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Article Dean Dorton

3 Things You Didn’t Know About Cloud Financial Management

Few things are a bigger investment of your time and money than a new financial management solution. Maybe you’re comfortable with QuickBooks or your on-premises system—even with their tiresome workarounds, error-ridden manual processes, and clunky upgrades. If you want to break free from these constraints, however, consider looking to the cloud.

Contrary to what you may have heard, cloud financial management systems offer excellent value, require little to no maintenance on your end, and best of all, give your finance team confidence in the numbers. A cloud-based system like Sage Intacct can:

  • Delivers better ROI than on-premise systems. A Nucleus Research report found that cloud deployments offer 3.2 times the ROI, have 2.3 times lower TCO, and provide a 2.2 times faster payback than on-premise deployments. One Sage Intacct user, a large restaurant franchisee that rapidly grew from 11 stores to more than 30 locations in only five years, began capturing ROI in only five months. Automation helped slash the company’s monthly close by five days, and real-time reporting puts relevant information right in the hands of managers, so they can be more proactive. And for a Bay Area talent identification and acquisition firm, the software paid for itself in less than three months.
  • Free you from IT tasks like support and upgrades. The cloud is low on maintenance and high on continuous value. With Sage Intacct, for example, you receive automatic quarterly upgrades that are touch-free for you—no business disruption and no costly upgrade projects. You can eliminate hardware costs and IT management from your cost of ownership. And Sage Intacct cloud accounting software delivers world-class security, backups, and disaster recovery, protecting your financial data and system much more efficiently and effectively than if you did it yourself.
  • Gives your finance team confidence in the accuracy of the data and reports. Ellen Grantham, CFO at K4Connect and Massey Consulting client, said, “[Before I came on board,] our CEO thought that [getting timely, accurate information] was more of a people problem, but it was a systems problem.” The finance department couldn’t answer questions about revenue in real-time, and the answer they finally provided was unsatisfactory.

When interviewing for the job, the CEO asked Ellen to answer some of his questions. She said that she could—but not with QuickBooks. “We’ve got to have a better system that we can look at it and drill down,” she told the CEO. “[Since] I don’t know all of the information right off the top of my head, I can look at [a new financial management solution] and see…what our revenue is from these particular projects, what is our inventory…and this is why our revenue is X.” She concluded, “[Sage Intacct] was a big driver for us to be able to have more confidence in the finance department.”

Still have questions about the cloud?

Trusting your critical financial data and processes to the cloud might seem like a leap of faith. The reality is, you can’t afford to be hindered by yesterday’s technology and inaccurate information. The business technology pros at Massey Consulting are cloud and accounting experts—they can help you design and implement a financial management system that you can use with confidence now and in the future. Contact us for a free consultation today.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Hear what Ellen Grantham had to say when asked the question at our “Future of Finance in the Cloud” event: “Many people have misconceptions about the cloud… Can you tell us a few benefits you’ve seen with the cloud to rule out those misconceptions?”

Article Dean Dorton

You might already know the cloud is the right move to make when it comes to getting the most you can from your data, and now you’re ready to commit.  Or maybe you’re just considering the idea, and aren’t in the final stages of making a decision yet.

Wherever you’re at in the process of exploring a best-in-class financial management solution, at some point you’ll ask, “Who do I look to for answers?”  And once you’ve found a source, “What are the right questions to ask about the transition?”

Unfortunately, you can’t just grab a box off the shelf, get the details, load it, and be done. So many key details have to line up along the way, and if you’re uninformed, you can very well choose the
right solution, but apply the wrong transition strategy.

If you’re considering the journey to the cloud, we’ve got some information that can shed a strong light on the subject to guide the way to a well-informed choice that fits your needs, and key details to streamline the process.

In our whitepaper, “7 Pitfalls to Avoid as You Transition Business Software to the Cloud,” you will learn:

  • Best tips from companies like yours that have been there and done that. Find out about their experiences during the transition, and what to expect when you transition.
  • Key warning signs to look out for that indicate you’re headed down a difficult path as you make the move.
  • Best practices on how to anticipate and avoid common, but unnecessary challenges as you transition to streamlining your financials.

In our free whitepaper, we offer clear, practical, applicable action plans from experts for when you need fast answers and direction in the process, to guide you, and clue you in before costly mistakes happen. You’ll find out the right features to prioritize in your cloud solution search and what questions you should ask in your fact-finding.

Equally important, you’ll learn some of the common phrases you might hear as you explore your options, and what statements should send up a red flag, and why. Before you decide on a financial management solution, arm yourself with the knowledge to make an informed choice.

