Why growing SMEs turn to Sage Intacct for their finances

As small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) experience growth, they often face increased complexity in their financial operations. The basic finance systems they may have been relying on until that point can quickly become unfit for the next step of their business journey.  

When they’re looking for that next-step solution to level up their finances, Sage Intacct is often the natural choice. Thanks to its powerful financial tools and scalability, it’s the perfect fit for any business going through that potentially turbulent growth period.  

In this article, we’ll break down some of the reasons that growing SME businesses look to Sage Intacct, as well as comparing it to some of the solutions these companies are upgrading from.  

Finance software for fast-growth companies 

For many small to medium-sized companies, growth is one of the primary objectives. But that period of growth brings with it a number of challenges as the business has to rapidly adapt to larger and increasingly complex workloads.  

To meet these challenges head on, Sage Intacct is specifically designed for the needs of growing businesses. Here are a few of the ways it helps. 

Powerful insights 

When your business is undergoing a period of rapid growth, you need a clear roadmap of the right decisions to make the most of this growth potential. To get to this, you need the power to drill down into your data, cut through the noise of the numbers and pull out these clear, actionable insights.  

Unfortunately, this is where most entry-level finance software falls short, leaving companies in the dark and potentially making crucial decisions without all the guidance they need. Intacct, however, gives you powerful AI-assisted financial tools and analysis, as well as clear dashboards that show you the information you need, when you need it.   

Flexibility 

Companies that are scaling rapidly need a software package that won’t hold them back. Intacct is designed to adapt to the changing needs of a growing business. Due to its modular nature, you can add on extra features for additional functionality through the Sage Intacct marketplace as and when you need them.  

For example, you may start out with just core financials, but then expand to include tools for multi-entity management when your business grows overseas.  

Eliminate Excel 

Despite being tools dedicated to making accounting simpler, many entry-level finance systems still leave companies relying on Excel spreadsheets to manage and store their data before they have to upload it to the system. Not only is this incredibly inefficient as it requires lots of diving in and out of different apps to get work done, it’s also highly prone to human error at every step.  

Intacct, however, keeps everything in one centralised application and automates data entry, saving you time and costly errors.   

Free up your staff 

Growing a business is a busy time for everyone in the company. The last thing you want is for your staff to be bogged down in mundane and tedious manual data entry and analysis.  

Intacct’s advanced automation tools and AI assistance do away with most of the busy work such as data review and entry or corrections, leaving staff free to focus on value-adding activities. 

Intacct vs alternatives for your finances 

Businesses often look at Intacct when they start to notice that their existing finance solution just can’t keep up with their increasingly complex demands. For these fast-growing companies, the software packages that may have worked well before can’t perform the advanced tasks or give them the in-depth insights they need.  

Here are some of the most common finance solutions that we see businesses outgrow before they switch to Intacct.  

QuickBooks 

QuickBooks is a popular choice when it comes to accounting and finance software for smaller businesses with more basic financial needs. For a lot of companies, this may be the perfect fit and the only software they need. But as these companies grow and their finances become more complicated, this sort of package can quickly start to feel the strain as the reliance of manual uploads and limits on storage hold businesses back from reaching their growth potential.  

QuickBooks is also more specialised and only focuses on accounting, so if you need additional functionality such as customer relationships or supply chain management, you’ll need to upgrade to an advanced solution like Intacct.  

Read more about the signs you’ve outgrown QuickBooks. 

Xero 

Like QuickBooks, Xero is another widely used cloud-based accounting software package aimed at small to medium-sized businesses looking to manage their finances.  

While it brings all the tools you’ll need to keep on top of day-to-day accounting, it’s very limited when it comes to in-depth insights that you’ll need to make the decisions that drive your business forward.  

Instead, you’ll have to manually compile and analyse different reports, which can be time-consuming and prone to error and even then, the data is often not in-depth enough to give you meaningful next steps.  

Read more about the signs you’ve outgrown Xero 

Sage 50 

While both 50 and Intacct are finance software solutions from Sage, they’re intended for different customer bases. Intacct is natively cloud-based, so doesn’t rely on a hardware installation, and can be run from anywhere with an internet connection, while Sage 50 is available in both cloud and on-premises versions.  

Sage 50 is also intended for smaller businesses with more basic accounting needs and as such, focuses on more simple finance functions such as invoicing, payroll, and cashflow management.  

In contrast, Sage Intacct is tailored for growing mid-sized businesses, and gives you more advanced features like multi-entity consolidations, real-time reporting, and comprehensive automation. 

Read more about the reasons companies choose to migrate from Sage 50 to Intacct 

Sage Intacct with Thinc 

At Thinc, we’re an official Sage Business Partner and Sage’s number 1 partner for service excellence, with over 30 years of experience in using tech to transform the way businesses work.  

Whatever setup you’re working with at the moment, our fully accredited business advisory team are on hand to help you pick out the best options for your company and come up with a tailored Sage Intacct solution that will empower you to make the most of your growth opportunities.  

Just get in touch with our team today to book a no-obligation chat.