automation

Article Dean Dorton

We all strive for perfection, especially when it comes to our financials. Outdated and on-premises systems that at one time were lifesavers are now growing liabilities for today’s modern businesses.

Outdated reporting systems can wreak havoc on your data accuracy, productivity, and your team’s sanity.

The Horror is Real

We hear about accounting teams spending countless hours on Excel spreadsheets. One company had to compile and work from a master Excel spreadsheet with no less than 56 tabs – one for each entity, spanning 3 alphabets wide.

We’ve seen productivity bottleneck to a halt as one company struggled to manage 300 financial statements per month.

The nightmares of cascading errors threading through a company’s data are very real.

They happen all the time and are almost always due to manual entry and re-entry on Excel spreadsheets, most often relied upon by companies managing their financials with on-premises systems.

While on-premises systems may work in theory, in practice they can cause productivity, accuracy, and data integrity breakdown:

  • Data on spreadsheets are prone to errors from heavy manual sorting, and data entry.  This kind of reporting only offers one snapshot in time. Reporting that relies heavily on Excel spreadsheets does not have the accuracy and real-time visibility of reporting done in the cloud.
  • Multi-entity companies require workarounds to manage all of the data between them, forcing accounting departments to spend endless hours clicking between entities, managing their transactions, then performing global consolidations manually each month.
  • Productivity grinds to a halt when your teams need to navigate tedious workarounds and endless checking and double-checking, wondering at night if they made a mistake.

Don’t let these horror stories happen to you…

Write Your Own Ending

Sage Intacct, a best-in-class cloud-based financial management solution streamlines, integrates and customizes your accounting processes for greater speed, accuracy, and productivity.

  • According to a recent case study on one Sage Intacct customer, Tandem HR, they saved 500 labor hours by eliminating their reporting workarounds.
  • Because it integrates with other popular solutions, like Nexonia, HRPyramid, and SalesForce, Sage Intacct significantly reduces manual entry and increases data accuracy.
  • Teams can use customizable reporting features to create and send current-to-the-minute data with deep drill-down capability to the source transaction, and options to add notes on journal entries for faster closings and cleaner audits.
  • Sage Intacct’s unique chart of accounts tagging system means faster organizing in the GL, and less manual entries.
  • One-click consolidations. Skip tedious manual consolidations, regardless of how many entities your company has.

If your company is still relying on Excel and manual entries for reporting, don’t wait until you encounter a data disaster. Re-write your story now! We can help you find the right solution to make your financials work for you.

You’ll gain a clear understanding of:

  • The risks and limitations of spreadsheets within financial processes
  • How cloud ERP software accelerates the monthly close, improves time and expense management, and automates revenue recognition processes including preparation for the transition to ASC 606
  • Practical steps organizations can take to eliminate spreadsheets and operate more efficiently

Good Riddance to Spreadsheets

Download our free whitepaper “Eliminating the Cost of Spreadsheet Errors”

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Article Dean Dorton

Essential Financial Management Practices of Biotech Companies – A 5-Part Series

Article 4 – Streamline business processes to ensure compliance, accuracy of information and insight

It can be a long and challenging path from drug design to marketing products; from proof of concept to scale-up to market.  With the many uncontrollable factors that play a role in your project lifecycle, it’s important to control what you can.

You can mitigate risk by streamlining business processes with today’s technology to ensure compliance when you: systemize processes; support consistent documentation; and ensure consistency through expansion.

But the other key benefit of using technology to automate and streamline processes is that CFOs can spend more time communicating and advising stakeholders (CEO, R&D teams, investors, etc.) on the many decisions they need to make and the actions they take – from pre-revenue, through funding milestones and on to IPO or acquisition.

Up-to-date but always looking ahead

There are unique accounting challenges and pressures for Biotech CFOs.

As Thomas H. Fagley, Partner at Hughes Pittman & Gupton, LLP explains, “Biotech CFOs have to communicate and manage relationships.  It’s important to have a good relationship with the board and investors, as well as your CEO and R&D Team, communicating financial information to them on a timely basis, keeping them up-to-date on the financial status of research and development programs and identifying budget variances in a timely manner.”

“The Biotech CFO needs to make sure that the cash forecast sufficiently addresses the short-term and long-term funds necessary to get the project to the next financial milestone or development milestone that may potentially trigger additional investment,” notes Fagley.

Questions from stakeholders need to be answered quickly with accurate information.  “A delay of even a day or two can have serious implications on the forecast and project momentum,” notes Philip Massey, CPA and founder of Massey Consulting.  “In order to have meaningful communication with stakeholders, a CFO must be armed with real-time, accurate data.”

