Sage 101: Understanding the Players and Products

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

Doug Lewis: All right. Well welcome back everybody. The unofficial Sage podcast emphasis on unofficial. For those of you who didn't catch the first episode, my name is Doug Lewis. With the visionary Group. I do everything related to accounting, firm growth, M&A, profitability, all kinds of fun stuff which lives around that Sage ecosystem. So that's why I'm here alongside my [00:00:30] my trusted co-hosts Emily and Matt, who will will jump to in just a minute here. But just to set the stage, what's our ledger for today's call? One could say the intro call. We just set the stage for who we are, why we're doing this stuff, everything related to Sage, blah blah blah blah.

Doug Lewis: Blah.

Doug Lewis: Little soft. We're going to get pointed here a little more technical, so we're going to really run through the entire Sage ecosystem, which is just a monster on its own. So we're going to take it piece by piece. Who [00:01:00] are the players? What are these players do? Of course, there's a lot of acronyms coming up. For anyone who listened to our first episode, our intro episode, we've all agreed any time one of the three of us tosses an acronym out there and doesn't explain what that acronym is. We will put 50 bucks into a joint fund that we're still figuring out what we're going to do with that fund at some point. My thought is maybe give it to a listener. I don't know who has the craziest Sage story. We'll figure out what [00:01:30] that looks like. So anybody who has ideas of what we can put those funds to use for, uh, for a fun, good time to the listeners, don't be shy with your thoughts LinkedIn email us, call us, whatever. We love hearing from you guys. So quick run through. We're going to talk about some of the Sage ecosystem partners out there. We're also going to hit on some of the marketplace partners or the MMPs. So I hit that one up front. No 50 bucks in the pool for me yet. And to kick it off, we're really going to talk about some of the core players [00:02:00] inside the Sage ecosystem as it relates to the accounting world. So, Emily, I know it's killing you. You need to talk and you need to cut me off because you honestly have the best information here out of the three of us. So to kick it off, let's talk about Vars. What is a VAR? Everyone throws that around. Who are Vars in the Sage ecosystem? What does VAR stand for? What do they do and why are they important?

Emily Madere: Yeah. Var is a term that stands for value added reseller [00:02:30] in the VAR relationship exists out of intact. There are other vars for other different softwares. I know if I've personally worked with um, HubSpot vars, you name it, they got it. Vars help people, um, implement, select and support whatever software they're on. In this case, it's Sage Intacct. So we have been a VAR for over ten years, and we have a number of clients in different industries. And where we really help our clients is coming in with that [00:03:00] accounting base, because all of our implementation specialists are CPAs, and we're able to really give them what they need from a from an accounting perspective, we're not just technology people implementing accounting software, we're accountants implementing accounting software. Vars are in very important of any software relationship because like I said, there's two ways that you can go in and get software. One is through a VAR and the other one is directly through the software. And there are pros and cons of both. [00:03:30] We will definitely won't go into those today, but if you're looking at evaluating solutions in the future, just take a look at the different vars. Because finding the right VAR for you could mean a lot.

Doug Lewis: And you hit the nail on the head there. Emily, we're not going to go into great detail on all these pieces today. We're just scratching the surface on what these are. So Matt anything to add on vase you have you have a little experience there, right?

Matt Lescault: I'm just a little bit we're not a VAR uh, at least here in the US we are vase or business partners in Africa, middle East. [00:04:00] What I always like to make sure that is very clear is that when you're buying from a VAR, you're buying the software directly from that VAR, meaning you're not buying it from, in this case, Sage. You're buying it from a partner who is going to implement it for you and who is going to support you. Your tier one, your your your initial support comes from Vars. As Emily mentioned, there is the ability to buy direct from Sage. It's really the preference [00:04:30] of the purchaser. And those pros and cons are really more individualistic than it is right or wrong from my perspective. That being said, in the US we are Sage solutions integrators or systems integrators, and we work with the direct team when they sell and we do implementations. So there's some overlap there and sort of where Emily's firm and my firm have expertise. Emily had a question for you. Do you have does does uh eisneramper [00:05:00] have specific industries that they focus on in their VAR practice specifically?

Emily Madere: Yeah. So I work with a number of different industries. I think where we found ourselves more aligned is in the healthcare construction project based voting, boating, actually. But that's just because where we are and kind of the agricultural space. So that's kind of where we found ourselves aligned. And that's just because of where we're located.

Matt Lescault: Yeah. And the reason I, I asked Emily this, I think what's really important is most [00:05:30] Vars pick a lane and it's not always have to be one, but picks that industry that they really get deep knowledge in. Because when you start talking about Sage Intacct and you start talking about the different products that are out there, there's nuances on how each industry is implemented. And so when you're looking at a VAR or an implementation specialist, you're looking at their knowledge doing doing that us we live in nonprofit and healthcare and we do some fin services but wouldn't touch agriculture. Construction [00:06:00] is a really specific element within intact and the CRE module and the experience you need to have in that. And there's very few partners that actually play in that space.

Emily Madere: So that's like a handful.

Matt Lescault: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So I always like to call that out when it comes to vase as really understanding who you're, who you're purchasing from and why.

Emily Madere: And Matt you brought a good point. So the amount of vase there are in the US I think there's over 100 maybe over 150. So they're a good bit to choose from, [00:06:30] I think.

Matt Lescault: I think it's under 150. But you're you're right around there. And that's actually if you think about it okay. There's what is it Doug. 450,000 accounting firms technically in, in the US.