Download our free whitepaper now. It’s an invaluable resource to access, and it’s a powerful tool to help you confidently make the right decision, and coordinate your transition to the cloud to run as smoothly as possible.

Have other questions? Reach out! We are here to help!

get it now: 7 pitfalls to avoid as you transition business software to the cloud

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”

get the whitepaper

Article Dean Dorton

From initiating funding to product and project management, biotech companies require a unique strategy to gather funding, and flexibility to accommodate fast expansion. If today’s biotech companies want to stay successful, they need to scale growth and still manage to assert control over time and resources.

They can begin to do that with these 5 accounting tips:

1. Apply Project Accounting to Track Costs

For commercializing biotech research, having deep insight into project costs helps keep your projects lean and profitable, satisfies funders and allows for continued research, and innovation down the road.

Growing beyond Quickbooks to adopt a more responsive and project-minded financial management solution can provide real-time visibility and deep insights on project metrics with reporting dashboards.

2. Ensure traceability with automated batch/lot tracking

Traceability in your batches and lots mitigates risk for business continuity and safety and assures investors.

Adopt a system with more automation and integrations, to further eliminate the risks generated from paper-based system errors, and to streamline departmental efficiency.

3. Support reporting, forecasts, and budgeting with collaborative systems

Forecasting and budgeting can protect funding and drive growth. Biotech companies that collaborate see their funding stretch further and have more control over where that funding goes.

From clarifying policies to resolving exceptions, when teams put their heads together with a strong cloud-based financial management solution that supports collaboration, their company can move more quickly to new funding rounds and get the most out of their current support.

4. Streamline business processes

Biotech companies that automate and streamline their processes are better able to keep administration costs lean for faster-paced growth when they can ensure information accuracy and compliance.

A best-in-class financial management solution can automate mundane tasks that inflate labor hours and potential for error.

5. Use technology to its fullest to scale business

When companies work from the cloud for their accounting, they can leverage data availability and accuracy to support growth beyond the capability of outdated, on-premises software.

For your biotech business to remain agile, using systems that reduce personnel and IT costs, improve security, boost collaboration and improve accuracy can help them scale their business as quickly as growth happens.

Sage Intacct, a strong cloud-based financial management solution, offers strong integration and collaboration options right into the transaction, real-time visibility on metrics from reporting dashboards, and offers traceability in the details for powerful risk management.

We want to help you drive your biotech company’s success with the right tools to fit your changing needs.

Is your biotech company facing these pain points?

Article Dean Dorton

This post can also be found from Massey Consulting on ERPSoftwareBlog.

Are we living in the age of big data? If the numbers are any indication, the answer is a definite “yes.” By 2020, our digital universe will hold an astounding 44 zettabytes of data. That’s exactly 44 trillion gigabytes of social media posts, smart device data, and multimedia content.

The IDC predicts that 3rd Platform technologies (cloud, big data analytics, social media, and mobile) will drive 75% of IT spending in 2019. These technologies are supported by innovations in AR/VR (augmented/virtual reality), robotics, and AI.

The big data paradigm has certainly taken the business world by storm. Increasingly, CIOs are either answering to or closely collaborating with CFOs. Big data now drives key decisions about capital expenditures and operating budgets. The financial aspects are familiar to CFOs. The real challenge, however, lies in deciding what types of data to aggregate, analyze, and base procurement decisions on.

This is where Sage Intacct comes in with 6 analytical benefits for finance leaders.

1. Sage Intacct Allows You To Track The Right KPIs.

According to Deloitte’s 2017 4th Quarter CFO Signals report, CFOs are more focused on revenue growth than cost reductions (61% to 18%). In all, exactly 61% of CFOs from 8 major industries cite data analytics as the top influence in their business decisions.

Sage Intacct takes the mystery out of data analytics. Instead of sifting through a multiplicity of data streams, you can track the exact data you need. Your financial dashboards will show billable utilization rates, project overruns, net profit margins, and even sales per square foot.

Sales per square foot let you gauge business profitability, while billable utilization rates track employee performance. Most importantly, net profit margins reveal how effective your business is at extracting profit from total revenue.

These growth KPIs accurately show whether your organization is meeting revenue goals.

2. Sage Intacct Shows You Core Financials At A Glance

With Sage Intacct, you have core financials such as General Ledger, accounts payable/receivable, order management, cash flow, and the Digital Board Book at your fingertips.

