Construction's Tech Revolution

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Doug Lewis: Matt. Emily, this is an exciting one. Um, today. So, Angela, who? I will let you self introduce yourself in just a minute, but I want to preface this with you. Don't do a lot of podcasts yourself.

Angela Nelson: I've never done a podcast before.

Doug Lewis: There we go. That's also not a lot. So you listen to podcasts? I do, but if [00:00:30] I'm not mistaken, you had alluded to the fact that you are more of a murder podcast aficionado.

Angela Nelson: That would be true.

Doug Lewis: Okay, this is going to be a little bit different. There's going to be a little less murder, like 40% less murder than you're probably used to. 40 on the on. Yeah. Like 40%. Less than.

Angela Nelson: 40%. Okay. Yeah. All right.

Doug Lewis: So I just want I want to hit that up front. Right. Since this is this is something that might be a little new to you. Um, you know, we'll we'll incorporate a little murder. It's going to happen. We'll get.

Angela Nelson: My expectations. Got it. Yeah.

Doug Lewis: Just just [00:01:00] so you're aware. But a three time platinum club member, if I'm not mistaken.

Angela Nelson: Correct.

Doug Lewis: Three time platinum club member. So, Angela, before I just butcher your introduction, I'm going to pass it right over to you. Who is Angela Nelson? Why should anybody care? And just how important really are you in the grand scheme of things?

Angela Nelson: I so I've been with Sage for 15 years. Always in construction, in real estate, uh, for the last ten years. I started [00:01:30] my career at Sage in support. So I got to know customer base very well. You know how they react, how they act. And then I moved to sales, and I have held almost every position in sales, with the last being the partner account manager for the last four years. For the last four years I've been a partner account manager, meaning so and so.

Emily Madere: Explain exactly what a partner account manager is or Pam is sometimes referred to as Pam. Explain what you do for those of [00:02:00] for those listening who are maybe customers of Sage or who don't know.

Angela Nelson: So we we Sage do not sell our software directly in our division. In the construction and real estate division, we rely on partners. So they are they are third, I guess third party companies who have expertise, who have people with the understand the construction customer, the construction business that then also understand [00:02:30] our software and they sell to the customer base. I am I manage those partners. I don't mean that. Oh yes, I say they can do this and they can do that more. I facilitate what what can I do to help you sell? What can I do to facilitate between what Sage's goals are and what your goals are? I am more of a facilitator than a manager, I would say. Um, and [00:03:00] that's it's very hard to describe what I do. I used to say I, I sometimes manage sugared up toddlers who miss their naps, depending on who my, my partner mix was. But but really, I have a very good relationship with all of my partners, and, um, it helps make them successful along with me.

Matt Lescault: Quick question. How many partners do you manage at any given time?

Angela Nelson: Me in particular? Yeah, I think [00:03:30] I'm up to I have 14. Okay. That's not normal.

Matt Lescault: Is that small or a large group?

Angela Nelson: That's a very. That's a large group. Okay. The other in the construction and real estate division. The other folks that have my same position, they generally don't have more than 4 or 5 partners.

Matt Lescault: Okay.

Angela Nelson: It's I have a lot of expertise with our what we call our legacy products. And so partners in particular that deal a lot with [00:04:00] the legacy products. I have all of them. So they're they have a lot of expertise in our, our the first construction and real estate softwares that we had. And I do have partners now who who sell exclusively intact. And I have some that sell a mix. So I have I have a big mix of people that I deal with.

Matt Lescault: And I just I just want to clarify here. Um, so, you know, we are the unofficial Sage Intacct podcast. [00:04:30] But Angela, I think is a true Sage, uh, original employee because you probably came out of the 300 world and so forth before Intacct was even, uh, even acquired by Sage. Is that correct?

Angela Nelson: Correct. When I started at Sage, I actually started with 100 contractor, which is another one of our construction softwares. And during my time in support. With that, I then asked if I could also learn 300 Cree, at the time known as Timberline, and [00:05:00] so I was one of, at that point, one of the only people that could support both softwares.

Matt Lescault: Okay.

Angela Nelson: And then and then when I moved to sales, we actually didn't even have we didn't have Intacct yet. I, I was working still with the legacy products. And then once we had Intacct, then I became what I am now a Pam. And that's when I really started working with Intacct. So I've been working with [00:05:30] intact as long as there has been a construction and real estate product.