If questions arise surrounding the data (and they usually do), the CFO must be able to quickly drill down to the details to find the answers.  “If a CFO doesn’t have the right ERP system, has information stored in discrete system silos, and must answer stakeholder questions with ‘I’ll have to get back to you’ – it means that time, and possibly funding, is being squandered,” says Massey.

Timing and funding – striking the crucial balance

As the CFO and stakeholders review forecasts and the progress of research and development, the need for additional funding can arise.  The stakeholders then need to determine what kind of funding would be preferable for both short-term and long-term goals.

“They may determine that they’d like to take non-diluted funding in the form of a government grant or the licensing of some of their technology,” says Fagley.  “There are pros and cons that have to be considered with an eye toward maximizing the investor’s return on investment.”

“Not only does the CFO have a unique counseling role, but he or she will also be responsible for tracking and reporting on each funding source,” explains Massey.  “Suddenly it becomes clear how necessary an ERP Accounting solution is when it excels in project accounting, can track multiple sources of funding to the satisfaction of the funders, will facilitate online approval processes, and automate repetitive accounting processes.”

It all circles back to access to timely accurate data as the foundation of success.

“If you have a timing delay,” warns Fagley, “usually it means the development is going to cost more.  Being able to have information quickly and being able to effectively communicate that to the board and investors, is key for Biotech companies.”

Look to automation to keep administration costs lean

Prudent use of funds is paramount throughout the stages of development.

Administrative functions like accounting are not desirable places to make a significant investment in personnel – most biotech would prefer to funnel funds into researchers and clinicians in the pre-revenue phase, and marketing and sales after the IPO.

“For that reason, investing in financial accounting software has a better ROI than bringing additional administrative headcount on board,” says Massey.

Full speed ahead

As more employees and investment partners join the organization to support growth, biotech companies need to formalize business processes to ensure consistency.  Without a unified platform to coordinate activities across the organization, the effort is piecemeal with critical steps left to chance.

With modern, integrated business management systems, you can connect new users, new locations, and new lines of business to support growth.  Drive consistent processes across business units and locations to promote compliance and profitability.

This concludes “Streamline business processes to ensure compliance, the accuracy of information and insight,” part 4 of the Essential Financial Management Practices of Biotech Companies series.

Click on the links below to read other parts of the Essential Financial Management Practices of Biotech Companies series:

Part 1: Track Costs with Project Accounting

Part 2: Automate Batch/Lot Tracking to Ensure Traceability

Part 3: Support Flexible Reporting, Forecasts, and Budgeting

Part 5: Prepare to Scale with Cloud Technology

Article Dean Dorton

nexonia spotlightMassey Consulting’s area of expertise is accounting software solutions, with our primary focus on ERP systems like Microsoft Dynamics GP and Sage Intacct.

ERP systems like Sage Intacct and Microsoft Dynamics GP operate at the core business and provide the most value when integrated with other mission-critical applications.

Massey Consulting understands this and has evaluated and researched a variety of different add-on solutions that integrate seamlessly with the systems they already have in place. Need something for tax compliance? Look no further. Want a robust payroll processing system? We got it. What about automated time and expense management? Keep on reading.

This month, we’re highlighting Massey Consulting’s partnership with Nexonia, one of the leading time-and-expense-management solutions for organizations of any size. The partnership between Nexonia and Massey Consulting developed in 2015.

About Nexonia

Nexonia, established in 2004, is part of the Certify, Inc. family of brands. The company focuses on serving clients primarily across North America, with offices in Portland ME, San Francisco, San Diego, and Dallas. Nexonia has customers in over 60 countries and also two offices in Canada.

Nexonia solutions include expense automation, travel booking, invoice and AP approval, time tracking, and time-off solutions.
From small business to enterprise, Nexonia serves a wide range of businesses, with users ranging from 5 to 2,000.

Benefits of Nexonia

Users of Nexonia can expect a wide range of benefits and efficiencies around time and expense management, including:

  • Ease of expenses creation, submission, and approval routing
  • Expense policy automation and fraud reduction
  • Reduction in time and cost of submitting, approving, and entry of data into accounting software through deep integrations with ERP systems
  • Improved visibility and timing of financial data so that Finance can manage their businesses expenses and help provide better business insight

The solution is unique because of its deep integration with ERP systems. Unlike many other expense solutions, Nexonia has the ability to integrate with the client’s ERP software, which allows hundreds of configurable fields to be set up and shared between Nexonia and that ERP.

Nexonia’s flexibility means they can accommodate the individual business needs of every company, creating a truly customizable experience for the client.

“Massey is a great company to partner with,” said Rob McGarry, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Nexonia. “Nexonia’s focus on Sage Intacct as a key ERP integration is aligned with Massey’s focus. Our goal is to add value for new customers and ensure existing customers have as many important needs met by Massey Consulting’s offerings as possible. Our consultative sales approach ensures that the client gets a solution that satisfies their business needs and positions them for success.”