Doug Lewis: Well, uh, you were off by a couple, a couple zeros there. The most widely accepted number of accounting firms in the US is about 45,000.

Matt Lescault: 45,000.

Doug Lewis: Correct.So you were a little off, but close.

Matt Lescault: I was way.

Matt Lescault: Off. I had four and the five, right?

Doug Lewis: No, the, the the heart was in the right. [00:07:00] The right, uh, the right. You were trying.

Matt Lescault: I was.Trying, but my point being, if you think about 100 to 150 Vars as partners versus the industry as a whole is a it's a it's what I would think to be a very unique and program that is for the most skilled organizations.

Emily Madere: And look on this podcast, we are going to talk with those folks. We're going to speak with farmers. We're going to speak with direct. You're going to have the opportunity to to listen [00:07:30] to them and make that that decision and that assumption on your own.

Matt Lescault: You know, where I think I got my number from? I gotta look this up. I think it's law firms. I think there's 100, 450,000 law firms in the United States, which is more scary than than we should even be talking about.

Doug Lewis: Everybody loves lawyers. What are you talking about?

Doug Lewis: Oh, yeah. All of our.

Doug Lewis: All of our lawyer listeners, we love you. Please. Yes, yes. Share it. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. No I agree. Yeah. About 45,000 is the most commonly accepted number of accounting firms here in the US. That's counting everything from [00:08:00] sole practitioners all the way up through the top 50 firms. Uh, but there's no there's no real accurate way. That's just a the ballpark number that most people utilize to to toss out there. But you brought up by the way the VAR conversation could be three hours on its own. So we won't uh, we won't uh, bore everybody with uh, to too deep in the var uh area quite yet. Matt, you brought up implementation specialist, though, which is if you're sniffing around the Sage ecosystem or you're already inside the ecosystem. Synapse [00:08:30] will come up here and there. Another acronym which is going to be explained here. So we don't put 50 bucks in that in that joint joint fund quite yet. But Matt, what's an synapse.

Matt Lescault: Well can I, can I, can I be mean to Doug real quick. Didn't he say VAR. But hand it over to you Emily, to explain. So doesn't he really owe $50 for using an acronym and not giving the the the name of the full name?

Emily Madere: Yeah, you did, and you could give 50 bucks to our listeners. So yeah, you you owe 50 bucks.

Doug Lewis: We could run the tape back [00:09:00] as well.

Matt Lescault: You want to be mean to Emily?

Matt Lescault: She EPA no, I know that's so number one.

Doug Lewis: That's not being mean. That's being honest. Number one. And number two, as the I'll call it quasi host, I throw the question over, I throw the ball up towards the rim and I had Emily dunk it through.

Doug Lewis: No, and I.

Doug Lewis: Think there's a clear distinction there between not not explaining.

Matt Lescault: It's absolutely fair. But I was just going by the letter of the law how you explained it in our first [00:09:30] episode. I was just saying, you know, I just wanted to start the pot off, right?

Doug Lewis: Well, I'll tell you what. You know, we're coming. I gotta say, you're it's a dangerous precedent I will get. I will get viciously personal on this with you. I'll trap you into it. Let's put it that way. I'll back you into a corner with. Good. Now, uh, that's that's a good point. Sure. I'll be the first one to donate $50. How about that? Just. Just to make Matt happy and keep this train on the tracks here. So 50 bucks. All right, we're in. We're in.

Doug Lewis: The pot. What?

Matt Lescault: You know, because I did this, and I don't want to get attacked [00:10:00] by Doug. I'll throw in another 50. So we just have a clean hundred to start the pot off with. Well, I'll.

Emily Madere: Throw in another 50. So we have 150.

Doug Lewis: Beautiful. We're already, we're already now we got to figure out how we're going to give this thing out at some point, but we will get there again. Listeners, give us your thoughts. Give us your opinions on how we should do that and when. We have to have an episode number to give that away. So it'll be it'll be fun.

Doug Lewis: 150 bucks happens.

Matt Lescault: Is we have to give it away when it hits a certain point, we have to say like, okay, 250, you know, there's a certain point then. Then we hand it off to a random listener or something of that nature. We can't let [00:10:30] this thing get up to like we have some boundaries.

Doug Lewis: 50 grand. Yeah, we should let it get that high. I agree. Like three.

Emily Madere: Episodes in.

Doug Lewis: Yeah.

Doug Lewis: That that could be fun. So all right, now we're gonna clarify this. Uh, thank you. Matt, let's move on to synapse, another acronym, which I'm going to let you explain on purpose here. Handing the torch, handing the baton over to you. Olympics are coming up here. This is a relay. It's a team sport we're doing here. So what's an sip? How does it play in the Sage world? What do they do? Why are they [00:11:00] important?

Matt Lescault: Thank you. Doug. And a sip is a Sage Intacct accounting partner. Really a firm that uses intact in their CAS department or to provide outsourced accounting services to their clients. Now we have Vars that are dual authorized as Vars and CIPs, and we have CIPs that are just CIPs. Uh, the fact of the matter is the big difference in my opinion, and I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, is that [00:11:30] CIPs are great at being accountants and providing solutions as accountants, as your internal accounting department. And that could be a kind of a do it with you model or do it for you model. Uh, as an outsourcer as a cast department. But many times rely on other implementation, uh, experts, firms to help them with the implementation process because they don't do it enough. It was actually something that I realized as an CIP before [00:12:00] I did the acquisition in South Africa, is that I estimated I needed to be doing somewhere between 20 and 25 implementations per year to be proficient at doing it. And the SIP, I wasn't doing that level of implementations, and I realized that I wanted to partner up with a firm to be my implementation, uh, partner. I happen to buy that partner. That's a whole nother thing. But it was it's a it's a very unique difference. And I like to always mention that [00:12:30] because I've met so many sips that are so great at what they do. But it's not always, but not on the implementation side. Now, there's other ones that are great on implementation, but I think that's a big, big difference between the two partner programs.

