Intuit Enterprise Suite vs. Sage Intacct: The Real Comparison

Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding!

Doug: [00:00:00] On track. I [00:00:10] love that. I love that. For those just joining us, Matt, Matt was hoping that I was gonna keep us on track for this episode,

Matt: Oh

Doug: and uh, anyone who knows me, [00:00:20] including anyone who listens to this, knows that it's just almost impossible, almost impossible for me to stay on track.

Matt: But, but almost is the key word here. I have [00:00:30] faith in you in doing it this one time, one

Doug: My God. That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me. And I, I like that. You're just Mr. Nice guy today. What happened? Did you have a V eight this morning?

Matt: [00:00:40] No, no, no, no.

But I had a yogurt smoothie.

Doug: Mm. So you're feeling good. You're on the house. Cleanse. I like, I like that. I like that. And we [00:00:50] got some new decorations in your background. It looks like

Matt: Don't you like it?

Doug: we're swagged out, we're branded out now with Tide Co. I

Matt: Don't you like it?

And actually, you know, this is the first episode we're recording since coming [00:01:00] back from Sage Future, which you were not at. I'm still a little bit, uh, bummed about that, but I

Doug: Maybe I was there and I just didn't wanna see you. Who knows? Who knows?

Matt: know that's not true. I have something for you [00:01:10] that if you were there, I'm holding up a shirt.

The, the official swag, the unofficial Sage Intacct swag.

Doug: Wait, so this is the official [00:01:20] swag of the unofficial Sage in Tech podcast.

Matt: Exactly. So I have this for you. I'm gonna send it, I'm gonna get Becky to send this over to you. Uh, and, uh, and make sure that you, and, [00:01:30] and some stickers. I think we still have some stickers left.

Doug: I love stickers. I'm, I'm all about stickers for those that have no clue. So send me all the stickers you possibly have.

Matt: I'm gonna send you one [00:01:40] sticker.

Doug: Okay. Well I feel like that's different than what we just discussed, but that's okay. Nonetheless, before we dive into it, um, 'cause we're gonna revisit some, some [00:01:50] past, uh, opinions that might or might not have been, uh, correct.

About, uh, a little bit of the, the QuickBooks, uh, Intuit Enterprise Suite. So, uh, before we do that [00:02:00] though, you mentioned futures. Now can you paint me a word picture? All right. What did I miss out on?

Matt: see. You [00:02:10] hate talking, so you wouldn't have liked that part. You, you hate a good time. You want to liked that part. Um, you, you didn't miss out on anything now. I mean, [00:02:20] it was, future in Atlanta was a really, really good conference. Um, 5,000 people ended up there. First two days were partner days, so we got a chance to do some, uh, sessions [00:02:30] around the, uh.

Around the partner channels, um, sort of learning more about what other firms are doing, having some, uh, you know, some, uh, [00:02:40] group conversations, things of that nature. And then really, customers came in for the third and fourth day. Uh, and there's continued to be sessions, but I was really lucky to see a lot of people that I spent a [00:02:50] lot of time on.

Video, like the, like this, at least for the YouTube watchers, um, doing teams meetings and, and getting to really drive those one-on-one conversations, uh, which was great. [00:03:00] And then shout out to Sage. I mean, they, they brought the unofficial Sage Intacct podcast into the, uh, press, uh, components. So we had some access [00:03:10] to, We had some access to the office and a press dinner in which they really talked about their discovery center. And there'll be more, uh, on some future episodes we hope on that. and [00:03:20] also, uh, had the opportunity to interview Dan Miller, uh, and separately Julie Adams in, uh, the green Room at, uh, at the conference.

So, [00:03:30] uh, shout out to that. That was a great opportunity, great experience for us, and I'm sure that by the time anybody's listening to this, those will have already dropped, and that's not news.

Doug: Well, sure. But it's news to me right now [00:03:40] and that's, that's exciting. It,

Matt: There you go. We're not, we're not actually supposed to put like timeframes on these podcasts, but this is the one where I said, we're gonna do it.

Doug: well, sure, sure.

And we [00:03:50] actually do kind of have to put a little timeframe on this one because we're gonna revisit the previous conversation we had about Intuit Enterprise Suite,

Matt: Yes.

Doug: we're, we're gonna dive a little bit into it, [00:04:00] which you did copious research on, if I'm not mistaken.

Matt: Well, I, to be fair, we, we did the first, uh. Part of this, uh, when we did a comparison of Sage [00:04:10] Intacct to in, uh, Intuit Enterprise Suite. Um, and just a day or two after that dropped, I had a message from, uh, corporate affairs, uh, [00:04:20] department at Intuit, uh, informing me that I got a few things wrong, um, which is not surprising, uh, but.

And all responsibility. I responded back and I said, look, it's our [00:04:30] job to be as accurate as possible. I had provided the, what I knew, based on the information I researched at that time. I'd love to get a deep dive. And they were gracious enough to, uh, [00:04:40] invite me into two different sets of demos, uh, and, uh, really allowed me to explore the product with them, ask a lot of questions, ask their opinion, how it differentiated [00:04:50] from Sage Intacct, uh, and uh.

And just learn more, which not only was helpful for our podcast here, but also helpful for me [00:05:00] when it comes to determining what's best for our clients. Because I, let's be honest, as much as I'm a, uh, a Sage Intacct advocate, um, there's a. Right [00:05:10] time and a right firm and a right place for Sage Intacct. And there's a right time and a right firm and a right place for other products, whether it's Intuit Enterprise Suite, whether it's QuickBooks, whether it's [00:05:20] NetSuite, there's always, um, uh, things to consider from that.

And we do, we are unofficial here. We want to be, we don't wanna have, uh, blind [00:05:30] bias. And so I thought it was really great to have that opportunity. So, yeah. And Doug, you, you said this copious research well. I love me a chat, [00:05:40] GPT and I take, uh, I have, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll do a shout out fireflies AI that follows me around in my meetings.