ERP/Nexonia integration means daily synchronization of data providing customers with up-to-date, real-time data.
Nexonia also continues to prove to be customer-centric. “One of our main differentiators from other solutions is our customer service. Nexonia ensures our customers are able to solve any challenges by working with a real person on the phone, by email, or through our online ticketing service”, said McGarry.

The solution is widely used in a variety of organizations including non-profit, professional services, financial services, government, healthcare, and technology. Some of their most notable clients are Fitbit, Marketo, and Survey Monkey.

“We have a successful partnership with Nexonia and are huge advocates of the product, but it goes further than that. We use Nexonia to manage time and expense at Massey Consulting. The efficiencies of the expense automation system and time-keeping ability are invaluable to us as an organization,” said Philip Massey, President of Massey Consulting.

Interested in More Information?

Check out our free white paper from Nexonia:

“Key Considerations for Selecting Expense Management Software”

download now

Article Dean Dorton

When your SaaS business is trying to stay on top of all that added work that comes with rapid growth, along with staying compliant with the new ASC 606 regulations, the right financial management software can make all the difference. If you’re still using an on-premises system, limited in its capabilities to handle your financials, you’ll want to read on.

Sage Intacct, a cloud-based financial management solution, offers automation, generous options, customizations, and the snapshot reporting that SaaS companies need, in all the right places. It delivers what SaaS businesses need most for complex revenue recognition, reallocation, billing, renewals and performance metrics.

Contract and Subscription Billing

Sage Intacct’s built-in usage-based and tiered pricing features within their billing module, is ideal for SaaS. Whether your billing is over regularly-timed periods or nonlinear, you control your billing options in the way that fits your unique business.

  • Sage Intacct has an automatic renewals feature that is designed to trigger contracts approaching their end dates, which means renewal processes require less manual labor and run more smoothly.
  • Automated billing schedule options can be set up to fit a wide range of unique contracts, whether billing happens monthly, yearly, or in a non-linear way with milestones.

Contract Revenue Management

Sage Intacct’s Contract Revenue Management module is the first to offer automated solutions to the ASC 606 and IFRS 15 guidelines. SaaS companies can experience faster, more accurate revenue recognition, even with the new revenue reallocation regulations:

  • Sage Intacct handles revenue reallocation automatically– even for closed periods, so compliance is faster, easier and more accurate.
  • View revenue details right in the contract, with side-by-side comparisons of revenues and expenses under the old and new guidelines for at-a-glance comparisons.

Reporting and Dashboards

Because SaaS growth happens fast, growth strategy needs to happen even faster. Sage Intacct’s reporting features are designed for stakeholders and decision-makers who need to see current numbers, in a readily accessible way:

  • Stakeholders and decision-makers see real-time accurate views into profitability and performance with customized reporting options on-screen and in print.
  • Get cloud-accurate KPIs for SaaS metrics on Sage Intacct’s Digital Board Book, like churn, customer lifetime values, annual or monthly recurring revenue, and customer acquisition costs – all the metrics you need, when you need them.

Whether you’re just noticing your financials becoming harder to manage lately, or you’ve been thinking about making the move to the cloud as a logical next step in your growth, contact us.

Why are SaaS companies moving off legacy systems?

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Article Dean Dorton

This blog can also be found posted by Massey Consulting on ERP Software Blog.

Advanced computer programs using automation and artificial intelligence are having a major impact on society and business.

These technologies are being used to analyze data for insights that have never before been understood. People often think of these tools as useful for finance, science, marketing and government among other purposes. However, it turns out that human resources and payroll have key uses for automation and AI – and they are revolutionizing these business functions.

Hiring

Artificial Intelligence has an important application for human resources within the hiring process. Large companies receive hundreds of applications for a single job post. Smaller companies too, get an overwhelming number of resumes emailed to them. It is, at best, extremely tedious and at worst, nearly impossible to go through every single resume to look for the ideal candidate. In fact, most of the resumes are simply unfit for the position.

AI has now emerged within applications to automatically crawl the resumes to find keywords and highlights that might be a good match for the position. The AI tools find the ideal candidates and narrow them down for HR. Those resumes are put on the top of the stack and evaluated for final consideration before an interview is offered.

Taxes and Healthcare

Payroll can be extremely complicated, especially when there are employees working remotely in different states and countries. Getting it all right requires significant expertise. Most companies do not have this type of expertise on staff. Additionally, they don’t want to hire a third party just to determine how much they owe in taxes and healthcare costs on for each month’s payroll expenses.