Doug Lewis: Anything to add on SIPs Emily, which we've clearly explained what they are at this point, so we don't have to keep clarifying the acronym.

Emily Madere: Yeah. No, I so Eisneramper is a dual authorized CIP plus var. We've already described what those are. So I'm not going to do that. [00:13:00] But we actually work together with our SA, CIP practice a lot. We work together to kind of co-sell deals. So what a lot of times happens in our practice is someone will want to own the software outright, so we will sell it to them. And then our CIP practice comes in and they support from the accounting side.

Matt Lescault: Let me ask you a question on that, Emily, because there's a lot of firms and we hear this kind of rumbling. I mean, I don't have any direct experience in this, that there is a little [00:13:30] bit of a combativeness between the CIP department and the var department because the var department, for their own KPIs, want to internally charge full price for the implementations on the CIP. Do you guys run into that that that issue? And if not, what what have you done as a partner to kind of avoid that?

Emily Madere: No, we haven't. But I think our relationship with our SIP practice is a very strong one. Um, and ultimately, kind of at the end of the day, we want to do what's best and what's right for the client with with concerns for their budget [00:14:00] and their needs. So we haven't really run into that problem. We just listen to them and and kind of figure out, you know, what they want.

Matt Lescault: You know, that's that's really good. Because one of the things that I've seen is with dual authorized partners, maybe it's not just dual authorized partners, but a lot of the technologists and even the ones with accounting background end up in the implementation department that really know the software. And then there can be a void within the outsourcing side of how to really get the full value out of something like an [00:14:30] intact. And that's something that I want to talk about as we move through this podcast and other episodes, because I think this is an opportunity for us as an industry to get better, be honest with ourselves inside the industry, but to get better and figure out how to to to coexist as those departments and find the best way to operate for the clients.

Doug Lewis: And I like how you said the best way to operate because we mentioned it in a previous episode, kind of our intro episode, the sense that this is [00:15:00] not a Sage sales podcast. We're not telling everybody you need to buy all these products and implement this. We're going to tell you all the angles, everything we talk about the good, the bad and the ugly inside that Sage ecosystem. We'll talk about some competitors products as well. I mean, we're going to hit it from as many angles as we possibly can, but more importantly, we're going to hit it from from, uh, some of the actual experts throughout the industry that will will be bringing in here in future episodes. So that'll be that'll be a fun time. But moving on to one more acronym, [00:15:30] Matt.

Matt Lescault: Well, you talked.

Matt Lescault: But you talked about the good, bad and ugly. I think that's important. It's important for us to be honest about the challenges as well as the successes, because if we're not being if we're not being honest ourselves about that, if we're not communicating that to the listeners, we're leaving off a big part of what's important in, uh, in this opportunity.

Doug Lewis: I couldn't agree more. And we'll go through some actual case studies, too, in future episodes, alongside bringing in some of the thought leaders in these industries and with this ecosystem. [00:16:00] So that'll be that'll be fun to kind of go through some horrible, uh, case studies that didn't end well, which many of us will probably know about already, uh, some that were phenomenal, uh, just phenomenal use cases that just, again, were were great outcomes for everybody involved in that process. So we're we're going to do all angles, like I said, good, bad, ugly, everything you can imagine. So it will be the most, uh, agnostic view that you can possibly get here. Uh, but moving on to another acronym, because we can't have another acronym as we, as we [00:16:30] go through kind of the core players in the Sage ecosystem. Matt. Asps, again, I'm handing the baton to you. This is not this is this is a pass. I'm passing the ball. Don't drop it. What's an ASP.

Matt Lescault: So this is actually kind of an unofficial partner program. And what I mean by unofficial, it's not because we're on the unofficial Sage podcast because it's it was more support supported within the CIP program. And the ASP program is called the Authorized Services [00:17:00] Partner Program concept. Here behind it was to align CIP that were also implementation experts with other CIPs that either weren't or didn't want to be. There are firms out there that want to have the support to just go and get implemented and then just do what they do best, focus on their core competency, which is something that I think is so critical for partners and businesses [00:17:30] in general to understand is focus on those core competencies. Do what you do best. Don't try to be everything to everybody and you will deliver better services. Number one and number two, you will. You will be able to scale faster. And this was the whole concept of the ASP. The authorized service program was to give an avenue to those firms to more quickly deploy intact for their accounting clients, to make it make the [00:18:00] the go to market smoother for them. And this has really been promoted through some other programs within Sage that are doing some preconfigured template work by industry and so forth, that we've delivered in the CIP and direct model. That has really decreased the time of implementation and been a big, big success for for those organizations utilizing it.

Doug Lewis: You brought up a pretty good point there, too. Obviously, there's competition amongst some of the players inside the Sage ecosystem, [00:18:30] no question about it. But from what I've seen, at least as a semi outsider looking into that industry, maybe you can shed some light on this is there is a sense of community for for those who are involved in that world. And although there's a healthy competition factor as well, between the different players and different products and all this fun stuff, there is some level of, I don't want to say camaraderie, but some level of we're all in the in the same ship here. Can can you talk to that a little bit Matt.