And I just dropped the transcripts from [00:05:50] fireflies into chat GPT, and, and said, Hey, help me build a comparison. And that's what you have.

Doug: So fireflies, if you heard that, we're open to your sponsorship, we'll take it. [00:06:00] The unofficial Sage in Tech podcast wide open to fireflies, come on in. That was a freebie. The first one's free, uh, which, which I do love. Um, so, so you got some pretty in-depth [00:06:10] training. I'll call it training knowledge, whatever

Matt: say knowledge. I don't, I wouldn't say training. Yeah,

Doug: little religion, little religion on, on the Intuit Enterprise Suite. So [00:06:20] we're, we're not gonna do any takebacks. We're gonna start, start from scratch as if we never did it before. Now that we're actually informed on this, which

Matt: I wanna take, I wanna take one major take back.

Doug: Okay.

Matt: One, [00:06:30] major one. So I said that, uh, Intuit Enterprise Suite was. Cloud enabled, meaning that the backbone of the in Intuit [00:06:40] Enterprise Suite was still the desktop version of QuickBooks Enterprise, which was absolutely wrong. And I think that if we start there from a basis [00:06:50] of what this looks like, that's an important piece to, to call out, quite frankly, because it's actually built on the QuickBooks Online platform.

So it is an extension of QuickBooks [00:07:00] Online, uh, and. We can start from scratch from there, but I think that is really a crux of what was, what was wrong from my previous statement

Doug: Yeah, [00:07:10] well, uh, let's not say wrong, let's say misinformed. 'cause again, we're unofficial, all opinionated, which I love. But I wanna get into some of the actual meat and tatu, if that's cool with you. So. A [00:07:20] lot of areas to cover. Uh, just from like broad strokes, let's look at kind of just market position pricing.

Where does Sage Intacct fit in versus Intuit enterprise suite, [00:07:30] all that fun stuff. Kind of looking at like who they're targeting. So from like a target market perspective, can you give me just a 10,000 foot overview of each one? The [00:07:40] difference is where there might be little crossover. All that fun stuff.

Matt: Yeah, so I would say there is some crossover. I would say that Intuit Enterprise Suite fits in the mid [00:07:50] SMB market to the low mid market, uh, if you wanna define it that way. Now I think there's more, more specific ways of putting this. So, you [00:08:00] know, when we look at Intuit Enterprise. It is really known for professional services.

Um, some project-based industries, SaaS. In a way, it, it, it, [00:08:10] it depends on how, uh, how uh, com, uh, complex that SaaS organization is. Um, but more importantly, I think it fits great for. [00:08:20] that have multiple entities but have less, intercompany play or less true consolidations. I'm not saying Intuit can't do that.

[00:08:30] It can, but it is really sort of a lighter version of what Intacct does from a consolidation and uh, and so forth. So I think of, uh, clients of mine that [00:08:40] I have, uh, in QuickBooks in my outsource department, in which, uh, they may have three or four entities. They're separated in a lot of ways. There's some overlap, but separating a lot [00:08:50] of ways, and you wanna stay within a platform that you're confident with, that you're comfortable with.

Intuit Enterprise Suite could be a really good option. Now, when you go to Sage Intacct, it's [00:09:00] still, it's more in the upper SMB to upper mid-market. And falls into the, the smaller enterprise. So you kind of see that shift. So we're gonna have a [00:09:10] little overlap in the SMB, the upper SMB. We're gonna have some overlap in the, in the, in the small, uh, or the, or the lower mid market, uh, between the two organizations.

And there'll be [00:09:20] nuance between both of whether you want to choose, uh, either one. Um, but you know. Intas really gonna be true gap compliance where [00:09:30] QuickBooks or Intuit Enterprise Suite has, limitations when it comes to true gap compliance. and then, uh, really from an, from an, I say enterprise, don't [00:09:40] think of that from a market.

I'm not talking about SMB mid versus enterprise, but enterprise capabilities of an ERP, there's, there's some major differences there.

Doug: Okay. [00:09:50] So that's, that's a lot to take in, which is good. Uh, and you kind of touched on it too. I mean, we're talking about like pricing, which we'll get into in a second here if, if, if that's okay. But [00:10:00] you know, before we kind of jump into what is everything cost, uh, target market, everything like that, the deployment models, which you kind of touched on a little bit, that was kind of one [00:10:10] of your takebacks if you will.

What is the difference between the two from a deployment perspective? What could be a good fit for somebody? Just just the [00:10:20] baseline differences in how they roll these things out.

Matt: They're both cloud-based, native cloud-based solutions. So when we talk about the the deployment model, um, there's very [00:10:30] much a similarity to what I would say the, uh, the user experience would be from a logging in, things of that nature. Now they're different platforms. So when I say user [00:10:40] experience, let's not say that the buttons are in the same place or it looks the same.

Um, that's just not the case. But, there is a reality that they're scalable. [00:10:50] Uh, you can have, you know, two entities, five entities, 10 entities, you can keep going up. There are similarities in, in kind of the, the deployment footprint, uh, [00:11:00] there. Now I'm not a coder. I don't know what the backend looks like for either one of them.

Um, or even if I could spit out some terminology, I wouldn't know what I'm talking about. So I [00:11:10] wanna avoid, uh, making any more mistakes than I did before.

Doug: It's interesting that you say you're not a coder. 'cause just for anyone just listening, I'll, I'll kind of describe Matt's office set up here. He's got three [00:11:20] giant white, uh, grease boards on the wall, right. Which is, which is always fun. Uh, I see two monitors that are off right now, and that's just the ones that he aren't, is [00:11:30] not looking at currently.

I assume there's at least three in front of you as well.

Matt: Oh, uh, yeah.