The Digital Board Book is a unique addition to Intacct’s slate of bread-and-butter KPIs. It provides the kind of big data analytics every SaaS business relies on.

With SaaS metrics, you can track conversion rates, CAC (customer acquisition costs), CLTV (customer lifetime value), and churn. These KPIs reveal the extent to which your marketing campaigns are driving actual growth for your organization.

3. Sage Intacct Leads To Significant ROI Benefits

Sage Intacct lets you track financial and operational data in a way that makes sense for your organization. Interested in the kind of cost savings that increase profit margins? One of Massey’s customers, Legacy Healthcare, won the Sage Intacct Customer Success Award in October 2017. The multi-service and multi-entity healthcare provider organization achieved a 410% ROI increase with Sage Intacct and reduced month-end closing time by 60%.

4. Sage Intacct’s Cloud Model Saves Your Organization Money On CapEX 

Many CFOs distrust the pay-as-you-go model. After all, conventional systems do come with a concrete benefit: cost predictability.
Where Sage Intacct comes into the picture is its ability to free up your time. Now, you can track the most important KPIs that drive growth instead of redirecting focus towards IT infrastructure management. Because Sage Intacct is a subscription-based service, you’ll see reduced CapEx costs.

With automated processes, your business will become more agile; you’ll achieve faster time-to-market ratios and reap higher revenues.

5. Sage Intacct Lets You Track True Project Costs

Sage Intacct’s dashboards reveal each project’s indirect and direct costs. These statistics immediately show which of your projects are the most profitable. Armed with this knowledge, you can modify your marketing campaigns, procurement efforts, and inventory processes accordingly. Worried about shadow IT expenses? Keep a close watch on them with Intacct’s direct and indirect cost reporting.

6. Sage Intacct Makes Collaborative Effort Between You And Your CIO Effortless

With Sage Intacct, you can share annual budgets, sales reports, and departmental financials with the CIO. According to a Forbes Insight study, 96% of executives consider collaborative effort between CIOs and CFOs important for business success. In line with this consensus, Sage Intacct facilitates data-driven decisions that lead to revenue growth.

If these numbers sound good, but you have more questions, contact us. We’ll be happy to talk solutions with you.

Article Dean Dorton

If your current financial management solution is starting to create productivity issues, it might be time to move on. Before you do, consider these questions to ask first.

1. What kind of benefit can we get from cloud accounting?

The cloud offers anytime/anywhere accessibility. Cost efficiencies enter in when companies move from on-premises to cloud-based solutions by reducing their need for complicated IT infrastructure expenses.

Sage Intacct, a cloud-based financial management solution also offers deep visibility into your most critical KPIs for fast answers to growth strategy and performance – something that on-premises systems cannot provide.

2. Can your software solution scale to accommodate growth?

Strong cloud-based software solutions are designed to scale with business growth to accommodate small and large companies alike. This means the right solution should fit whether you’re just starting out, or ready to add new locations, entities, or even go public.

Because Sage Intacct is also GAAP compliant and streamlines global consolidations, companies that plan to grow don’t need to worry about outgrowing this solution down the road.

3. What happens in the event of a disaster? Will we have a backup?

When a disaster happens, on-premises solutions can render your business inoperable, with the risk of permanent data loss in the case of weather-related disasters or power failures. Be sure the software you choose provides ample backup, storage and redundancy to ensure data protection.

Cloud-based solutions however are backed up remotely, and with Sage Intacct, your data is backed up and secure, both remotely and from wherever your teams work.

Sage Intacct provides continuous local and streaming backups to remote disaster recovery centers, with redundancy, so your data is secure, protected, yet accessible, on reliable Oracle database infrastructure.

4. We rely on other solutions – does your application integrate?

With the cloud, you don’t have to settle for an all-in-one solution to ensure your company data flows between departments.

Because Sage Intacct works from open web services, it can integrate with a wide range of applications from CRMs to SFAs to PSAs. This translates into time and cost savings by modifying only the financial management solution features you need, without re-inventing the wheel throughout the whole company.

5. If we customize our version of the software, will it work with future updates?

If you need customizations, consider whether your potential accounting solution will operate just as effectively down the road, after updates.

Sage Intacct provides frequent updates that happen behind the scenes to ensure a seamless workflow, and no downtime on your end things.  While Sage Intacct’s updates occur regularly, rest assured that they won’t alter the efficacy of your customizations in future versions of Sage Intacct’s software.

Still have more questions? Reach out to us to get important answers when choosing a modern financial management solution to drive your growth.

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