Matt Lescault: I would I would say camaraderie [00:19:00] in some ways. Now look there's there are bad players in the environment that don't like to play nice with other partners. But I think this podcast is a testament of partners playing nice. I mean, Emily's firm is, uh, is an sip, is a is a is a VAR. We're in the same ecosystem. We may run into same clients here or there, but there's a true understanding with partners in general. The majority of partners is that there's enough work out there for everybody. There's enough work out there for everybody, and [00:19:30] we want to provide best in class services. We want to make every review of a Sage Intacct implementation a positive review, giving the confidence to the next buyer of Sage Intacct to have the confidence that it'll go well for them. And if we don't work together and come in. I mean, I remember getting a lead for an industry that I focused on. I think it was a SaaS lead early on in that software as a service. You almost got me. [00:20:00]

Doug Lewis: Oh, I was just waiting. I was just waiting. Oh.

Matt Lescault: All right, we're safe.

Matt Lescault: Sas, a SAS client, and we weren't doing implementations, uh, of SAS clients a couple of years back, and I brought another partner that I knew. I said, hey, I think this would be a better deal for this partner. And I mentioned it to him and had him run that down and or that firm, I should say, run that down. And that's the kind of place that we want to be in with the other partners. We want to learn from each other. We want to learn best practices. We want [00:20:30] to learn what works and what doesn't work. And it is such an ever changing com uh, product and community and how how can we all stay on top of everything that's going on, whether it's Sage product related or new Mbps, the marketplace partners or or or so I think I think it's it is very much a tight knit community. And we only have 100 and so, uh, bars and only [00:21:00] 300 sips in, in it, you run into these people so often that you want to do it with respect. So I've gotten clients from other sips, you know, I do. I get on the phone with their managing partner and say, hey, this is what's going on. I want to be respectful. I want to make sure that we're on the same page and we have a good conversation about it, and we and we do it in respect, and that is important. I, I don't believe in poaching, uh, staff from other partners unless that staff is looking. [00:21:30] And even in that case, sometimes I give a call to that firm just to make sure it's not going to cause any, uh, any issues. And those things are really important to a into a strong partner group. And I know that Sage has even put in some, uh, terminology in their contracts. They're going towards the idea of a partner code of conduct because of this, because they know that the more that the partners work together, the more successful we all will be together.

Doug Lewis: No, I appreciate that. That's that's kind of an interesting viewpoint [00:22:00] that isn't shared across a lot of.Uh, called.

Doug Lewis: Technology ecosystems. So that's that's kind of fun. Um, so that kind of recaps some of the basic players inside the Sage world. Yes, there are more out there. But again, we're just scratching the surface here today on the technical component of this, this whole podcast, what we're going to dive into a little bit further, shifting gears a little bit over to some of the the core Sage products. And for this episode, let's I really want to focus on some of the the real core US based accounting type of products that Sage [00:22:30] has out there in the ecosystem. So Emily is running through some of the basics. Let's start with like Sage 50. What what is Sage 50? Who's it for? What are your thoughts on it? Again, we're being agnostic so it doesn't have to be the best in the world if that's not your experience with it.

Emily Madere: So my knowledge of Sage 50 is a very small it's meant for small businesses. Um, it was known as Peachtree. Am I right, Matt? Yep. [00:23:00] It was known as Peachtree. Um, in the early days, until Sage bought it and renamed it Sage 50. I have switched a number of people off of Sage 50. In the most common thing, as I'm switching people from Sage 50 that I hear is that it is too small and it has been too small for a very long time. So they are needing, you know, as our business grows, they are needing to get better reporting, they are needing integrations. And Sage 50 just [00:23:30] isn't meant to handle that. It's an on prem solution. It doesn't, it hasn't. And it doesn't grow with people's businesses. But it's a great solution if you're just starting out.

Matt Lescault: So I have a slightly different viewpoint. I actually don't think it's a great solution. I'll just throw it out there.

Doug Lewis: Hot take. Hot take.I love it. First hot take.

Matt Lescault: I think it's not that I think. Look, you're absolutely right. Sage 50 was Peachtree. It's desktop. I think that's the most important component [00:24:00] here. Sage 50 really hasn't been truly developed in years. And they call it cloud enabled, which just means that they host it on Azure and allow you to get access. And they do some some interesting cloud enabled components. But if you look at the marketplace for Sage 50 as a much limited marketplace around, uh, things like industry specific solutions, things of that nature, and it really lost its market share. If you think about this Peachtree and QuickBooks in the early 2000, [00:24:30] late 90s were really head to head, and QuickBooks just completely out dominated what Peachtree and what Sage 50 ended up being. And that's because it wasn't really invested in it wasn't invested in by Sage. And if I if I'm to be completely honest, my opinion, for what it's worth, is that Sage for a period of time was really more of a private equity firm that bought products and not really a true software firm that elevated products. Now that's changed dramatically, [00:25:00] uh, in the, in the recent past. But, uh, my experience with it is I don't even see really new units of 50 going on the market. I don't see clients or companies really choosing that as a new product. I see clients that have been on it for a long time staying on it because they don't feel like changing. And I see them migrating into the syntax and things of that nature, or moving over to QuickBooks. But think of this big difference for a second. [00:25:30] Quickbooks just ended life on their desktop. They will not sell it anymore. They are 100% cloud native and continuing to develop in the different capabilities that is QuickBooks. What has sage 50 done and that.