Doug: Yeah. So we're looking at five total monitors, three giant grease boards on the wall. Uh, but you're [00:11:40] not a coder, but you know, if, if you were just looking at this picture, this setup, you wouldn't know that which, which I like.

Matt: Okay. Well, you know,

Doug: You look, you look smarter than you are.

Let's, let's put [00:11:50] it that way.

Matt: I'll take it. I'll take

Doug: Yeah, look being the key word there. Uh,

Matt: That might be the nice thing you've ever said to me.

Doug: well, you know, [00:12:00] uh, that's true. We're just, we're just, we're just two nice guys today, you know, uh, we don't have, we don't have Emily to, to keep us in line, so we have to do it ourselves.

Matt: That's right. Yep.

Doug: [00:12:10] Yeah. Uh, alright.

Elephant in the room. Now we're looking at like, market positioning between enterprise suites, Sage and tech. Let's talk about pricing. What can people expect there? It [00:12:20] it, in your opinion, is there a better value option? I mean, are there too many nuances to go into it? Just gimme the, the overview of pricing.

Matt: I wanna be a little bit [00:12:30] careful because the way Intuit Enterprise Suite is, uh, is managed currently is contract based and there's kind of a formulaic approach to it, but there's, there's [00:12:40] room to maneuver and that's the same thing with Intacct. So what I would say, uh, about this without giving any numbers, 'cause I don't think that's fair.

I, I think each. [00:12:50] Organization will be unique in what they get priced, um, for buy, Intuit, buy, uh, Sage. Uh, but I would, uh, but I [00:13:00] will say that Intuit will come at a slightly, uh, cheaper, uh, solution from what I can tell. Uh, not, not as, not as cheap [00:13:10] as I. Thought they may, may make it just from a competitive perspective, which I think is smart on Intuit side, we don't want to devalue the software.

So it's a [00:13:20] really fine line between being competitive from pricing and devaluing the software. Um, so I was kinda surprised from a kind of, uh, pricing strategy for, you know, [00:13:30] client acquisition, but I was actually, uh, I actually believe in the, in the strategy when it comes to value, uh, propositions. Um.

They're module based, [00:13:40] their entity based, their, so it, it'll, it'll grow. The price will grow as the organization grows or scales or, or, or has those complexities. Sage Intacct has [00:13:50] a ton of modules and I've seen Intacct range in prices from like right around 10 grand to. A million [00:14:00] dollars. I don't think you'll ever see Intacct go, I mean, uh, Intuit go into like a million dollar range.

Um, but that's some pretty complex, uh, organizations that need a [00:14:10] lot of, uh, of capabilities and users and entities and things of that nature. So again, sorry, I'm not giving you pricing. Uh, but I think that would be unfair to the listeners, uh, [00:14:20] because I create unfair expectations, um, and I think it's unfair to the products themselves.

Doug: I, it makes sense. I, I hate when, you know, people ask, Hey, [00:14:30] what's the price on the, on this, this like consulting professional services or software implementation project? And it's like, there are so many of these things that, that play into how to price it. It really is more of an art [00:14:40] form than anything else.

But the mentality I think, behind how each one prices is important to know. And kind of what level they'll fit in at, you know, 'cause there's such a wide [00:14:50] range that, that political walk around answer about pricing, um, which is almost impossible to avoid in this kind of scenario. I think you did as, as good a job as you, you [00:15:00] possibly could have there.

Um, now completely off script, off topic. Script, let's call it that, if anything. Uh, do you recall [00:15:10] the, uh, when in went Intuit did the, uh, breakup with your Accountant commercial, uh, series?

Matt: Yeah, that, that, that went over like a lead balloon.

Doug: [00:15:20] It did. Now hopefully we're, I, hopefully they learned the lesson. I assume they have, uh, and, and won't have a similar, uh, snafu rolling this out from a marketing perspective. But that just, I don't know [00:15:30] why that came kind of rushing back when you were talking about pricing and all this different stuff. Um, but I, I found that one personally enjoyable.

Matt: Well, I mean, you know, [00:15:40] the, the one thing that I would, I would say is that Intuit or QuickBooks specifically, and I might have mentioned this before, it's like any. Firm can sign up [00:15:50] to be a QuickBooks ProAdvisor. There is no, what's the right word?

Doug: like vetting.

Matt: There's no clout to it. There's no clout. I mean, [00:16:00] but when you take something

Doug: a, it's a no cut sports team.

Matt: it's, it, it's, it's, uh, yeah, we're gonna go with that.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay away from anything. I don't want to [00:16:10] downgrade it. But when you take Intacct, um, it is a very much different. Process of certification is very much a different process of maintaining [00:16:20] certifications. I've, I've done numbers before, but I just came back from the conference, so I've, I've better numbers.

There's about 120 VARs that's value added resellers of Intacct. There's about 350 Sage Intacct [00:16:30] accounting partners. And guess what? Majority of VARs are dually licensed. So if you, if you really look at this, it's not a total of 450 if you're probably in the three upper, three hundreds of [00:16:40] partners with. In, uh, the country, in the us this is US numbers that are certified and capable of actually maintaining Intacct.

You know, that [00:16:50] if you get a partner, they're gonna have some level of knowledge. And I think with QuickBooks, because there's not, there, there's no barrier to entry, you just don't know,

Doug: Is there, is there a number on that? [00:17:00] I would be really curious to know

Matt: a number on

Doug: QuickBooks advisors, you know, uh, I mean, just

Matt: thousands.

Doug: 2 million, you know, like [00:17:10] what's our, what's our number here? Um,

Matt: what, what, what did you say? How many, how many Accounting firms do they say are 45,000? Is that the, is that the number that you gave me a

Doug: Yeah, roughly, roughly [00:17:20] 45,000 total accounting firms in the

Matt: Okay, so 42 are QuickBooks ProAdvisor.