Matt Lescault: Awesome. So I mean, that's that's a deep knowledge and just construction in general from an operational perspective, but also product and the difference between the capabilities of those products.

Angela Nelson: Yes it does. It is it does help. It helps for people who may not know because of the partners that I have. It's just it's it's valuable for them. I am valuable to them.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. Well, the fact that you, [00:06:00] you know, have, what, 3 to 4 times more accounts than any other Pam, you know, in the, in the construction real estate industry, I assume you're getting paid 3 or 4 times as much, but we don't have to jump into your finances. Yes. You're you're just that. You're just that valuable. It's just that people can't prove it. It's fine. We can say whatever we want. We're unofficial here. That's right. That's right. But kind of interesting question. You know, you mentioned your peers across the construction and real estate industry. The other Pam's partner, account managers, if you will, how many Pam's exist across all, [00:06:30] you know, verticals. If you had to just kind of shoot from the hip, you know, let's look at all the industries. Obviously, you're very construction, real estate focused and an expert in that market, but just kind of give people a flavor for how many counterparts you really have across Sage.

Angela Nelson: I'm going to say if I'm just doing a rough estimate in my head, knowing the how that the other intact verticals are 25 to 30, I'm thinking it's about [00:07:00] 26 or 27, to be honest.

Matt Lescault: Let me throw a wrinkle. Oh.

Angela Nelson: I was just going to say there's five of us in CRE in construction and real estate.

Matt Lescault: So I'm gonna throw a wrinkle into this because there's Pams that support the Vars, there's Pams that support CIPs, and we're only talking North America in this moment. So I think I think Doug, it's a little bit unfair question the way you pose it.

Doug Lewis: That's what I'm known for. This is a gotcha [00:07:30] journalism show here Matt.

Angela Nelson: Okay. I'm prepared.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. That's the whole thing. Well, so, you know, you brought up a good point. That's the, you know, the North America, obviously, which is where you're, you know, most exposed to. Matt. Do you have any clue globally because you play a little bit more in the global space, you know, how many Pam counterparts there might be just across the whole system. I'll put you on the spot.

Matt Lescault: Now you can. It's not going to work because I have no clue. And I think that Angela and I don't think we should say North America. I think that's really us based because.

Angela Nelson: That's us based.

Matt Lescault: Yeah, [00:08:00] because Canada has their own set of dams that support, uh, support their, their teams. Um, like, and.

Angela Nelson: I only work with for I work with 3 or 4 of the dams in Canada as well.

Matt Lescault: Yeah, I.

Angela Nelson: Work in tandem with them for the construction and real estate that the Canadian partners are selling.

Matt Lescault: Yep. And a Pam only works with partners. And so. And unlike construction, the other verticals have direct sales teams within within Sage. So I can't even base that on like the number of units that are are by region. So it's [00:08:30] a pretty unknown number to, to me and probably most of Sage. I think Sage really is kind of regionalized in the sense of, of known groups and so forth, and even industry Verticalized.

Angela Nelson: I would, I would completely, 100% agree with that.

Emily Madere: Yeah. Whatever the number is, I think we can all agree that Pams are a very important aspect of Sage's partnership with firms.

Matt Lescault: Well, if we go back to it, sage is partner led. I mean, that was the that was the strategy that that sage [00:09:00] did. And yeah. So Pams are who we as partners rely heavily on to be successful. And the ones that work well. I assume Eisneramper and myself with our Pams, our Pams like us, we're not considered the toddlers and we get more successful.

Angela Nelson: Agreed.

Doug Lewis: What would you be considered like a teenager kind of vibe? What are we throwing out there? We're not a toddler, you know, we're I'm.

Matt Lescault: Not a I'm not a toddler, but I think I'm like, prepubescent, you know, I'm like.

Angela Nelson: You're a tween.

Matt Lescault: Yeah, that's [00:09:30] what I'm going for.

Doug Lewis: You're pulling it off very well. Let's put it that way.

Matt Lescault: Thank you Doug.

Doug Lewis: For those who are just listening, not watching, of course. Yeah, but that's a whole separate again, separate issue today. Um, you know, Andrew, this is something I'm curious about. I know these statistics come out and let's just talk kind of, you know, us based here. You know, the CRA construction real estate vertical that you focus in just of overall Sage Intacct revenue. How much is really dedicated to that vertical? Just percentage wise if [00:10:00] you just kind of shooting from the hip here.

