Sage Intacct is a great cloud accounting system just the way it comes because it gives you core financials with multi-entity and multi-dimensional visibility in your general ledger. It also provides financial managers with the tools, reporting and dashboards they need along with cash and tax management features. You get purchasing functionality that can be structured around your company’s workflow the way you need it, yet improve speed, accuracy and efficiency while streamlining the processes of receiving and accounts payable. Intacct also improves the entire quote to sale to accounts receivable cycle by ensuring that departments or work units collaborate effectively.
But now Sage Intacct offers more than the traditional feature set for those that need it, because now there is Sage Intacct Construction designed to meet the unique needs of construction companies and real estate developers, by incorporating construction management functionality similar to that found within Sage 300 Construction (formerly Sage Timberline) but reconfigured for the Sage Intacct multi-tenant cloud platform. This new offering was announced at the recent CONEXPO in Las Vegas whereat Dustin Anderson, vice president of Sage Construction and Real Estate said, “Sage Intacct Construction brings together the most trusted names in the accounting and construction software industries – Sage Intacct and Sage Timberline.”
With this new integration there is a wealth of new information and capabilities that populate into the Sage Intacct GUI (graphic user interface) that you don’t otherwise see. I was privy to an outstanding demonstration, provide by Dennis Stejskal, of existing and future capabilities, of this new offering. Dennis showed me both the commonalities and differences between the standard Intacct and Construction features. With the addition of data fields that contractors need like a variety of ‘cost code’ options (and not just one but multiple sets that maybe stored and selected as needed), along with ‘cost types’, both of which can be defined or delimited to the job level, there are almost limitless additional details that can be associated with the already multi-dimensional capabilities of the Sage Intacct general ledger.
Side-by-side view of examples of the new Cost Codes and Cost Types available within Sage Intacct Construction
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Incorporation of these key components means that project estimating is a reality for your accounting software. Even if you use a 3rd-party estimating application or Excel the cost code and type data you are using can be easily imported into Sage Intact Construction so that construction financial managers (CFMs) can easily track and manage costs and productivity throughout the full life cycle of a project, with specific functions including estimates, job controls, and accounting. This is because your in product estimates will match down to the cost code and penny your estimates in your estimating software or Excel.
And, with these same key components financial reporting is expanded into true operational reporting all the way to the job level by providing the kind of detail that contractors and real estate developers are looking for in their business management software.
Example of the details captured and displayed by Job using Cost Codes and Cost Types in the 'new' Sage Intacct Construction.
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“Sage Intacct Construction caters to the ever-expanding role of construction financial managers by giving them faster access to real-time financial and operational data, while streamlining processes to free up time for more business analysis,” said Nancy Harris, managing director, Sage North America. “For today’s CFM, it’s no longer enough to report on what happened yesterday. Financial leaders need to know what’s happening right now and need real-time data to anticipate what will happen in the future.”
That’s why Sage Intacct Construction offers Robust, Dimensional Reporting that makes it possible to analyze actual and estimated project costs using live data, without the need to export to a spreadsheet. CFMs can now assess their financial data by project, task, or other configurable dimensions to analyze the data for improved decision making. In simple, you will be able to "look at your data the way you want to look at your data."
Project Data Dashboard in 'new' Sage Instruction Construction with real-time data on not only the financials, but the operational aspects of jobs including completed, underway and remaining job aspects (by cost code - see next illustration) and percentages.
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And with project costing and billing added into the construction mix you will keep track of project contracts, and resources from start to finish all in one place. Instantly see the true costs of projects current and past so that you can do meaningful comparisons to help you improve your profit margins. You will also keep a close watch on project actuals against estimates and continually evaluate project progress without wasting time.
Capture job progress by cost code as the work proceeds with new features found in Sage Intacct Construction.
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Dustin Anderson also announced, “Construction firms can easily integrate with an array of operational applications to ensure they are using the best technology available to address their specific business needs.”
The Sage Intacct open API enables seamless integration with field, specialty and payroll solutions. With the soon to be finalized Procore integration to Sage Intacct Contractor users will be able to streamline tasks such as commitments and change orders and more effectively maintain communications between your CFM, Project Management, Field Personnel, Customers and Vendors.
Illustrates the kind of fundamental 'Will Map To' relationships between Procore and Sage Construction products. (For illustration purposes only. Source: Procore)
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All of this is a tremendous start when it comes to adding a Construction feature-set to the best-in-class cloud financial management system preferred by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). But that’s just what it is, a ‘tremendous start’ because the team is still working on Sage Intacct Construction and continuing to expand the feature set so that over the next several months they will be rolling-out 'retainage billing and payables', along with 'change management', and 'full-job payroll including burden costs' from a number of 3rd party sources via API integration.
Please stay tuned to Insightful Accountant because we hope to bring you updates as these exciting developments become reality. In the mean time you can learn more including signing-up for your own Demo at the official Sage Intact Construction website.