Doug: sure. The overwhelming majority, let's put it. And then, and some people who are in accounting firms. [00:17:30] Um, okay. So quite a, quite a few, a little, little disparity there.

Matt: And the, and the reason I bring that back up for into Enterprise Suite is I think that where Sage is very [00:17:40] much a partner driven organization is one thing. Partners are almost as important as clients. I said almost because every organization, clients are [00:17:50] where it's at.

Doug: the client is king. Yep. Absolutely.

Matt: I would say almost as important, and I think that for Intuit Enterprise Suite to truly take traction, Intuit needs to rethink their partner [00:18:00] strategy.

That's just my opinion. It's one man's opinion, but that, that, uh, I think that's, that needs to be thought through.

Doug: I like that. So that's just kind of [00:18:10] broad strokes, market position, pricing, all that fun stuff. Into the kind of, I'll call it the nitty gritty, the, the good, bad, the ugly, the strengths, the weaknesses of the two platforms.

I wanna [00:18:20] start with Intuit Enterprise Suite, because that's kind of what we're, we're focusing on from a comparison standpoint here.

Can, can you give me some of the strengths? See, what are [00:18:30] the good things about Enterprise Suite that you see?

Matt: Look, it will be a lower total cost of ownership. Okay. It'll be lower total cost of ownership because of the [00:18:40] price point, but also because of the familiarity that 42 and half thousand accounting firms know QuickBooks as a, as a solution. [00:18:50] Now, what I'll say is. I've picked up a lot of clients from a lot of accounting firms.

I'm not gonna say that they all actually use it. Well, that's a whole different, uh, [00:19:00] uh, whole different scenario. Um, but, uh, that familiarity with the product is a really, really important, I think, to people. Um, and I [00:19:10] think one of the things that Intacct did well was from a ui, it didn't feel so dissimilar from QuickBooks Online.

It's not as clean and easy. Maybe I just [00:19:20] say that because I grew up on QuickBooks. I mean, honestly, I, you know, I've been a Sage partner now since 2018, so I'm, I'm hitting eight years. Am I doing my math right? Um, [00:19:30] and, uh, but I've been a QuickBooks partner for 20. And so, you know, for the first 12 QuickBooks is what I knew.

Uh, and so I can see the value that, that, that drives. [00:19:40] Um, I think that there's, there's a truth that because, uh, QuickBooks, you can port. It's not even really porting. You. Upgrade data goes with you, [00:19:50] uh, uh, reduces the implementation time. Uh, it or I said it, it could. Could be a small implementation time. I could do a [00:20:00] terrible, uh, self-promotion here.

But like we've built out a 30 day implementation for Intacct. So there's ways to do it differently. But in general, I would say that Intuit [00:20:10] Enterprise Suite will have a, uh, a, a smaller or a shorter implementation time. Um, and then you have some native payroll and, [00:20:20] uh, and other management tools, uh, and I would say a stronger marketplace.

Uh. Stronger is probably,

Doug: Stronger, larger you.

Matt: larger. I don't, I [00:20:30] don't wanna say stronger, I would say larger, because you have a lot of products that integrate with QuickBooks that are for very, very small SMBs that would never fit within intech. So I would say larger, stronger is [00:20:40] absolutely the wrong word. and so I, I think those are the real, the real pieces that, that. Let Intuit shine and still continue to be a, the, the leader. [00:20:50] I mean, they still own the market share out of all accounting, uh, platforms. They're the leader from a market share perspective.

Doug: So flip it that that's the good things. Now let's [00:21:00] look at where they could improve, I don't wanna say weaknesses, room for improvement for Intuit Enterprise Suite.

Matt: Look, even though they are. [00:21:10] Multi entity and there's intercompany and uh, and they have modules around revenue recognition and, uh, and project based, uh, [00:21:20] solutions for construction. And, you know, they play into the nonprofit. There is serious limitations across all of those aspects when you get into more [00:21:30] complex organizations.

Now, I'm not saying that, that that's the case for every single organization. There's a lot that. Intuit Enterprise, a lot of multi-entity, [00:21:40] uh, a lot of nonprofit or project based. Any one of those things I said that Intuit will operate very well for. So I don't, I don't want to overstate this, but when you [00:21:50] get into that upper SMB that are kind of rated, move into mid-market, you know, you start seeing some true gaps that will cause issues.

The other thing that I'm [00:22:00] gonna say and, and I hate to say is like. It's almost impossible to operate true gap within QuickBooks. It's not impossible, but it's almost [00:22:10] possible. It is not a, it is not a gap friendly product if you're, if you're taxed.

Doug: I gotta stop you. You're using Gap so interchangeably right [00:22:20] now. I'm, I'm hearing GAP and then GAAP different, different uses of Gap right now.

Matt: Sorry, and, and I owe you money, right? Uh, generally accepted [00:22:30] accounting principles. Um, and just the overall, like, let's see here. A lot of firms file taxes on a cash basis, so they operate their [00:22:40] books on a cash basis. I personally think the operating your books on a cash basis doesn't give you insights into your business the way that you need.

I think that you need to be. I'm an accrual guy all the [00:22:50] way because accrual is about what did I perform revenue today? What did I spend today and what was my net income today? What's actually happening? Cash is all about when the cash comes in. What if I get like [00:23:00] a whole bunch of prepayments in one month, or not even prepayments, but large payments, and I don't spend that money until next month Now, this month looks real good.

Next month looks like [00:23:10] not good.

Doug: Well,

Matt: So when it comes to accrual reporting, there's some there, there, there's some challenges or to be able to toggle back [00:23:20] and forth between your cash basis financials and your accrual basis financials.

and that limitation for me as somebody that works with upper [00:23:30] SMBs to lower mid market, mid market and upper mid market, these are organizations that. Are going to banks for financing, are looking to [00:23:40] get acquired, are having events that are meaningful and strong financials and really being able to speak to what the operations are doing.