Angela Nelson: Like how much do we want it to be.

Doug Lewis: Well you know how much you want it to be versus what it actually is. You know, just how big of how big of a niche is that for Sage Intacct the CRA vertical? You know, just overall revenue percentage.

Angela Nelson: As far as revenue. I think that's a really hard one to answer because. Sales go all over the place. Right. But [00:10:30] but this is the vertical that Sage as a whole. So corporate Sage over in the UK. This is the vertical that they are focusing on right now because we are the fastest growing vertical there is, and there's so much opportunity out there that we we are a huge part of Sage as a whole. And keep in mind that Sage is a multinational. It's an international company. We are all over the place in [00:11:00] Europe. We are in South Africa, Australia. So we are a huge part of their foundation. We are, I would say, almost the focus at this point. Right. Like, and that has changed in the past few years. They've really come to know that that construction is where they need to focus their attention, their, their support, all of that kind of thing right now.

Doug Lewis: Why do you think there's been such a seismic shift to really focus on that vertical?

Angela Nelson: I [00:11:30] think because even before we had even before we had a lot of attention on us, I'd say that we're a scrappy group, right? Like when it was up until about 4 or 5 years ago, we were kind of ignored. Other than the fact that we performed to our goals every year with very, very little support from anything. Like we just were able to do it, and [00:12:00] we had someone come in to our division that had a vision that he was able then to give to management, you know, executive management saying if you guys give us some attention, we can be great for Sage, we can help Sage. And we have so much history. You know, it's over 50 years of construction that we've, that we're involved in, right. Like Sage [00:12:30] 300 series, which used to be timber line that started over 50 years ago. And because we have that. And then we had Master Builder, which is now called Sage 100 contractor. We have this deep, deep, these roots in construction. So if you give us some attention we will be able to just run with it. And I think that's what they've seen with now. Now they give us a little bit and oh look what they do with that. Oh let's give them some more. [00:13:00] And so we get more support now.

Emily Madere: And I really do think that this the support and the, the strategy behind Sage Intacct construction has been really prevalent, especially like you said, Angela, over the past, you know, two, three years with the acquisition of of Cauchon, which is now Sage Construction Management with the new SFO, um, add on and then um, the, the, the yes, the construction packages that also Sage is offering for especially contractors, home builders, all that [00:13:30] great stuff. Um, and the last Sage Intacct sales kickoff in Chicago, I think the biggest push was to push construction out there, and I think there were some different strategies around that, but I think 100%, this is where Sage is going to make heavy investments and will, um, has made heavy investments.

Angela Nelson: Yeah. And I think to underpin that. So like I said, I've been in CRE, as we call it, for 15 years, and it was two years ago that we [00:14:00] acquired Core Conn, now Sage Construction Management. And that was the first thing that we had acquired since we acquired 100 contractor back in 2008 or something. So that was 2023 that we acquired Core Conn. So that's just two years ago. And then last year we acquired Bid Matrix. So it's it just goes to show that in the past couple of years in particular, they have decided, yes, we're going to support them. And so they're acquiring things so that we have an end to end package [00:14:30] for construction. It starts with the bids and the and the estimating, and now it goes all the way through. We have something for every part of the business.

Matt Lescault: Now I'm going to jump in and ask a question that I don't. My firm doesn't play in the construction space for, uh, for intact. We're not one of the, uh, enabled partners, I think. I know, but I want to hear from you.

Angela Nelson: Okay.

Matt Lescault: When does a firm select CRA versus Sage construction management? [00:15:00] What is that? What's that trigger point?

Angela Nelson: So construction. So the construction module, you mean versus the Sage Construction Management Pro product.

Matt Lescault: So I my understanding was that this is like the CRA the full package. And then you have Sage Construction management which is the core con uh acquisition. And those are two different products that that kind of perform slightly differently. Maybe I'm maybe I'm mistaken. Uh, but that's why I want clarity.

Angela Nelson: So [00:15:30] yes, they are two different products like you can you can purchase one of the flavors of Siri. Whether you choose to go with the legacy product or you purchase the construction module within intact, you can do that without purchasing Sage Construction Management.

Matt Lescault: Yep.

