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Business management technology maker Sage kicked off its Sage Intacct Advantage 2020 conference with a keynote that showcased the transformative power of digital technology. Company executives shared how, by using digital technology, businesses can fundamentally change how they operate and deliver value to customers and colleagues, as well as improve interactions with partners and suppliers. As the current environment places more demands on the CFO, digital transformation is accelerating the trends we have seen become common place. To help CFOs navigate the new normal, Sage highlighted several new and enhanced products during the keynote designed to help companies embrace the adoption of digital technology.
Powering the Intelligent Organization
Sage is delivering on the concept of the Intelligent Organization by bringing together Sage Intacct, Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning, Sage People, and a robust set of reporting and analytics tools—all powered by the Sage Intacct Intelligent GLTM. The power of integrating information across the front and back office increases accuracy, reduces time, eliminates rework, and improves collaboration. It also creates new possibilities for the Finance team to play a more strategic role in leading their organization by enhancing how they partner with other business leaders, streamline workflows, drive future planning decisions, and improve the employee experience.
“Digital transformation spans every aspect of a business,” said Marc Linden, EVP and GM of Medium Segment Solutions, Sage. “When we say digital transformation, we’re talking about converting from a business model that was designed around humans performing tasks in processes, to one that elevates the work of humans and is designed around digital interaction and automation. This is about helping businesses ensure their success today during COVID, tomorrow when we emerge from the pandemic, and well into the future.”
When it comes to digital transformation for Finance, Sage Intacct helps teams transform the close process from a set of activities that happens at the end of the month to activities that happen continuously. This gives companies ongoing visibility into the state of the business, not just after closing the books—delivering unmatched insights to improve decisions and understanding of the business today and freeing CFOs to focus on guiding the business into the future.
During the keynote, Sage highlighted several product enhancements to Sage Intacct along three key areas—continuous accounting, continuous trust, and continuous insight.
Continuous Accounting
Continuous accounting capabilities enable timely and accurate information by streamlining processes within finance and across departmental and company boundaries. In this area, Sage showcased two new products—Salesforce Advanced CRM Integration for Nonprofits and Sage Intelligent Time.
The tight front to back-office integration between Salesforce and Sage Intacct already brings digital transformation to life by providing real-time visibility to sales and finance while streamlining workflows and collaboration between them. The new Salesforce Advanced CRM Integration for Nonprofits provides industry specific capabilities by putting data into the hands of nonprofit program and development staff for direct insight from Salesforce into transactions and budget without having to ask accounting. The integration also ensures the data stays in sync and reduces the reconciliation burden between the CRM and accounting systems. With increased levels of visibility, nonprofits can more easily guide their strategy, take a more data-driven approach to future fundraising campaigns, and continually improve performance—putting them in a better position to deliver on their mission.
Sage Intelligent Time is the first artificial intelligence (AI) powered application built directly into the Sage Intacct platform. Initially introduced last month, Sage Intelligent Time provides continuous, timely, and more accurate insights to better manage billable time in services-based businesses. It uses an AI-powered personal time assistant to enable service professionals to complete their timesheets more quickly and accurately by automatically reconstructing their workday—helping to ensure all billable time is captured to reduce revenue leakage, improve project profitability, and increase revenues.
Continuous Trust
Continuous trust capabilities enable finance teams to ensure the accuracy and integrity of financial information. The key product announcement in this area is the Outlier Detection for General Ledger—new AI-powered functionality in the Sage Intacct Intelligent GL.
Sage Intacct’s powerful and innovative general ledger already provides the extensive visibility, scalability, and flexibility companies need to grow their business. Outlier Detection for General Ledger uses AI to automatically analyze journal entries and flag outliers that may need a closer look to deliver continuous trust in financial data. This trust is enhanced by not only flagging journal entries, but giving a reason why they were flagged.
Customer interviews have shown that 10 to 20 percent of journal entries typically need adjustment after being posted to the general ledger. These adjustments require extra staff time to find, correct, and document. Outlier Detection for General Ledger uses the power of AI to provide insights to catch potential errors and risks before they post. It reduces the cost of ensuring accuracy and enables finance teams to trust their financial information sooner—without having to wait for the close. Put simply, Outlier Detection for General Ledger enables organizations to analyse all journal entries that require approval, all of the time, as opposed to some of the entries, some of the time.
Sage Intacct customer and early product tester, Sean Skuro, controller for rapidly growing restaurant chain Tender Greens, commented: “The new Outlier Detection for General Ledger functionality works like magic and saves me a ton of time. This past month, it found a dozen small errors that I might not have caught until they had already posted to the GL, given we typically have 500 or more journal entries each month. All I had to do was quickly review the flagged entries and decline the ones that needed fixing. Having this new capability enables me to complete my job faster and increases my confidence in how we approach approving journal entries. It’s the assistant I’ve always wanted.”
Continuous Insight
Once companies transform to continuous accounting and have timely information with accuracy they can trust, Sage Intacct provides tools to analyze that information to gain insight. The latest addition to that toolset, announced today, is the Sage Intacct Interactive Visual Explorer—enabling business analysis and insights using advanced visualizations and real-time source data.
The Sage Intacct Interactive Visual Explorer propels finance teams beyond basic monthly reporting, enabling proactive decisions based on multidimensional graphical analysis and collaboration. Business leaders can easily look across and through the real-time performance of their business, giving more context to financials, comparing data over time, and spotting trends as they occur. The Interactive Visual Explorer allows companies of all sizes to identify emerging opportunities and risks they might not have otherwise been able to discover and then drill down into the data.
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