Accruals. The only way to [00:23:50] go, again, one man's opinion,

Doug: It's a hot take. That's a hot take. Well, on this podcast, one man's opinion

Matt: is all we got today,

Doug: that's it. That's quite, that's quite literally it. [00:24:00] Uh, which, which I do like.

Matt: You could throw, you could throw in some opinions at some point.

Doug: Uh, I could, uh, but, uh, I don't think we need to go down that path. I get hot, I get hot [00:24:10] real quick when I start talking about the cash versus accrual.

Uh, but that's from the m and a world. So I live in, I live in a different space. You know,

Matt: I know. And, and if you're doing m and a, [00:24:20] are you telling 'em to give you cash statements or you telling 'em to give you cruel?

Doug: I don't wanna, I don't want to, like, I can't give all the secret sauce away. Come on now. [00:24:30] Uh, there's, there's a way to put these things together.

Matt: That's.

Doug: There's a way to put these things together, Matt, but I wanna flip it on side. So we went through, you know, [00:24:40] the, the enterprise suite, kind of what they're doing well, what they could be doing better. Now I wanna give the holistic view to everybody we're, we're going non-biased this time around with true comparison.

Flip it over [00:24:50] Sage Intacct.

Now, I mean, from a comparison standpoint, what are some of the strengths that Intacct has versus enterprise suite?

Matt: Well, one of, one of the weaknesses I didn't [00:25:00] talk about, um, but strengths, that is Intacct is their open. API can integrate with basically anything. [00:25:10] Enterprise Suite built on QuickBooks really had, uh, from what I understood, was their kind of QuickBooks, SDK that was very proprietary to them. And you kinda lived in that marketplace and it wasn't really easy to [00:25:20] integrate unless you, unless you paid to play in a lot of ways.

Now you do pay to play slightly with Intacct, but the deep. Uh, API, uh, [00:25:30] infrastructure allows us to do, like I said, integrate anything. We integrate using FTP. We can integrate using sql, we can integrate using, uh, open [00:25:40] API, rest API, I mean it's endless. And then outside of kind of what we think of as web service integrations, there's what's called platform services, which means that you can [00:25:50] only, you can code into Intacct as a developer and actually in line.

Your, your software. And so I know partners, I know MPPs, marketplace partners [00:26:00] that literally have embedded their product into Intacct in a way that really the end user. Besides it like notating, it doesn't feel a [00:26:10] difference between the native product of Intacct and the the partner application, which is in really, really interesting approach to it, especially when it [00:26:20] comes to, to, uh, people being scared about having so many, uh, uh, third party [00:26:30] applications.

if I can create, put a third party application that the end user doesn't really know is a third party application, that's pretty, that's pretty powerful.

Doug: But in the, the, the marketplace in, [00:26:40] in the Sage ecosystems smaller, I think is kind of what you were getting at before. It's not as quite as many of these, these outside partners. Correct.

Matt: Correct. But I would say [00:26:50] small is a, is a bad word too. I would say it's not as expansive as what Intuit has because Intuit has a, uh. Probably a broader [00:27:00] market because of it being going down so small to your solo practitioner. that the marketplace partners within Intacct really do focus on enterprise level, uh, or [00:27:10] mid-market enterprise level organizations.

So I don't know the exact number, but there's four or 500 m uh, MPPs that play into Intacct. So still a very robust, uh, uh, [00:27:20] partnership, um, but not as expansive. That's probably the best way to put it.

Doug: you can't just sign up there. There's some, there's some, some more extensive vetting that goes on behind the scenes. [00:27:30] Um, I like that. What, what does, uh, what else has Sage doing well in Sage Intacct? Gimme give some more strengths from a comparison standpoint.

Matt: Just coming from the conference.

I'm just gonna, I'm, I'm just gonna [00:27:40] highlight what they're doing with ai. Um, Sage copilot, which is not Microsoft Copilot, it's their own built in ai, and where they're going is leading [00:27:50] the pact out of all accounting. Products. Gartner, if you look, go look it up. Gartner says, so I can tell you with what they're doing and what they showed at the conference and the fact that it's being, [00:28:00] uh, uh, launched right now into general availability.

Um, really

Doug: when? When does that happen? The GA on that

Matt: at as of now

Doug: [00:28:10] we're, we're live, we're active.

Matt: Live React. That's, that's my understanding.

Um, and that right there just. Puts Intacct a cut above, [00:28:20] not let, let's not even talk in into it for a second of all, all else, everybody else and, and Intacct right now, or Sage? I, I, I gotta be careful 'cause Intacct is a product.

Sage [00:28:30] is the company. Sage is partnership with AICPA. They're working with the AICPA to build AI models for the accounting industry. So they're, they're, [00:28:40] they're embedded into the strategy from the overall governing body. It's hard to replicate that. It's

Doug: that an exclusive, uh, partnership? Okay. Exclusive [00:28:50] partnership. Got it.

Matt: Yes. It's so, I mean, that's, I think that's really impactful.

I mean, and I'm not gonna go module by [00:29:00] module, but when you talk about the advanced capabilities of Intacct, they just have. 15 years ahead of [00:29:10] Intuit on, on developing those, uh, advanced modules and incorporating that into, uh, industry focused approaches. [00:29:20] Um, and so it's, it's what the, what the shout I'll give to, into is, I guarantee you they're throwing.

Just tons of money into their development. I'm [00:29:30] sure they're going to in invest in, into an enterprise suite in a way that is hard to keep up from anybody else. but there's a, there's a degree of learning that happens no matter what.

Doug: [00:29:40] Okay. I like that. So both are doing well. We talked about some of the areas for improvement for Enterprise Suite. Now again, we're trying to give that holistic, [00:29:50] non-biased view areas for improvement from Sage Intacct. What, what are we looking at?