Angela Nelson: Um, there are a few people, a few companies out there that may be on a different software that we won't talk about because that's not us, right? But they can purchase [00:16:00] Sage Construction Management to help run their businesses as well. What what the difference is, is that the construction module, you know, it ties in with the financial portion of it very closely, and the job costing and the payroll and the this and the that where Sage construction management really enables project managers, field techs to be able to do their jobs with information. They [00:16:30] can record their job costs. They can record the the equipment that they're using, which also ties into job costs. Um, they can do field reports. They, uh, it's a huge it's a very broad software that covers a lot of stuff, but it really enables the field portion of a company to interact much more closely with the financial, what we call back office of a company. Does that help?

Matt Lescault: It does. And I think [00:17:00] my question is like if if a firm is purchasing intact and doesn't have a construction management solution, why would they pick Sage construction management as opposed to the construction module? What would be the reasoning?

Angela Nelson: You wouldn't in my opinion. So you would still buy the construction module, but you would add on it because they're do two different things. One, the construction module, like I said, is for like back office office folks. Right. Like that is where that is. If [00:17:30] you have a large field contingent that you need to get information from or to. That runs like that field component and then they marry together.

Matt Lescault: Okay. See, I always thought of it like this. And I could be wrong. Is like construction management can be a pretty good thing for a developer, uh, because they're kind of more overseeing a project. And the CRA module is more for those organizations that are truly tracking whip over under billing, AIA, [00:18:00] uh, progress billing, um, things of that nature. Now, I mean, like, again, I don't live in the space, so I get the opportunity here to sort of say whatever I want to and you get to correct me.

Angela Nelson: Uh, well, and what you said is a different way of saying what I said. So construction really is that back office sort of thing. The whip, the over under Billings, the AIA, all of that kind of thing. You're there are components of that in Sage construction management. But really it is for the people overseeing the projects.

Matt Lescault: Yeah.

Angela Nelson: But [00:18:30] they don't - not everyone needs it because they might not have that big of a, I don't know, a field contingent, I guess. But it's it's a very well positioned product. It's it's got a good price point on it. And it's like I said, there's a lot of functionality in it, but it's a very broad. It helps for people just to look at it.

Emily Madere: I think the key point, since we're since we're on the Sage Intacct [00:19:00] construction and the, um, the core con, um, construction management tool, they integrate so with the guys are doing in the field can get over to finance and we're really creating or Sage is really creating that, that end to end and, and uh, financial management. Um, so no longer. Yes. And one thing that I see and Angela, I'm sure you probably see this across all of your, you know, your, your partners and their clients that they work with is construction is typically the last one to adopt things o [00:19:30] digital transformation cloud. Um, computers excel sometimes.

Doug Lewis: So why is that? Why is that? I'm curious. You know that. Angela. You're you're probably the closest tied to the construction industry in your role.

Angela Nelson: Yes.

Angela Nelson: Not only from my role, but also from my family. Like my dad always did. Construction. My brother in law owned a concrete company. So, you know, I've been around construction almost my whole life, and I. This [00:20:00] is anecdotal, but I do think there are probably statistics to back me up. A lot of these guys start these businesses and they just go and they do it right. They're not worried about. They're not worried about reporting and all this other kind of thing until they get to a certain point. But construction is traditionally a laggard when it comes to technology. And we all know that? And there's still these guys out there, like Emily said, that are doing things on paper, or they're doing things on Excel [00:20:30] and they're not getting all the information. It it it really hinders their growth in a lot of ways because they're not they are technology laggards. But we are seeing a shift. So all the people that are my age that are now like, you know what, I'm getting tired of swinging a hammer. I'm getting tired of getting shocked when I'm installing an electrical outlet. These guys are now like, I'm going to give this to my kids. I want my kids to take over the business. I want them to run it. Well, these these [00:21:00] kids, whatever you want to say, they have grown up with technology. So now what we're seeing is all of a sudden, it feels like a rush to get these companies that were using pencil and paper and Excel to do everything. Now they're all like, nope, that's not what we want to do. We need all these guys to be using iPads in the field and iPhones. And we want and we want them to have a cloud based system. And we want this information and we want to be able to report. It's it's [00:21:30] it's a it's a seismic shift that I think is happening right now.

