Sage Intacct Release 4 2019
In late November 2019, Sage Intacct Release 4 was rolled out – almost 30 new features added and 19 features updated. That may seem like a lot of change, but they were all undertaken with Sage Intacct’s ideals in mind: simplify processes for users and enhance the ability to gain meaningful insights from all of your data. In this article, we’ve chosen to review some of the main areas of improvement that will actually make a real difference to you and your company.
Powerful, user-friendly budgeting and planning
Part of Release 4 was the announcement of an integration/connector with Sage Budgeting and Planning. Budgeting and Planning is an add-on that makes creating and managing budgets not only simple but collaborative across your organization. It was built with small- to medium-sized businesses in mind and is now tightly integrated with Intacct. This makes it simple to carry your actuals from your financial data already in Intacct through to your budgets and plans, to ensure you stay on track, and can adjust as needed.
Once connected, you can take budget figures in your core Intacct product and drill down into them. This moves you seamlessly from Intacct financial reports (like financial statements) to the Budgeting and Planning, letting you see any budget associated with that figure. Be warned, though: this only applies to new budgets after the connection is made!
Custom Reports Made Easy
One of the most exciting features that was added in Release 4 was the expansion of the reporting capabilities, including the Interactive Report Writer function. It comes loaded with more than 60 pre-built reports that you can use right away. You can also use them as a jumping-off point for creating your own reports based on what kind of insight you are looking for. Report builders will also notice improvements to usability. Reporting Area descriptions cut down on guesswork when trying to create meaningful reports.
The tool is highly visual and addresses even complex reporting needs. Data is personalized to the user’s visibility settings and permissions. Conditional formatting helps viewers focus in on particular elements of a report.
Dynamically allocate indirect revenue and expenditures
It’s nothing new for Intacct to be able to spread payments, receivables, or general ledger transactions as you’re entering them. However, after the transaction is entered, the task becomes more difficult, often involving a lot of work from your team, calculations that are done on spreadsheets outside the platform, and a lengthy journal entry. The Updates mean that you can generate allocations based on cumulative activity. These particulars are only configured once – you set up the source pool, the basis (how you want to allocate), and the target. From then on, you just need to hit a button and they are dynamically generated.
This means you can save time on your close activities, reduce errors, and streamline your audits.
Taking care of inventory
Inventory is the bread-and-butter of most product-based companies. Making sure you have the correct information can help you manage your inventory to its highest potential. Several updates rolled through in Release 4 that make this easier. Users can now implement more specific date tracking in Purchasing and Order Entry. These include:
- “Need by date”;
- “Do not ship before date”;
- “Do not ship after date”; and
- “Service delivery date”.
According to Sage Intacct, this is the first step in greater automation that we will see in Releases down the road.
You can also now add serial or lot tracking numbers on printed sales invoices documents. Another key update is more comprehensive inventory totals. Some of these come pre-built (i.e. – Damaged, On-hand, On-hold, On-order, Scrap or spoilage) and users can create their own custom totals. These will show inventory both in and out of the warehouse, meaning you have a more holistic view.
Release 4 2019 has some fantastic updates and new features for users. Perhaps more exciting than the idea of faster, leaner, more user-friendly function is the laying of groundwork by Sage Intacct for automation and intelligence that we will be seeing in the future. It is worth noting one of these: the Visual Explorer. Sage Intacct Release 4 2019 saw it introduced to early adopters, with plans to roll it out to all users in 2020. This feature makes gaining insight extremely user-friendly and visuals-based (It is in the name). Stay tuned for more news on that over the coming months. If you have any specific questions about your own Intacct implementation or getting started with Intacct, you can get in touch with us.