Matt: So right now we have no native [00:30:00] payroll solution for Sage Intacct. Now we do have what's called Sage Intacct payroll, powered by ADP. And we have a strong marketplace, uh, group of payroll [00:30:10] providers, but that's third party. You could argue that Intuit's payroll solution is third party 'cause it's a separate division, but it is embedded.

There is, this, is like, this is like me [00:30:20] talking about platform services from integration. Like you don't see the difference between Intuit Enterprise Suite and their payroll solution. It is there, it, it is embedded into what they do and [00:30:30] uh, and you can't really argue about that. Now there's some conversations about whether or not, uh, their payroll services are.

Enterprise worthy, uh, in the [00:30:40] sense of of, of customer support and things of that nature. But I've, I've been so removed from that. I don't have a lot of insights there. you know. [00:30:50] Longer implementation times have been a historic issue. I can tell you that there's a lot of work being done right now, uh, and we're working with the teams at Intacct [00:31:00] on how to do this and how to really shorten up implementations.

But that's that. But to, in today's reality, for the most part, you'll see longer implementation [00:31:10] times for Sage Intacct than you will for Intuit Enterprise Suite, probably by twofold. Now, it all depends on the partner you're working with.

Doug: Unless you use Tyco.

Matt: I [00:31:20] don't even wanna go that far. There's other partners out there that, that have, uh, have, uh, shortened implementation times or different methodologies and things of that nature.

Um, [00:31:30] uh, we're not the only one out there doing it, and Sage is investing heavily in tools and like I talked about, ai. Uh, we talked about it in, uh, in the release notes. [00:31:40] Some of the, some of the work they're doing with AI and, the data migration component is finding outlier detection within data migration to reduce data migration time.

[00:31:50] You know, it's as an example. Um, one thing that I would say also that, that Sage. Really hasn't done as good a job as Intuit. And this [00:32:00] is like not program or software specific is you ask any Accountant what QuickBooks is or Intuit is, and they know. [00:32:10] And if you ask anybody what Sage is, they'll go to Peachtree.

If they don't, uh, you know that that's their, that's their mentality. If they don't really know what Intacct is, I can't tell you. Many times I've presented [00:32:20] Intacct as a solution for somebody that really should have had it. They went and talked to their tax CPE and goes, you don't want Peachtree? And I'm just like, oh boy.

Doug: [00:32:30] that's, uh, uh, in, in my world, it's always when I hear the old name of a firm, you know, take, take someone like RSM, you know, the number seven or eight, wherever they are now, [00:32:40] uh, I hear people always reference them as mclare. Which immediately tells me how old you are, number one, how much

Matt: By the way, that's not,

Doug: uh, [00:32:50] the industry.

Matt: I'm just gonna mention Doug is ageist. I am not, I think I, I think all accountants are are wonderful.

Doug: Ageist. I don't know about that. Uh, we'll [00:33:00] see.

So, uh, Matt wanna play a little game with you, if that's okay.

Matt: Oh.

Doug: So between the two, we have Enterprise Suite, Sage Intacct. All right. [00:33:10] Two options. I'm gonna throw just like a general industry at you, and if you could tell me which one would be a better fit for that specific industry, that [00:33:20] would

Matt: you want me to tell you why or just give it to you and we just keep going? You want this rapid fire or do you want some sort of context?

Doug: I would love the rapid fire answer. No filter, but then just like a ten [00:33:30] second explanation of why.

Matt: Have you ever met me before? 10 seconds. I'll try.

Doug: Well, that's what I'm trying to keep us on track here. That was the whole thing, right? All right.

Matt: you're doing a wonderful job.

Doug: [00:33:40] All right, so let's start with, uh, how about like SaaS subscription type of companies? Let's start there. Who's

Matt: Uh, small SaaS Intuit, uh, [00:33:50] larger SaaS Intacct, uh, really has to do with contract management. Both have revenue recognition in tax. Revenue recognition is a little bit more robust.

Doug: Okay. I don't like that. [00:34:00] How about, uh, how about like an organization that spans, uh, globally, you know, large, complex.

Matt: Global consolidations, the ability to run [00:34:10] multicurrency the right way, uh, and understanding, uh, understanding that and foreign tax.

Doug: Okay. I like, you're actually doing really well with your, your concise answers, [00:34:20] which I love. Um, all right. Uh, let's look at like small businesses that are just starting to scale up, kind of the one to five, one to 10 year type [00:34:30] of businesses.

Matt: Not enough information, probably majority into Intuit or QuickBooks. Um, but you didn't gimme a basis of of, of going in any direction with that. [00:34:40] Sorry.

Doug: I like it. I, that's, that's the whole point of this thing. Alright. Organizations that have, uh, like multi, multi entity organizations, let's look at those,

Matt: Okay.

Doug: you know, a [00:34:50] little more complex. I.

Matt: Uh, less, uh, into it if there's less co-mingling of transactions, meaning, uh, cross entity transactions that require a strong due to due [00:35:00] from management and intercompany management. Uh, if you have, uh, multi-entity solutions that need that, that really, uh, like a management company that's dispersing and [00:35:10] allocating across multiple entities and things like that, Intacct

Doug: Okay. I man, you're, you're concise today, which I absolutely love. Um, alright, how about, uh, let's look at [00:35:20] like nonprofits, nonprofit sector, better

Matt: Uh, nonprofits are hard ones, so your smaller nonprofits are gonna go QuickBooks into it. And the reason being is [00:35:30] price point. 'cause price is so important. Nonprofits that have true grant tracking requirements, I don't care how, what, what, what [00:35:40] size the organization is. If you are doing cost reimbursement grants, you need Intacct.