Matt Lescault: I mean, I can give a little story. I mean, I came out of the construction world. And so in 2005, I took a job with a steel fabricator, and they were hand-writing every one of their invoices. And, uh, and they were doing everything by hand. And they were doing about, I don't know, half a million, 600,000 at the time. And over a two year period, I helped, you know, bring in systems and processes and so forth, and we were able to grow them to 3.6 million by just having more technology, [00:22:00] more process, more a different approach. Um, and it's absolutely true. You see it all the time within the industry that, you know, there's there's this sort of like old school mentality. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I'm more worried about swinging my hammer than I am, as you said, Angela wrote in that report.

Angela Nelson: Exactly, exactly.

Emily Madere: So what the with the thought kind of be here that Sage Intacct in the construction field, right. Sage [00:22:30] Intacct works on a lot of different places. It's kind of maybe a succession planning tool to pass on from one generation to the next.

Angela Nelson: I feel that, that's very that is happening a lot. I do feel that way. You know, I hear it a lot from a lot of people. Oh, well, you know, the kids are coming in and they're taking over the business or they want to take over the business, and they don't want to do this because let's be honest to that's a very labor intensive process, right. Handwriting the invoices, doing [00:23:00] an Excel spreadsheet and then having to then transfer to another Excel spreadsheet and then try to extrapolate the information you need, where if you have somebody who can just enter the information and it flows through easily, and then you push a button and it creates the invoice, the amount of time that you've saved, the amount of labor that you saved, the amount of money you save on, you know, you can put towards other things. I, I, I, and I think the quote unquote younger [00:23:30] generation really sees the value in that because they grew up with it. You know, people my age, like we've seen it happening. But when I was in high school, there was no computer. I couldn't get on my phone. I, I didn't really see a real computer until I went to college in my mid-twenties. Seriously. And then I was working on this thing that took half the class to boot it up and put the floppy disks in [00:24:00] and then change it to. And now here I am working for a technology company, and I am odd in my age group because I'm an early adopter, I. I'm always downloaded my my updates first come hell or high water. Whatever happens, That's okay. It's a new update. Let's go.

Doug Lewis: I like that you like. You like rolling the dice. Which is. Which is great for me. And by the way, I think that was the closest we got to any murder talk. There's a lot of hammer swinging discussion there. Shocked. Shocked by electric. I mean, you [00:24:30] just couldn't help yourself. I mean, you had to. You had to just. I had to skim close to the murder world. Uh, which I love about it. There's. So, you know, you've you've thrown out a couple, uh, acquisitions Sage has done, you know, a couple different, uh, kind of functionality and features, you know, specific to the construction world. Would you be able to just, like, in a really this most simplified possible timeline you can come up with in your head the start of the construction practice to where you are today. Any acquisitions that have come along the way that are notable? [00:25:00] Major added a new feature or functionality. You know, just the basics. So everyone kind of get an idea of, all right, here's where it started. Here's all the, the, uh, entities we've acquired over the years, and here's where we are today.

Angela Nelson: So what year? Did we acquire? Okay, so Timberline was is the oldest of our products. And like I said, that started in the early 70s, I believe. Yes. That's correct. So they started with Timberline in the early [00:25:30] 70s. It is. And sage acquired them in 2003. So that's the beginning of Sage's dipping their toe into the construction and real estate division. Timberline is an amazing product. I don't want to say anything bad about that product. It may not be pretty, but it's an amazing product. It works very well and it is. People are very loyal to that. In about 2008, I believe sage then [00:26:00] acquired what was then called Master Builder and now with sage 100 contractor, and that that gave them a footprint for a smaller construction company, which would have been Sage 100 contractor. We had a lot of customers that were like mom and pop kind of things, but it was able they were able to help themselves grow because they had the reporting. So they had we're chugging along with these products that have this very, these [00:26:30] very deep roots in construction, very well known, very well respected. And then in 2020, we had acquired intact. I don't I'll be honest, I don't remember what year Sage actually acquired intact.

Matt Lescault: But.

Angela Nelson: 1720 which.

Matt Lescault: 117.

Angela Nelson: 2017 three years later, they decided to launch Sage Intacct construction. So from 2003 to 2020, 17 years, we've just been expanding our footprint. And [00:27:00] then then we did. We acquired Core Con, then we acquired Bid Matrix. And and the thought process behind this is we want to have a product for every stage of of a job, every stage that the company may go through from bidding to winning that bid to to handling that project, to overseeing the project, to doing all of the financial statements, you know, getting your over under billing, getting the whip, doing [00:27:30] all of your payroll and payroll in construction can be very complicated. There's a lot of complication there that we understand because we've been doing this for so long, and some of our partners have been with us since the beginning, and they have grown with us doing the legacy, what we call the legacy products and now doing intact as well. So they have this deep, deep knowledge of construction. That's what differentiates us, I think, is how [00:28:00] long we've been doing it and how long our partners have been doing it.

