made the Move

Operating a sports team and an event venue comes with its own set of accounting challenges. Learn how Dean Dorton helped the Carolina Hurricanes make the move to the cloud and provided a winning solution with Sage Intacct.

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Article Dean Dorton

Why You Need Construction-Specific Software

Every construction company on earth, from small contractors to mega developers, uses accounting software. What’s surprising is how few use the right software. Many have something less-than-optimal in place. And for some, the software hurts accounting as much as it helps.

That leads to an important question: does your construction company have the right accounting software in place? The answer is complicated. Ultimately, it boils down to this: if you don’t have construction-specific accounting software, think about making a change.

Why Horizontal Solutions Are Never Adequate

Horizontal accounting software strives to be a Swiss Army knife for financial management. It packs a bunch of basic tools into one package in order to meet the most popular accounting requirements. QuickBooks is the most common example, but there are many others.

All-in-one accounting solutions are great for companies getting off the ground. Not only do they offer essential accounting features at an accessible price point, but they streamline those features to be simple and efficient. By design, they make it easy to get accounting up and running no matter what industry you’re in. That’s the biggest strength of horizontal accounting software, and it explains why so many construction companies use it. It’s also the biggest weakness, though.

By doing everything adequately, these solutions do nothing particularly well – a classic jack of all trades but master of none scenario. In accounting, as in construction, mediocre tools cause lots of unexpected problems. Even bigger than the problem of under-powered features, however, is the fact that horizontal accounting solutions don’t address the unique requirements of construction accounting.

Just a few examples include progress billing and integrating payroll into job costs. Construction companies deal with both on a regular basis, yet very few horizontal accounting solutions include purpose-built solutions or even adequate functionality. They make the fundamentals of construction accounting harder. Similarly so with things like managing work orders, inventory, and projects. When horizontal solutions address these issues at all, it’s not in a construction context.

Horizontal accounting software offers lots of features. What it doesn’t offer is true solutions to make accounting simpler, smarter, and more scalable for construction companies. That takes a different kind of software.

Benefitting From Construction-Specific Software

Construction-specific accounting software comes with features that are not just adequate or appropriate for construction but customized for this industry.

The benefits of using an accounting solution built for construction are hard to overstate. Accounting becomes simpler, faster, and more accurate for the in-house financial team, helping them accomplish more work in less time. The quality of their financial insights and planning improves as well, putting a construction company in a much stronger position through smart money management. Everything runs better when companies can use accounting to their advantage – and that starts by having the right software in place.

Software like Sage Intacct: a financial management platform with a full-suite of construction-specific tools. For builders of all sizes, it’s the closest thing to a complete accounting solution available. See how the right software could transform your company – schedule a demo.

Article Dean Dorton

For many small and mid-sized businesses, Intuit QuickBooks is usually the first choice for financial software in the organization’s early days – and for good reasons. QuickBooks is well-known and very easy to use, and it offers the basic functionality that almost any business can use to get off the ground.

Unfortunately, growing businesses soon realize that the early value of the management software is soon overtaken by its limitations.

Top 5 Limitations of QuickBooks

1. Over-Reliance of Spreadsheets to Support Financial Processes and Reporting

“After spending over one week sifting through massive spreadsheets, we discovered that we have a calculation error in how we had been recognizing revenue for the past three years.”

Sound familiar? Hopefully not – but many organizations naturally and gradually develop sophisticated accounting requirements (such as revenue recognition and multi-entity consolidation). And if QuickBooks is the financial foundation, that often means cumbersome workarounds because QuickBooks doesn’t provide the built-in capabilities for these complex processes.

  • Are you exporting data to multiple spreadsheets?
  • Are you creating additional journal entries each month?
  • Have you created home-grown applications for recording revenue or expenses outside of QuickBooks?

These workarounds lead to entry errors, incorrect or outdated data, process inefficiencies, wasted time and resources, and a lack of control and compliance.

2. Excess Manual Data Entry and Re-Entry

“How do I import customer order data into QuickBooks? I currently spend many hours manually creating invoices in QuickBooks, and there should be a better way.”

Most companies don’t integrate QuickBooks with other key business applications, opting instead to just manually integrate the systems (think: flat files, CSV dumps, and rekeying). That might suffice when volumes are small. But ask anyone who’s endured these workarounds and you’ll see it’s a real productivity killer as the business grows. Who has time to manually research, re-enter, and verify data that’s already captured elsewhere? Instead of automating your business, these manual integrations are invitations to errors and wasted time.

3. Limited Access to Reports and Information to Drive Decision-Making

“Rather than constantly struggling to keep up with incoming requests for data and specific reports, Sage Intacct lets us consistently report financials in a timely manner and feel confident that we can easily respond to any new request.”

Real-time visibility into business metrics is essential for timely decisions that boost performance. QuickBooks offers canned reports – and no dashboards – so your visibility is limited and you’re often forced to make decisions based on outdated data. By leveraging a financial system that incorporates both a multi-dimensional general ledger and report writer, you can transform your analysis and become a strategic partner who generates insights that answer the bigger questions facing management.

4. Difficulty in Adapting to New Business Requirements

“QuickBooks continues to crash, and I lose all our payroll data. I don’t have time to re-enter data for 350 hourly employees…”

Maybe you’ve seen a couple of the classic signs that you’ve outgrown QuickBooks. Those menus and screens – that used to be so quick and responsive – now have lengthy delays as the system struggles to keep up with data volume and calculations intensity. Report-printing takes forever. And queries seem to dim the lights.

This critical limitation is risky at best. It can force you to periodically shut down QuickBooks – just to maintain data files. In a worst-case scenario, you’re looking at potentially disastrous results: system crashes and the loss of crucial data. That’s no way to run a business.

5. Inadequate Controls Around Financial Processes

“Errors caused by manual processes and a lack of control resulted in $180,000 of improper expense reimbursements within a six-month period.”

Manual process is a fact of life with QuickBooks. Unfortunately, they increase the probability of data duplication and data entry errors, making it difficult to gain an integrated, real-time financial view of a company’s end-to-end operations.

Despite its popularity as a business application for small business, QuickBooks simply wasn’t designed for growing organizations that need advanced functionality for manage sophisticated processes.

The Next Wave of Financial Management Technology – Moving Past QuickBooks

Dean Dorton has helped many businesses make the move from QuickBooks to Sage Intacct. The accounting features on this product are simple and easy to use.

These companies now enjoy real-time data and processes, flexible reporting, and role-based dashboards. We’ve helped organizations increase productivity through accounting automation, extensive integration and user-defined workflows. And, these companies can scale with Sage Intacct – as the business grows they can increase transaction volume and easily add new entities.

Give us a call or shoot us an email if you’d like to explore Sage Intacct as your future financial accounting solution. If you’d like to see the software – join us for a quick daily demo.

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Philip Massey, CPA
Software Consulting Director
pmassey@ddaftech.com • 919.508.6062