Enter Artificial Intelligence – and now there are tools that can determine the correct amounts automatically. Employers simply upload their employee profiles that include the salary, stock options, age, location, dependents and employee status (contract, part-time or full-time). The AI program then determines how much each employee receives each pay period, how much goes to which government department and which account to send the funds to each time. This makes the job of payroll tremendously easier, especially as the taxes and withholdings become more and more complex.

Severance, Commissions and Bonuses

In addition to regular compensation to process, the payroll team must also process one time or irregular payments like severance, commission and bonuses. While a small company with five to ten people may want to do this manually, once the number starts becomes larger, an automated system is ideal. Instead of having one centralized team collect and upload all of the data, each department head or manager uploads the data for their specific team.

For example, a sales manager in the North East office uploads the commission payments for their team at the end of the month. Those automatically are confirmed with the CRM system, the accounting software and other verification systems. They then filter through to the payroll system and are applied to the compensation of each individual sales representative.

Compliance Training

More and more companies are requiring compliance training for employees to understand guidelines and regulations. However, the process of organizing, monitoring and checking compliance training is quite cumbersome. Following up with each employee to check whether they have completed training is a time-consuming nightmare as any HR manager will attest..

Fortunately, these process can now be almost completely automated. Sophisticated systems automatically send out the link to test and then monitor employee engagement. They track test scores and determine if there are any employees that have yet to complete the courses. Employees who have not completed the requisite training are then sent follow-up emails. Finally, the entire report is sent to senior management, acknowledging that the compliance training was completed by all employees- all of which happens automatically within the system.

Looking for Automated Human Capital Management?

Check out WorkForceGo– the HCM solution that lets you track and analyze payroll, human resources, time and attendance data—and stay ACA compliant—from any mobile device, laptop or desktop.

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Article Dean Dorton

Change is inevitable as your company expands, and if you’re still using Quickbooks for your financials, it might be time to ask yourself whether it’s still the best fit for navigating growth’s tricky course. Here are 5 signs that your company is treading water with outdated systems and processes.

1. You’re having trouble remembering when you last updated your systems.

If you’re using outdated software that has since released new versions, or sticking with an older system because it’s what you know, you may be doing your business more harm than good. Running your financials on outdated software sets your business up for system reliability and data accuracy risks.

2. Your systems don’t integrate.

If Quickbooks isn’t integrating with the other software solutions you use, your teams are doing more work than they need to, while also risking data accuracy. Re-keying data into your other systems invites data errors. Relying on spreadsheets for critical reporting also invites data errors and consumes your team’s time. Trudging through tedious workarounds slows productivity too. These are all unnecessary risks your company can avoid with integration-based automation.

3. You can’t track your business like you once could.

The data you’ve always worked with in the past may not be the data you need now. Fast-growing businesses also have fast-changing metrics. However, on-premises systems can’t produce inventories, marketing conditions, or location and entity performance metrics with the speed or accuracy the way a cloud-based solution can.

4. Growth and compliance demands seem harder and harder to meet.

Modern businesses – especially subscription-based businesses, need to meet modern customer demands. With the increasingly complex product or subscription models come more complicated customer tracking and revenue recognition that meets the new ASC 606 and IFRS 15 compliance requirements. Outdated on-premises Quickbooks versions just can’t meet those demands without headaches, costly software retrofits, or less-than-perfect workarounds.

5. Your financial processes aren’t adequately scaling to your company’s financial needs.

It’s only a matter of time until your growing company needs something from your Quickbooks software that on-premises software just can’t do. Growing companies – especially fast-growing companies need to work in the cloud for growth tasks like adding new entities, or locations, quickly performing global consolidations, or converting multiple currencies.

A cloud-based financial management system like Sage Intacct supports today’s growing businesses:

  • Automatic, behind-the-scenes updates and maintenance happen for reliability and performance confidence.
  • Seamless integration with other best-in-class cloud-based solutions ensures data accuracy, and team collaboration to give fast answers to potential and existing customers, and to streamline accounting processes and project management.
  • Real-time 24/7 updated visibility into key metrics and reporting on your personal dashboard means no waiting or guesswork when it comes strategic data analysis.
  • ASC 606 and IFRS 15 compliant software makes revenue allocations for contracts faster, easier and more automated.
  • Growth-focused features speed new entity set-up, GL entries, currency conversions, and global consolidations.
View our free on-demand webinar “You’ve Outgrown QuickBooks, How Do You Make the Switch?” to learn how Peter Nesbitt, Director of Finance at Bit.ly, the category leader in link management, managed their spectacular growth by moving from QuickBooks to Sage Intacct.
Think You’ve Outgrown QuickBooks?
View our free on-demand webinar “You’ve Outgrown QuickBooks, How Do You Make the Switch?” to learn how Peter Nesbitt, Director of Finance at Bit.ly, the category leader in link management, managed their spectacular growth by moving from QuickBooks to Sage Intacct.