Matt Lescault: So you teed up a question or a question I had and I was going to ask try to find the right time and this is the right time. So here we go, here we go. Timberline really was the the industry standard for a long time. It was what what construction firms I would say mid market construction firms really looked at and didn't really look at anything else.

Angela Nelson: Agreed.

Matt Lescault: And I would say that when the CRA module first came out for Intacct, it was [00:28:30] like anything else was just growing and building and and it really didn't compete with Timberline that well. I take this as akin to like Sdmo, where it is right now is like correct that, you know, the early days of CRA, how close or have we surpassed, uh, the Timberline capability with Intacct, or are there still gaps that that that are being filled through the through the development kind of where are we in that in that phase of life that that life cycle?

Angela Nelson: We are so very close to [00:29:00] having 100% parity. We are right on the cusp of having the 100% parity with with the three 300 crore product. We I mean, let's be honest, it's taken us a while, right? Like it? Developing something that is as good as 300 crore is has been a process. Sometimes painful, sometimes not. But we are still always adding. [00:29:30] That's the nice thing about intact though, is that we can add the functionality when they're working on it and they're adding this, that, the other thing, then it just gets pushed out to everyone, right? There's not these huge updates. They don't have to shut down their. That's one of the beauties of it. But we are so, so close to the parity that I would feel comfortable telling 99% of the people on 300 crore, you can go now, we can do it. And if if it's not available necessarily in intact [00:30:00] for construction itself, there's something that will do what it is you need to do that interacts with the product. We have a huge marketplace.

Matt Lescault: Okay. And with, uh, with this, what would you say is the next iteration of. And actually, I before I say that, Emily said something, I just wanted clarity because I did not know this Sage Construction Management does already integrate with Intacct. Is that correct?

Emily Madere: Yes.

Angela Nelson: Yes.

Matt Lescault: Okay. I did not know that.

Emily Madere: Um, [00:30:30] and the great thing about Sage Construction Management is it integrates within Intacct. Yes, but it also integrates into if if a company is not ready for Sage Intacct yet, it also integrates into QuickBooks. Um, and A Sage 300 and the other Sage products.

Matt Lescault: So as somebody that doesn't work with the CRA module, one of the things that I always thought was really interesting and a really smart approach, and I'd love to hear Angela's take on this, is how really what Intacct did [00:31:00] for CRA was build on top of project tracking and billing that module to really drive the construction. Capabilities. And am I correct in that? And what can you sort of tell us about that sort of. Development process and how it how it interacts with the kind of the core of intact.

Angela Nelson: I'm not sure that they I mean, it may have been something that they used the base for, but those two modules are very different. [00:31:30] Um, you can't have the project module and then just easily move to construction. Um, because of the interaction, because like I talked about the complexities of the job costing and the payroll and the where things connect inside of there. So I don't know that they really built it on top of that, but it may have been like the initial base. And I from all you know, I'm not [00:32:00] on the development team, so they don't always tell us everything. But my perception of what they did was they looked at 300 Cree and knew that that was ultimately where they wanted to get to. And even 100 contractor does a lot of the same things. But it is, you know, for a smaller footprint at this point. Um, and they looked at project based accounting and thought, okay, so if we take the base of this and we know that ultimately we want here, let's, [00:32:30] let's do this first, the initial construction module, and then they just been building on top of it that adding all the same kind of interactions that they get in 300 Cree adding it to the construction module as it's been moving along. Obviously it's taken a few years because it's a huge undertaking, but we're there.

Matt Lescault: So so I don't know if this is secret information or not, but but I do know that, you know, not just from this conversation, [00:33:00] but in talking to different people around Sage that, uh, cre or construction is the fastest growing vertical on a percentage basis. Um, do we do we have a concept of how many units sold at this point of CRE?

Doug Lewis: Or maybe percentage of growth is something that to give people an idea.

Angela Nelson: We have we the last meeting that we had and partners were there. So I don't think that I'm partners. [00:33:30] May they have this information so I'm not uncomfortable sharing it at this point. We have over 1600 companies okay. On on the on Sage Intacct construction.