Emily Madere: Yeah. And I'm going to actually redact my statement. It was a great product at its time. Yeah because there was a time for it and there was a time where people were moving to it. Um, but like Matt said, QuickBooks stopped selling their their desktop version. I'm curious to see what actually [00:26:00] that does to the market.

Matt Lescault: I, I actually think it's it I've been talking about it for a long time. I saw this coming eight years ago when they decided to announce, and I think it might have been seven years ago, but when they announced that they were going to stop feature development within desktop, and they did that early on and they just did security updating and so forth, there was a path to it being a online only product. Now for us that that want to talk about the, uh, enterprise [00:26:30] value of organizations and things like that. There's too many units of desktop and was still too big of a revenue pool for Intuit to just go away from, but they've spent a lot of time converting into online from their desktop base, really pushing more and more capabilities and the marketplace for QuickBooks reducing on the desktop and and increasing. There was a time when they shifted away from their their development packages and and made it harder to develop and integrate into desktop. So there was some [00:27:00] interesting things that happened there where I tell you that 50 beat out QuickBooks for the longest time and still beats out QuickBooks, and where QuickBooks, in my opinion fails quite a bit, is it's not truly a cash or accrual system. I call it a quasi accrual system. And that has some pretty big limitations for organizations that need to get over a certain a certain place. So there's really where Sage 50 had a true accrual in cash book in [00:27:30] the same way that Intacct does. And it it allows for true GAAP financials. And that's becoming more and more important, especially for your your upper small business to midsize and so forth. Anybody that's getting lending of money and doing covenants and things of that nature.

Emily Madere: And I think we can all agree, all accounting software and software in general is going to the cloud. Let's just put that out there. It's just kind of base base. Everything is going to the cloud.

Matt Lescault: Amen.

Matt Lescault: All software is going to the cloud basically.

Doug Lewis: So [00:28:00] I think you mean all all that should be going to the cloud. Because shockingly, in a lot of the work that I do is M&A transactions between accounting firms. Wow. You would be really surprised how many firms are not fully in the cloud. Just it's amazing. I ran across a firm not too long ago within the past 24 months. It was a good, good sized firm to I won't I won't embarrass anybody about where they are or their size. But it was a good sized firm, much larger than you would imagine. Was doing all of [00:28:30] their returns on paper still.

Matt Lescault: I don't even understand.

Matt Lescault: No, no, I can't.

Emily Madere: I can't.

Matt Lescault: Even. How?

Doug Lewis: That's the. That's the proper response. I don't know how it was. Guess what we didn't do? Acquire that firm. I can promise you that. Or get.

Matt Lescault: Them acquired.

Matt Lescault: Or get.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. God, no. No, that was a that was a run not walk away situation. But your points are really valid in the sense that those aren't those who aren't keeping up with the the the newest technology, the newest updates. And I'm not talking about like [00:29:00] I just a basic level, getting your business running where it should be. They're certainly falling behind at a quicker pace than they ever have before. But that's Sage 50. Let's let's kind of leave that one where it was because there were some strong opinions, which I absolutely, I loved about that. Uh. Moving on. Um, Emily Sage 100. Kind of another, I'll call it flagship accounting product of of the Sage world in the US here. Thoughts on Sage 100. What is it? Who's it meant for? How's it a little different than Sage 50? [00:29:30] Let it fly.

Emily Madere: Yeah. So Sage 100 was a mass 90. Before it was, it was acquired by Sage, and we actually had a pretty large Sage 100 practice within my previous firm, Postlethwaite Netterville. We've since gotten acquired by Eisneramper, and we've actually switched all of our Sage 100 clients off of 101 to intact. Um, all of them? Yeah, all of them.

Matt Lescault: Wow.

Matt Lescault: Okay.

Emily Madere: Yeah. They really saw the value of [00:30:00] moving to the cloud like we just talked about. And the need that Sage 100 really wasn't helping, um, their business.

Doug Lewis: Um, and, Emily, throughout that process, did you have pushback? Were people receptive to it? Uh, indifferent? What did that transition look like?

Emily Madere: The thing you have to remember about A Sage 50 or A Sage 100 is they're very inexpensive products, right? They're like a couple thousand a year, maybe $3,000 a year. Um, Sage Intacct is is much more than that because it is truly in mid market solution. [00:30:30] So there was a couple pushback from that aspect. But ultimately, after our Sage 100 clients moved from Sage 100 on to Intacct there, there are a lot they're a lot happier. And they can get, you know, better support. They can get better reporting out of the system. They can just, um, yeah, just have a better system that's backing their business.

Matt Lescault: Well, my understanding of Sage 100, I don't have as deep of experience. I think Sage 100 is one of those products that would be really great to get a guest in that would that could speak into more detail [00:31:00] about. I really understood that as a kind of a great product for light manufacturing and, uh, and things of that nature. Is that is that your understanding, Emily?

Emily Madere: Yes. So we, um, we did have a lot of of clients who were light manufacturing one 800 and that we moved to Sage Intacct and are working really well with Sage Intacct. So I know we haven't hit Intacct yet, but Intacct is good for light manufacturing distribution, so they kind of fit. If you're in heavy manufacturing distribution, that's going to be another [00:31:30] solution entirely.