Doug: Okay. Alright. I like it. Uh, is there a, is there kind of a, like a size break there? You said it [00:35:50] doesn't matter what size you are, but. From a grant management perspective, if you, if you have anything to

Matt: if you're under, if you're under a million, you're gonna do it. You're gonna do it in Excel. If you're a million to 2 million may still do in [00:36:00] Excel. If you're over 2 million and you're doing Excel, more power to you. I wouldn't.

Doug: Okay. That's good. That's good. Um, alright. I'm gonna, I, I'll give you a tough one. [00:36:10] We'll, we'll, we'll end the game here, but I'll give you the tough one. Last. Professional service organizations.

Matt: Ooh. So [00:36:20] a single entity professional service organization can operate QuickBooks till the day they die. I don't care what the size is, honestly, unless you have complex reporting [00:36:30] needs because maybe you have a, uh, a partner structure that requires uh, uh, you know, different compensation pieces. You wanna automate that.[00:36:40]

There's some nuances there. You, you get into multi-entity or na uh, international organizations, global organizations that do professional services, or you start having professional [00:36:50] services that sell software or have contracts, and you shift all the way into Intacct. You just, you, you're, you're, you're driving a hundred miles an hour to wave in at Intuit.

[00:37:00] Goodbye.

Doug: Okay. I like it. Uh, so that, that was from like the industry vertical perspective, which is the better fit.

Now, um, I wanna touch a little bit on kind of like [00:37:10] the, the nitty gritty, the specifics module by module performance kind of, um, now I don't need to, like, what's a better fit or anything like that. Just, just give me, [00:37:20] uh, gimme this, these ten second clips that you're doing, which are impressive that you're coming up with them this quickly.

'cause this is almost not edited whatsoever, and I mean [00:37:30] whatsoever, evidently clear by our, our horrible banter module by module. I just gimme that, that ten second clip. One versus the other. All right. I wanna start with [00:37:40] a general ledger.

Matt: Intuit SMBs that aren't really worried about Gap, as we talked about it before, are generally, uh, accepted accounting principles. Uh, Intacct, we're [00:37:50] talking audit ready, uh, true gap and uh, uh, and multi-entity.

Doug: Okay. I, I like it. That's clean, concise. How about AP [00:38:00] accounts payable.

Matt: So, uh, Intuit's gonna have your, your base level accounts payable that, that most organizations, uh, are used to and are comfortable [00:38:10] with. You know, enter bill, pay bill, track bill, invoice, bill, pay, uh, and, and process. Uh, when we talk about accounts payable with Intacct, uh, you're going into [00:38:20] more enterprise, uh, uh, capabilities.

So, uh, AI embedded into the AP process, but starting at po. So po uh, management PO approval, [00:38:30] the. PO bill matching, uh, AP automation from an AI and machine learning OCR technology for automated entry. Um, [00:38:40] uh, and uh, multi-level approval. You can do approval by department, by class, by chart, account by value, and you can stack those so much more capability there.

I would [00:38:50] say that, um, uh, up until this conference, uh. Intuit had the upper hand because you could make the payments right out of Intuit. It was just, [00:39:00] uh, announced that you can do the same now for Intacct. Um, they have a partnership.

Doug: almost, almost as if they want to compete with each other. One could say, you know, it's, by the way, Matt, do you like money?

Matt: [00:39:10] I hate it.

Doug: You hate money. Okay, well, you're not gonna like this. Next one then Let's talk about ar, accounts receivable money in the bank, accounts receivable module by module,

Matt: [00:39:20] so just so what's funny is Doug knows me pretty well. I'm completely full of it. Um. So

Doug: your words, and you're right. Yeah, go ahead.

Matt: accounts receivable. [00:39:30] Um, again, I think you know. some basic components within Intuit, but it actually goes a little bit farther because of the way that Intuit has embedded, uh, time and [00:39:40] so forth. You can have time created invoices, you have expense created invoices.

Um, but from a more, uh, more not basic, I always talk about this, [00:39:50] you know, when I'm talking about in, uh, Intacct, uh, with every one of their modules, I consider the idea of a basic configuration, a standard configuration. Advanced [00:40:00] configuration. I would say that AP for Intuit's more basic to get into standard, I would say AR is standard and has some advanced capabilities.

So, uh, Intuit's pretty good there. [00:40:10] uh, from AR and Intacct, uh, through what we call order entry, there's so much complexity that you can, you can drive through the AR [00:40:20] engine.

Doug: Okay. I mean, that's, that's a lot to take in there. By the way, if we wouldn't module one module all the way across the board, we'd be here for four hours. So I wanna talk about some of the ones that are exciting to [00:40:30] me, honestly, more than anything else. automation and ai. Now, you, you already, you already hit copilot pretty hard on this thing, but difference [00:40:40] Yeah. Anything coming from Enterprise Suite that is either trying to rival that, trying to start that, uh, you know, or is a pretty clear [00:40:50] cut.

Matt: You know, I don't have the answer to that. I don't know what Intuit is. Investing from an AI perspective, I have to assume that they [00:41:00] are, um, uh, deeply involved. It would surprise me if their AP and AR modules don't have some level of, of AI included. Um, so. [00:41:10] I'm making some assumptions here, but I don't know.

I don't know what their level of, uh, of investment into it, into, into their [00:41:20] product.

Doug: Sure. No, that's fair enough. Then let's, let's do something you will. All right. In depth would be my guess. Dashboards and reporting between the two.

Matt: [00:41:30] Now this, this is where Intacct shines. Now, don't get me wrong, uh, Intuit has, uh, for Enterprise Suite, has built out more robust [00:41:40] reporting and created tools that allow you to, uh, to manipulate within Excel and things of that nature. I'm not take anything away from that side of things, but. [00:41:50] This dashboards, uh, are just a combination of reports within Intacct, but it's not just reports, it's graphs.