Matt Lescault: And this is just us most likely.

Angela Nelson: Yes. Well US and Canada.

Matt Lescault: Us and Canada.

Angela Nelson: Yeah. And we are we are just now expanding into Europe. In fact, I don't know I don't know where that process is, but that is that is what Sage next step is like, you know, we're still doing all of our stuff here [00:34:00] in North America, making everybody happy, getting them moved over. But we have a whole team now that is looking at expanding this particular vertical into into Europe. And we do have a few companies in Australia, I believe, that do handle that are using like our estimating product and some other things down there. So we're we're starting to branch out now, now that we have a good handle on what, what we're doing with the construction module. Now we're [00:34:30] starting to to put our feelers out. Our roots are now going across the ocean.

Matt Lescault: And that seems to be pretty typical around some of these advanced modules. Um, you mentioned South Africa. You probably don't know this, but our firm is partners in Africa, Middle East and have offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Um, and we've seen it where it's kind of one by one, the advanced modules move over and we support some UK partners too. And we see the same thing. And so if you look at the price lists, there's some things [00:35:00] that aren't on the price list in different in different regions, but it's always changing and we're always getting updates to it. And so I would suspect that something like this would be, uh, expanded pretty quickly. And my belief of why it's such a, uh, important component for, for Sage globally is it's one of five. We won't get into all five, but it's one of those industries that are universal in how it's operated. [00:35:30]

Angela Nelson: Absolutely.

Matt Lescault: And so truly sellable universally where you take non profit, there's some things that kind of work, but some things that don't work in different regions and so forth.

Angela Nelson: So agreed. And I would expect that the expansion into the UK, into South Africa, into Australia, I suspect that that will happen fairly quickly. I don't think it's going to take it five years like we've been growing this. Now we have it. I expect it to happen very quickly. [00:36:00]

Matt Lescault: I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, Sage has lofty growth goals. You know, we see the announcements, you know, when it comes to the earnings reports, I mean, at least at least you're traded on the UK Stock Exchange. You only have to do every six months instead of every quarter, which makes a little bit easier. Yeah. But I mean the the the the growth I mean the growth goals are, are substantial. And so that that makes a lot of sense.

Angela Nelson: And a lot of that I think is based on, you know, what they're what they are [00:36:30] expecting Siri to do. You know, a lot of that expansion. And also just we do have some solid I keep saying legacy products and I don't mean that those are products that are going away. I just mean they are the products that we started with. And those products are still solid as well, and people still buy them a lot. So it's that and also all of the growth that they expect with intact as we move especially into other countries.

Matt Lescault: For this close when it [00:37:00] comes to and I'm using my fingers like very, very close between intact Cree and Timberline, why? What would be a reason that me as a construction firm would choose Timberline still over as a new as a new purchase over in tax year?

Angela Nelson: I think the people that are purchasing 300 Cree right now are people who know it. You know, they've been it has a good reputation. It's a good solid thing there again [00:37:30] construction are technology laggards and they are afraid to be in the cloud. They're afraid oh the cloud. What's going to happen to my data. What's going to happen is somebody's going to steal it. So I don't want to make it sound like it's old fogies buying it, but it's people that are more comfortable with the old way of doing it. In my opinion, that's that's why we sell it. I would say that 100 contractor in particular is a faster seller because it's [00:38:00] more of an entry point, right? Like that is what although I when I was in support, I had companies that were huge doing multi millions a year that were still using 100 contractor. But it's good for people that are just starting their companies to get in there. It's easy to use. It's all inclusive. You know they can do it. Those two products are on site. You install them on your server, you can host them, but most people are installing them on a computer in their office, and that makes [00:38:30] them feel comfortable with it.

Doug Lewis: And the.

Matt Lescault: Crap out of me.

Doug Lewis: Well, yeah. The on site. Yeah. That talk about modern it from from your experience. What what like size what company size. What revenue size. What employee size. However you want to define it as kind of however you you know, your your partners implement at what level do companies outgrow 100 pool?

Angela Nelson: Sometimes it has to do with the complexity of the jobs that they're doing and not necessarily the size. However, [00:39:00] I would say once they're hitting about that 5 million a year mark, they really at the intact customers average at least 500 million. I mean, 505 million in revenue and about 20 employees. And that doesn't mean 20 people that are using the software. It means they have that many employees. So it could be field techs or whatever. One under contractor can still [00:39:30] handle that, but it does get to be more cumbersome. And also you have the whole I have to shut down everything to update. I have to everything's on. What happens if my server dies? Servers are expensive. Let's be honest. They're expensive. So that.