Matt Lescault: Yeah, we I mean, my understanding is that they're sdmo and I actually don't know what that stands for. By the way. I'm gonna throw that out there. I don't know, but that's a module that's within Intacct. That is their manufacturing module. And it's really focused now on process manufacturing as opposed to that heavy manufacturing. But they're they're developing that pretty pretty strongly I know Doug I.

Doug Lewis: Maybe that's a 25 year that's.

Matt Lescault: A half. How about that. [00:32:00]

Doug Lewis: That's that's fair.

Matt Lescault: I just I don't even know.

Doug Lewis: Hey be better you know that's the advice. So moving on you guys. You guys touched on it a couple times already intact. Arguably the flagship product that pretty much everybody knows Sage for in the marketplace intact. Matt, do you want to hit what is Sage Intacct why it's important, where it came from, where it's at, where it's going. What do you want to talk about with Sage Intacct?

Matt Lescault: Absolutely. But I want to give one thing to Emily beforehand. Tell him what intact stands for. Well, it's.

Emily Madere: My favorite thing to talk about. [00:32:30] So intact stands for internet accounting. So it was built in the cloud and it lives in the cloud. You do not have to host it. It's not need to be hosted. Um, Sage actually acquired intact about ten years ago. So we were just an intact partner before Sage acquired them. And then Sage acquired them and named it Sage Intacct.

Matt Lescault: It was 2017 that Sage officially acquired intact and intact was a US only based [00:33:00] product at that point that really, really focused heavily on nonprofits. Now it did some other industries, but really was known as the nonprofit solution, and it it had a stranglehold in that area. But what or Or I say, I should say how it was developed, uh, and coded and brought to life as a software lended itself to so many other capabilities. [00:33:30] And what I love about the nonprofit industry in general is that it has such a wide array of types of nonprofits that you actually hit so many different things from a finance operations need, that it quickly turned into a valuable product in the SaaS. And I already said what SaaS was software as a service into financial services and to family offices into professional services, health care. It really expanded quickly into some of those other, other industries. But 2017 [00:34:00] is when Sage purchased it and intact for a very long time through about 2021 ish 2022, uh, was really left alone. In a lot of ways, US operations was left alone. It really still focused there. But what Sage was doing behind the scenes, at least my perspective or perception of what they were doing behind the scenes, was investing heavily in that product to become that global flagship product, which has now been launched [00:34:30] in Canada, Ireland, UK, South Africa, Australia, France, Germany.

Matt Lescault: And there's a roadmap. There's a couple other ones coming, but those ones are announced, are known out in the ecosystem and it is just an absolute joy to see that level of investment. Now, I know sometimes us partners, we get so focused, so focused on what we need that we don't see all the development that's happening outside of what [00:35:00] we need necessarily. But when we talk about manufacturing capabilities, distribution capabilities, inventory capabilities that are more important to other countries than maybe to us. But to see the level of, uh, of investment that's happening that also ends up impacting the capability of the core financials, the core modules that that we know, whether it's grant tracking and billing, whether it's Sage intelligent time, all these intricacies that are in the [00:35:30] product are helping us do our job better. And I love seeing that level of development, because it means that I'm going to be able to my firm is going to be able to. Emily's firm is going to be able to. We're all going to be able to offer better services to our clients because of these these capabilities.

Doug Lewis: Yeah, not like that. Sage 50 garbage, apparently. That was a strong opinion.

Emily Madere: And I think on the topic of Sage Intacct, we'd be doing our our listeners a disservice of not talking about who its competitors are. We've [00:36:00] compared Sage 50 and QuickBooks, but in this space, Sage Intacct competitors are the net sweets of the world, the Microsoft Dynamics Acumatica. So we're really taking a step up from that small business up to that mid-market.

Matt Lescault: Absolutely. And I guess we should throw in that, you know, it's really Sage 50 competes with QuickBooks and Xero, but QuickBooks and zero zero are really the the the industry leaders QuickBooks here in North America, Xero in UK and Europe and and so forth. The [00:36:30] Net suite is an Oracle product. Oracle has their true enterprise fortune 100 kind of product. And then they have NetSuite. But one of the number one the number one competitors of intact. And you mentioned dynamics. But if you go and look at another reason why I for one selected intact as our partner in the outsourcing space and also from implementation, if you look at G2, if you look at Gartner, if you look at the studies out there and compare those products, Sage continues [00:37:00] to win from a functionality, capability and just user experience side of the house. Now, let's be fair. There are specific industries where NetSuite will be intact, at least for now. There's certain there's certain capabilities that you may need to shift into one product over another. There's different reasons why you may choose those. And I don't want to take away from what NetSuite and Dynamics offers, but these are some of the reasons that I [00:37:30] chose intact.

Matt Lescault: The other thing I'd like to mention from an intact, from a, from a, you know, directional approach, we've seen some major changes come out of how the leadership is is is organized at Sage and really a focus on kind of a global foot forward in the in the decision making of how the go to market strategy, marketing, sales, all those things are going to happen for intact. And it's a it's a time today where it's a little, [00:38:00] you know, change is hard and can be disruptive. But if I think if we give it its time, we're going to see even more investment in and more movement towards a huge uptick in sold units. And for me and for Emily's firm, that means potential growth for us because we support Sage, because we are partners with Sage. That means positive things for our firms. And if we if we're on this podcast for a reason, [00:38:30] I think it also means positive things for other partners, potential partners, users, everybody to say, hey, there is so much more coming.

