2012 Review of Intacct

Potential Limitations:

• Since the product has the sophistication associated with a middle-market solution, it may have more capabilities or options than some small organizations need.
• Limited capabilities to support manufacturing management
• More expensive than basic programs.

 

Best Fit:

Organizations who need the sophistication and power of a mid-market accounting package. Accounting firms and value added resellers who want to run the system for their in-house general ledger, sell new services, and support their customers on the product. Ideal for businesses in a wide range of industries, although the organization should have an internal accountant or outsourced its accounting to get the most out of this powerful system.

 

Intacct is a full-featured business management solution for small and mid-sized businesses, and is clearly the most capable product included in this review. The Company’s successful, exclusive relationship with the AICPA and CPA2Biz has resulted in enhancements which are focused on key pain points for accounting professionals, as well as a number of relationships with large accounting firms. Intacct has programs for accounting firms, reseller partners, and third-party solution developers, and has a robust ecosystem of add-ins to meet a wide range of customer needs. The Company reports that it added over 100 partners in 2011, and news reports in early 2012 indicate that Intacct has been selected by Intuit as a recommended product for users who have outgrown QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions.

Basic System Functions – 4.5 Stars
Intacct is an attractive, robust application with support for a wide range of industries, including professional services, wholesale, retail, software, franchises, hospitality, healthcare, education, and nonprofit organizations. There is also a special version of Intacct designed for accounting firms, with custom dashboards for client groups and firm performance. The menus are straightforward and customizable, although the capability of the software results in Intacct having more menu options than other products reviewed.

Intacct supports most major PC and tablet based browsers, however the Company recommends Internet Explorer 8+ or Mozilla Firefox 4+, and will permit users to access the application with Google Chrome and Apple Safari 5+. The Fall 2011 product release added new support for Apple iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads, and Google Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy tablet and the Motorola Droid. Older versions of browsers are not supported.

Core Accounting Capabilities – 5 Stars

This product is clearly the most capable of those included in this review, and its accounting capabilities should probably be compared to mid-market solutions like Sage ERP MAS 90/200 and Microsoft Dynamics GP instead of tools aimed at simplifying accounting for the business owner. The product supports consolidations, multiple currencies, project accounting, has full integration with CRM and payroll, and supports multi-location inventory management. The database structure includes a multi-dimensional general ledger setup, which permits organizations to group the same data for reporting purposes into groups to meet different needs (e.g. line of business, geographical, branch, or division).

The product supports a wide range of industry-specific features, including revenue recognition, fund accounting, subscription management, project accounting, task management, time tracking, recurring invoices, and point of sale either natively or through integrations with third party applications.

Intacct does not include a payroll module, but offers integrations with a wide range of companies, including PayChex, ADP, and CompuPay.

A Global Consolidation application is available which allows organizations to create consolidated or combined reporting in a single reporting currency across any number of entities and any number of currencies in real time. Once configured, the Global Consolidations module can provide real time tracking of key performance indicators as well as single screen entry and automatic elimination of intercompany transactions.

Day-to-Day Operations – 5 Stars

Intacct includes UPS and FedEx shipping integration, as well as native and third party integrations for point of sale, sales tax calculation, CRM, budgeting and forecasting, electronic payments, project management, and many other specialized needs. The product supports electronic approval of payments, expense reports, timesheets, and other transactions within the application, and queues of items for approval can be included on dashboards or accessed from within the menu structure. Inventory is supported, and can be valued using FIFO, LIFO, or average cost. The application will support basic assembly of parts using kits, but is probably not adequate for those who require heavy manufacturing capabilities.

Management Features – 5 Stars

One of the most powerful features of Intacct is its ability to create custom dashboards which combine financial information with real time operational data. There are a series of components which can be configured and assembled into personalized dashboards for users or company-wide initiative tracking. Dashboards can be cloned, and security permissions can be set for individual users or groups of users. Dashboard information can also be published to a wide variety of formats, including Excel, HTML (web page), text, or to a printer. Views can be customized to filter transactions and present summarized information in multiple preconfigured groupings.

Reports can be customized within Intacct, or third party report writers such as Crystal reports can be used. The Winter 2012 product release included additional drill-down support to many financial reports, graphs, and dashboards. Custom calculations can be created and used to calculate commissions or compute key performance indicators within a report instead of requiring a manual calculation in Microsoft Excel.

The product includes a payments gateway which can process credit card payments through either PayPal or Authorize.net. Intacct reports that they are PCI-DSS compliant, and have numerous third-party reviews each year, including a service auditor’s report under SSAE 16 (formerly SAS 70).

Intacct’s security regime includes roles, groups, and granular rights assignment for all users from a single administrative console.

Integration/Import/Export – 5 Stars

Intacct has a strong partner ecosystem with interfaces for over 80 partner applications, and also has interfaces with a wide range of third party services. Tools are available which permit organizations and system integrators to create interfaces to custom applications and outside databases through Intacct’s open APIs and web services. The product interfaces with most major tax software applications, and can export data using available ODBC drivers or by sending data to standard file formats such as Microsoft Word, XML, PDF, comma delimited, or other formats.

Help/Support – 5 Stars

The Company publishes its uptime statistics on its website (About us, System Status), and reports that its most recent 12 month availability average was 99.998%, including 100% availability for 10 of 12 months for the period May 2011 through February 2012. The company offers training classes online through Intacct University and in person. Support is available from 9 AM to 8 PM Eastern Time, and trouble tickets can be submitted through the customer portal 24x7x365. The Essential support plan is included with the monthly subscription plan, and includes access to Intacct University, with a guaranteed ticket response time of four business hours. Premium support is available through two plans which include chat support, and the Premium Plus plan also includes a guaranteed maximum two hour response time, a personalized contact for escalations, as well as an assigned technical account manager.

All applications are maintained by the Company, and major updates take place four times per year, although some minor updates and bug fixes are implemented between major updates.

Summary & Pricing
Intacct is available as a monthly subscription based on the number of users, with pricing plans starting at $420 per month.

 

2012 Overall Rating: 5 Stars