Emily Madere: And then. And then you bring in the additional, you know, complexity when it comes to natural disasters. Right. The, the fires in, in California, the flooding that happened in North Carolina, hurricanes down in Louisiana.

Angela Nelson: Right. And [00:40:00] you know, when you're when you're when everything is stored in your office and you experience a disaster because I did have this happen to customers and they lost everything and and even not only that, but even if you've got everything online, you've got little Susie over here who is messing around on her work computer getting stuff, and she gets some kind of malware on it and it locks everything down. If they are not following proper protocol and having backups that are stored there, it's a disaster [00:40:30] for the company. Right. So it I think there's multi thing there's multi facets to it. When they hit to about 5 million when they've got 20 employees or they have jobs that are more complex and they start to understand, and they start to understand the vulnerabilities that they have when they have everything on premise. I think when all of those things come together, that's when it's time to move.

Matt Lescault: Well.

Angela Nelson: Did that answer the question? Sometimes [00:41:00] I get lost in my own thoughts.

Doug Lewis: I was expecting more of a like a politician's workaround answer. Uh, you actually gave some legitimate points that people can lock on to, which I personally love and be like, okay. Like she answered the question. Sighs. You know, I would not be a good politician. No, you're too honest. Too brutally honest. Um, yeah. Plus the murder podcast thing kind of like for some people, but hey.

Matt Lescault: Well, I'm going to jump in here. I'm gonna say, I mean, we're coming at the end of this, and we can't miss [00:41:30] dad jokes by Doug, of course. And. Oh, please. And he has a hard cut here in about three minutes, so I do. I'm forcing this to be end so that we get his joke.

Angela Nelson: I need a dad joke, I love him.

Doug Lewis: Uh, so, Angela, I always, I always put the offer out. If you have one, I would love for you to share one. If not, I can come up with some garbage off the top of my head.

Angela Nelson: Uh, please come up with garbage off the top of your head. Those are the best.

Doug Lewis: All right. Um, why did the bicycle fall over?

Angela Nelson: Why? [00:42:00]

Doug Lewis: It was too tired.

Angela Nelson: That's a good one.

Doug Lewis: Come on. Come on.

Matt Lescault: Don't,. Don't give him that credit.

Doug Lewis: Come on.

Angela Nelson: Oh, I love dad jokes.

Angela Nelson: I think they're the best. That's my sense of humor right there. I have the I.

Doug Lewis: Awful?mine, too. Yeah.

Angela Nelson: It's a 12 year old boy sense of humor. I'm good with.

Doug Lewis: That. That's all it takes.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. There you go.

Matt Lescault: I want to give a shout out to Emily. Emily [00:42:30] brought Angela on this podcast, and, uh, it's been a wonderful having you, Angela. But, Emily, thank you, uh, for for for bringing Angela on. I think this has been a great, great discussion. Yeah. No, I just want to want to throw out some kudos.

Emily Madere: Yeah. And to everyone listening. And with the day we're filming, this is Mardi Gras. So happy Mardi Gras.

Matt Lescault: Are you going?

Angela Nelson: Yes.

Emily Madere: No.

Doug Lewis: No.

Doug Lewis: She'll celebrate, you know, privately at home.

Emily Madere: Yeah.

Emily Madere: And you can't see me. But I am wearing my my, [00:43:00] uh, my Mardi Gras colors.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. It'll get it'll get weird tonight, for sure. Just privately weird, you know, but nonetheless private.

Angela Nelson: Yeah. Let's do that. Yeah. We don't need to. We don't need to film that one.

Doug Lewis: No, we will, but we don't need to. Angela, thank you for joining us. This has been an absolute, absolute pleasure. You knocked it out of the park, by the way, for one of your first, uh, first podcast as a guest, so.

Emily Madere: Thank you.

Angela Nelson: Thank you.

Doug Lewis: And we'll now we'll now give you time back to just get back to your murder podcast during the day here.

Angela Nelson: Yes. Thank you. Yes.

Doug Lewis: All right. Take care everybody.

Matt Lescault: Thank you. [00:43:30] Bye.