We used the solution for a nonprofit, which was a pretty robust implementation there. Nonprofits are unique compared to for-profit companies. They have their own accounting needs, so the stage is unique because it uses dimensions. To categorize different expenses in multiple different ways.
External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Sage Intacct 2023
Its been a really helpfull tool that has provided excellent organization
New to Sage
Sage Intacct is very user friendly.
A great ERP that handles complex tasks and helped us keep track of reimbursements
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Sage Intacct, a full-fledged ERP, can handle complexity that smaller accounting software cannot handle. Its uniqueness lies in its ability to set up dimensions. We had one dimension that just categorizes all expenses, whether temporarily restricted or permanently restricted, such as endowments, to unrestricted expenses. Your revenue also gets categorized, so your expenses must also match that. You can keep track of multiple different aspects and categories, other than just TNL, where your expenses may be rent and electric utilities or insurance. Those are charts of account expenses, and Sage Intacct allows you to keep track of expenses other than those.
What is most valuable?
For example, a for-profit company, like a construction company, could use a module called "projects," and that same module for a nonprofit would be for grants. All these different government grants are usually something that the government reimburses. Keeping track of reimbursements based on which particular grant would be reimbursed can be a chore, and Sage is very helpful in being able to track those. Other than grants, you could also have expenses from a particular funder or foundation that Sage Intacct helps track.
What needs improvement?
Their training is the biggest room for improvement, and their documentation can get very confusing. It's not as clear-cut or easy to follow as it could be.
For how long have I used the solution?
For the last couple of years. Sage Intacct has no versions because it automatically updates every quarter.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We experience some lagging with Sage Intacct, but I think that applies to all web-based applications. Software services all have lagging due to the web. You won't have that if you have it on your machine or intranet. Other than that, there wasn't any downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Sage Intacct is very scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Our experience with tech support was good. They were prompt. They fixed the errors within a couple of days, but it wasn't anything that was so pressing that we were down or not able to function. A couple of days was a reasonable amount of time for us.
We contacted tech support several times, but Sage does not sell to you directly. They have value-added resellers that you go through, so, traditionally, any time you have any problem, you wanna just talk to your VAR, and they're the ones that either figure it out or move it to Sage Intacct tech support. But they handle all that. There are positives and negatives. If you end up with a VAR that's not as good, you end up with a service that is not as good. VARs also do end up charging a pretty penny for support.
Regarding service and support, I rate VARs a six out of ten and Sage Intacct's support an eight out of ten.
How was the initial setup?
Sage Intacct can add different entities. The company I worked for had a separate foundation, with the endowment on a separate account. The funds are in there, and we were not supposed to touch them. And they usually invest it somewhere, and all that work was being done in QuickBooks. We moved that into Intacct and set up the whole entity with its own EIN, so it had separate accounting and reporting, even though it was part of the same organization. That was pretty easy to accommodate in Sage Intacct. I set that up, mapped some of the chart of accounts based on what was used prior, and exported all the QuickBooks data into Excel format. I had to work in Excel, recode things, etcetera, to make it importable into Intacct. I could do all that, and every transaction from life to date on QuickBooks was brought in Intacct. It wasn't easy. It was a little time-consuming, but it was awesome to see everything in exact detail in Intacct, including historicals.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Sage is on the higher end of pricing. Pricing is one aspect. Sage Intacct is not necessarily small business accounting software you need to use. It is for medium to large businesses.
It is just like any other software in that if you're paying 100% of the cost but only using 15% to 20% of its capabilities, you're not getting the most out of your expense. Having a good admin person can allow you to get more out of the solution. But it's a high-budget application.
What other advice do I have?
Rating the solution depends on the budget. If you have the money, Sage Intacct could be a ten out of ten. If you don't have the money, it's more like five or five and a half. It can do a lot of integrations. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.
One of the things that would be advisable for medium to large organizations is to have a dedicated admin person for Sage Intacct. Somebody who knows the administration of the software, the ins and outs of how it works, and can train people, and be able to implement newer solutions, and be able to study problems in the organizations that can help streamline things.
It has simplified our business and made life super easy.
Plus being able to view all the data at one time is so simple.