Doug Lewis: I like that take and in the interest of time, let's feed right off of that to kind of round out one of the again, I'll call it kind of core US accounting based products of Sage. Let's talk about X3. That's that's hanging out there flying in the wind right now. Emily X3 do you want do you want to hit that again? Basic history. What is this thing? How does it differ? Who's using it? [00:39:00] All the fun stuff.

Emily Madere: Yeah. So X3 is actually mainly in not in the US. And that's just solely because it is an enterprise manufacturing distribution software. It is slowly making its way to the US. I think we'd be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't talk about it. Um, but they are it. It's still being worked on. It's it still needs its kind of kinks. Um, worked out, you know, to be a US globally accounting solution for the manufacturing distribution [00:39:30] industry. But I think it's in it's in a good place. And I'm curious what Matt's thoughts are.

Matt Lescault: So let's be honest. You know, manufacturing is not a huge industry here in the US. We outsource our manufacturing a lot of ways rely on other countries. And that's why you, you very correctly articulated that it has a bigger foothold in, uh, other countries or other regions of Sage but where X3 and I'm not an expert by any means in X3, it [00:40:00] competes with those saps, those oracles, those big products. It is a highly customizable, process oriented ERP. True ERP. Now I'm doing it. You're not. You're not catching me, Doug. But ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. And it is an thought.

Matt Lescault: I had it.

Matt Lescault: It's an it's an overly utilized word or acronym. In my my opinion intact is a quasi ERP. [00:40:30] Let's let's be honest with ourselves. It is you You know, when you think about ERP, you you really think about true resource planning. You think about true manufacturing process oriented capabilities. One product that solves all of your business need. My opinion? Our world is going away from A11 solution approach to, uh, OP, you know, technology operations within organizations. So we see so many more opportunities, opportunities for [00:41:00] integrated products. And we talk about the marketplace partners earlier, but integrated products that expand the capability of the core GL and core capabilities that you need out of your GL. But to expand, do you want do you want your your accounting system to be your CRM or do you want to use Salesforce or HubSpot, the two leaders?

Doug Lewis: Did I just catch an acronym in there?

Matt Lescault: I don't know, did I? Which one? Crm customer relationship management.

Doug Lewis: Oh you did.

Doug Lewis: Did I hear GL.

Matt Lescault: Gl [00:41:30] general ledger you might have heard. You might have.

Matt Lescault: Got me there.

Matt Lescault: Oh uh oh uh oh.

Matt Lescault: Oh, we're.Gonna have to we're gonna have to go back and and double check this. I might be I might be costing myself a lot of money. Um, the. But if you ask yourself, like NetSuite sold their own CRM, I'll tell you a quick funny story. I I'm at a local restaurant slash bar and I'm having a beer. I'm sitting down and a guy sits next to me. He's actually now become a very [00:42:00] good friend of mine, and he's in NetSuite, but he's doing a CRM. And I said, what do you do for a living? He goes, well, I do sales. I run a sales organization. I said, what in the heck are you doing in NetSuite? It was just this kind of funny moment because they had to do so much custom, uh, solutions within the NetSuite product to get the CRM to work right, where I'd rather have the advanced CRM functionality that Intacct has to bring. Salesforce. What truly does [00:42:30] customer relationship management, uh, and get that full experience. So I brought this all back to intact. But if we go into X3, X3 is a true ERP, especially in that manufacturing distribution world that has so much capabilities. I know some some partners in South Africa that specialize in X3, and it's amazing what they can get done for the clients, what they what they can support and make, uh, work for their clients. But it is no joke.

Emily Madere: Yeah, I've [00:43:00] never seen x3. I know, um, during Sage transform, they do have sessions for X3 and Sage. Transform is Sage's annual conference with all of their products.

Matt Lescault: Who is bummed that it's not in November and now is not until June of 2025?

Emily Madere: You can't see. But I'm raising my hand.

Doug Lewis: Well, I was.

Doug Lewis: Some people might be watching. Uh. Who knows? Uh, sorry. Sorry. If you are actually watching this, that's that's tough on you. [00:43:30] But the two of you brought up a couple times now, uh, marketplace partners, and we haven't really defined who they are, what they do, how they fit into this whole world. So we kind of touched on some of the players out there. Some of the products hitting the marketplace partners might be a good way to work towards winding this episode down. So marketplace partners. Emily, do you want to take a stab at that one first? Who are they?

Emily Madere: Yeah, so they are the acronym is MMPs and they are whatever [00:44:00] you want them to be. They could be payroll providers. Um, they could be CRM providers. They could be a number of things. And they are solutions that are able to integrate within Sage Intacct to build that custom solution. So one thing about Intacct, it is not trying to be everything to everyone. It is giving their customers the ability to integrate items in and picking the best solution, um, for your business and pulling that [00:44:30] data in so that everyone kind of has a say so in what solution they like best.

Matt Lescault: Let's not forget that they that Sage has been known to purchase an MPP here or there to integrate into their platform. Um, but I think that's a great story in itself about, you know, the different different avenues and the the marketplace partners are so important to the extendability of software, uh, to accounting software. And the reason I [00:45:00] say it like that is I don't want to pretend that if you go to a Bill.com or a ramp, that you can't get it to integrate with NetSuite or QuickBooks.

Doug Lewis: I think you mean just Bill now.

Matt Lescault: Yeah, just bill, just bill.

Matt Lescault: But most of us still remember Bill.com. Of course I don't know, Bill. I've never shaken his hand.

Matt Lescault: Probably never will.

Emily Madere: The same. That is the same comment that I get from everyone that I talk to about Bill.com and Bill.

