2015 Innovation Award Nominee: Intacct Collaborate

Intacct Collaborate was inspired by the need for tax and accounting employees to be enabled to work collaboratively with each other and with clients to keep processes efficient even in the face of snags due to requested exceptions, ambiguous data, or changing policies. Intacct launched Intacct Collaborate as the new collaboration backbone built directly into Intacct’s cloud financial management solution.

At its core, Intacct Collaborate seamlessly integrates Salesforce Chatter, the leading enterprise social network, into Intacct to create a secure social layer across all finance processes and across devices. Automated and connected systems have a huge impact on making accounting teams and organizations more efficient. But even with automation in place to move data seamlessly throughout the organization, processes can hit snags.

Processes might come to a stop because of exceptions to standard procedures, or if supporting documentation related to a transaction is unclear, or because clarification is needed between a client and a CPA. Intacct Collaborate was specifically designed with this in mind – it helps people work together to quickly resolve these types of issues and keep executing at top speed. A typical finance team in a mid-market organization tries to cope with an average of 100 transaction-related emails per day during peak times.

However, using email for collaboration introduces unnecessary friction by making employees swap back and forth between applications and increasing the risk that important process issues are neglected due to email overload. Intacct Collaborate is different – the platform enables tax and accounting professionals to collaborate with their clients (and each other) without leaving their everyday preferred application and vice versa. For CPAs who are collaborating with their clients, they have the ability to document the content that is being sent and received.

There’s no more email back and forth about transactions from a client to the CPA; the conversation is centralized directly in the application. Because the conversation’s happening right next to the data, in-context, employees have the benefit of seeing all the information about a transaction as they’re assessing the situation and making decisions. By capturing all dialogue that may have led to a decision, it’s easily accessible for later reference directly in the system of record. Customer response to Intacct Collaborate has been outstanding.

Canto, a leading provider of digital asset management solutions, was one of the first companies to roll out Intacct Collaborate. Canto Chief Financial Officer, Hans Schaedel, has been very pleased with the performance results:

“Collaboration is an everyday activity for finance, whether it’s working with sales on invoicing issues, adjusting order policies, or reviewing transactions within the accounting team. As a multi-national organization, Intacct Collaborate is helping Canto accelerate decision-making, deliver better customer service, and move faster as an organization.”

Intacct is excited to continue to provide innovative features and benefits through Intacct Collaborate that enables tax and accounting employees to work collaboratively with their clients and each other while keeping processes efficient.

Click here to see all of the other nominees for the 2015 Innovation Awards.