Matt Lescault: Well, I have my own feelings about the name Bill, [00:45:30] but I get it. You know, change creates conversation. So hey, why not? But the marketplace partners aren't just about intact or X3 or 50, or they typically find the best in class products and become and partner with them. Invest in the integrated ability. Is that a right? Is that a word? Integrate ability?

Doug Lewis: It is. Now if it's not so put, isn't there.

Matt Lescault: The ability to integrate with those third party or with those ERPs? And I [00:46:00] think that's another testament to the investment that is shown in intact, if we want to go back to intact is how much that marketplace has grown in the time period that I've been involved, you know, since 2018, which is when I became a partner of intact. So, you know, just six years, I mean, I think it's tripled or quadrupled in size. And, uh, it's exciting.

Doug Lewis: And we do plan on bringing some of those marketplace partners in at some point, as experts, to not only say how [00:46:30] their specific subset can help add value to the Sage world, but more importantly, to give the the different perspective, add a different dimension about. Again, we're trying to hit all these viewpoints, so we're going to be bringing in experts inside Sage Vars, synapse, some of these other people. We talked about people who use the different levels of products here in the US, as well as some of these marketplace partners. So anyone who's listening that thinks you have something interesting to to toss on, contact us. Let's get you on the docket. I want to make sure that we're we're giving every [00:47:00] single point of view we possibly can. But. Emily, please, I cut you off. Go ahead.

Emily Madere: No, I was just saying. End users, our clients, customers can actually go to the Sage marketplace and see every marketplace partner that is out there that you can utilize. It's. I think it's like Sage marketplace. Com you can go you can take a look. It's really it's available. It's out there. It's easy to get information.

Matt Lescault: It's easy to search. You can search by your need. You can actually see by region. You can you can filter it by region to see what's available to you. You [00:47:30] know, if you're not in the US market. It's it is. I go there frequently.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. Me too.

Doug Lewis: So we kind of just scratched the surface today on a lot of different pieces. To recap, we talked about some of the core players in there. We have our Vars, synapse, ASPs, some of the core. What I'll say are flagship products that most people know Sage for. We got Sage 50 Sage hundred Sage Intacct. Of course, we'll keep coming back to that one for for those who will continue jumping on this ride with us and then X3 [00:48:00] and then of course, our marketplace partners is what we're going to kind of cap things with here today. We're going to go into a lot more granular detail on on many of these topics as we continue to move this thing forward here, but want to want to toss it to you, Matt, any, any kind of final takeaways or take backs maybe from this episode?

Matt Lescault: Well, I think the biggest thing for me is we've only scratched the surface. There is so much here to to get familiar [00:48:30] with, to learn about. I'm I'm looking forward to our journey because part of our job is to have to learn more, to provide more to the listeners, because we don't know everything there is about Sage, but we have to go ask those questions. We have to come up with and find out what's most important. And so the takeaway is to understand that even if you are a veteran user of Intacct, there's probably things that you're going to hear that you may not have known or just reinforce what you already do.

Doug Lewis: Emily, kind of closing [00:49:00] closing arguments on your end?

Emily Madere: Yeah, I think we talked about a lot today, um, about the different relationships that a firm could have with intact the different products. It's confusing. If you need to take a listen, you aren't. You're not going to hurt our feelings. But just understand that Sage offers a lot, and we're going to go in detail about all of these things. So if you didn't get it the first time, that's okay.

Matt Lescault: Well, I'm sure we're going to hit some of these same topics through other conversations because it's [00:49:30] almost impossible not to.

Emily Madere: Yeah, yeah.

Doug Lewis: Oh yeah. We'll keep coming back to a lot of this is just a foundation. We're going to keep coming back to these time and time again throughout as different experts come aboard, as we get really, really deep in some case studies that are laying out good, good and bad use cases of Sage products. So it'll be it'll be fun. This is again just laying that foundation for everybody. So we're all working from the same building blocks. So to to cap it, I'd love to throw out another dad joke if that works for the two of you guys.

Matt Lescault: Here, bring it on. Come on.

Doug Lewis: All right.

Doug Lewis: We've talked [00:50:00] a lot about, like, computers and software. So how many software programmers does it take to change a light bulb?

Matt Lescault: Emily.

Emily Madere: I'm gonna just throw out a number two. I know that.

Emily Madere: I like it.

Doug Lewis: Matt.

Matt Lescault: Matt I none.

Doug Lewis: None. Because it's a hardware problem.

Emily Madere: Oh! Oh, gosh. Ba da ba.

Doug Lewis: Oh, we gotta get a soundboard. That's. Maybe I should work towards getting a soundboard [00:50:30] so I can add some ridiculous, some ridiculous sounds here and there.

Matt Lescault: You can't beat box.

Doug Lewis: Uh, I can I won't do it publicly. Sure as heck won't do it. Recorded, let's put it that way. Uh, but you're more than welcome anytime you want to show your beatboxing ability on this map.

Matt Lescault: I have no ability in that at all.

Doug Lewis: Just period across the board or just beatboxing.

Matt Lescault: I plead the fifth, but definitely beatboxing.

Doug Lewis: Yeah.

Doug Lewis: No, that's that's probably smart. That's that's probably a good place to end this one. But thank you again for everybody listening. [00:51:00] Uh, continue to tune in. We're going to bring in some some pretty fun people. It'll be it'll be a good time. And we'll keep learning alongside all the listeners out there. So join us next time on the Unofficial Sage podcast and we look forward to talking to you again.