You build dashboards [00:42:00] by role, so you do role-based dashboards. I can, uh, I can create, let's use professional services. I can create dashboards specifically for my consultants and for my PMs, then for my [00:42:10] division heads, and then for my department heads. And then for. My CFO and I can, and I can only, I can deploy those, those dashboards specifically to those individuals.

Um, and then from [00:42:20] the custom reporting capability, I can really overlay object to object. I can do non-financial information against financial information, create scorecards. [00:42:30] This is where I geek out. I think. I think reporting is where, um. Companies create differentiation between each other, the ones that have [00:42:40] really good reporting and have insights into their business, and they can make a decision really quickly 'cause they know what's going on, have that competitive advantage.

Doug: Okay. Well [00:42:50] you, you just brought out the competitive advantage and the scorecard there in, in your, in your spiel. Uh, wanna move back? 'cause we could just do mod, there's so many modules. We can do this [00:43:00] for one by one. I just wanna hit some of the, the core ones there

now. In your opinion.

All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw out, just gimme a one to 10.[00:43:10]

All right. We're, we're, you are gonna score these. Okay.

Matt: Public service announcement scores mean nothing.

Doug: well, that's why we're official. This is opinionated. For whatever reason, [00:43:20] people like hearing what you have to say. I can't figure out why, but whatever. Here we are. All right. So I'm gonna throw 'em at you. All right? And give me a score for each one.[00:43:30]

Intuit, Intuit, suite, uh, Sage Intacct. All right.

Matt: So just we're clear. My first score will be Intuit. My second score will be Intacct. I won't repeat that again. I'll just give you scores and we'll just [00:43:40] hit this.

Doug: Into it. First in Intacct second. Gotcha. Ease of use, one to 10.

Matt: Nine, seven.

Doug: Okay, well that was quick. I like [00:43:50] that. Uh, alright,

Matt: Okay.

Doug: we've hit this a couple times already, but let's do it again just for fun. Multi-entity accounting. I.

Matt: So [00:44:00] I think Intuit gets about a six. Um, I hate giving anybody a 10 because it, it pretends there's no room for improvement. So let's say nine. Getting close to 10

Doug: like a [00:44:10] 9.9, 9.8,

Matt: Let's, let's not.

Doug: Okay. Well, I don't, I don't know, you know, it's your scale, your rating here. Uh, six and [00:44:20] 9.5. Gotcha. Revenue, revenue recognition, which we didn't touch on in the module perspective, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to hit that here.

Matt: Yeah, so Intuit's made a lot of [00:44:30] strides in that. So seven, maybe even an eight at times for more simple things. Okay, let's, I don't wanna take anything away from it in, [00:44:40] uh, Intacct really gets this, and so this is another like nine going on. 10, like nine and a half. Their module, their module competes with all of the third party [00:44:50] solutions out there that, that do it as well.

Doug: Okay. Well, I mean, you just, you rolled right into it and let's hit it. We look at third party integrations.

Matt: [00:45:00] Third party integrations. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna go at like five and 10.

Doug: Oh, so you are going with 10. Didn't we just preface the whole thing with, I don't want to give a 10 [00:45:10] out.

Matt: I don't want to give a 10, but with their, uh, with Intacct deployment of the rest, API to in, uh, include and what we call Sage Network, which I don't talk about, there is so many [00:45:20] ways to integrate with Intacct that if you spend, if, if you're willing to spend the time, the money, or you have a third party that's already done, it sky's the limit.

Doug: Oh, I, [00:45:30] I like it. This is, you've been very concise, very like, uh, informative. Today. It's something's off with you, which.

Matt: It's lunchtime. I'm, I need to go get lunch.

Doug: Oh [00:45:40] my God. I'm starving by the way, as we're recording this, I didn't wanna bring it up, but yeah. You know, now that's all I'm gonna think about for the next couple of minutes.

Uh, do wanna get into, kind of wrap things up?

Um, again, we can [00:45:50] just go probably five, six straight hours talking about the difference between, uh, enterprise Suite and Sage Tech. Um, any key takeaways for people who are either on the fence about [00:46:00] which one might make sense for their business case or, you know, if you are a, a third party provider, implementer, like, should I be doing both?

Should I lean towards one? Just overview, [00:46:10] key takeaways. Enterprise Suite versus Sage Intacct.

Matt: Um, I got two real major points here. Uh, I don't think there's an Accountant out there that doesn't [00:46:20] use QuickBooks in some form or fashion, and therefore won't dabble, uh, within, into an enterprise suite. It's just, it's gonna happen. Um, which means that every Intacct provider will [00:46:30] probably, uh, at some point get into, into an enterprise suite.

But let's not be lazy. Let's not be lazy as, uh, professionals. [00:46:40] There will be times where Intuit Enterprise Suite makes sense and there will be times where Intacct makes sense. Know the product so you know how to consult [00:46:50] around it. It's really easy to tell a QuickBooks client, yeah, go to Intuit Enterprise Suite, take care of you, and that could be the wrong decision.

And there could be a, a time when [00:47:00] somebody's living in zero. Wants outta zero and you're thinking Intacct and really Intuit's the right solution. I believe in one [00:47:10] shout out. Hey, if they want, if, if they wanna sponsor us, you know, I'll stop, I'll stop with it. But, um, I, I don't think that would work very well.

But I will say, I, I, I, I, I will [00:47:20] say this, it is our responsibility as consultants, as service providers to not bring what is. Are what's [00:47:30] gonna be best for us is what's gonna be best for the client. And the only way we're gonna know what's best for the client is to intimately know these products. And so one of the things [00:47:40] that I actually value most about doing this podcast is it forces me to keep up with the, uh, release notes for.[00:47:50]

It's gonna force me to keep up with the release notes for Intuit. It's gonna force me to be better at what I do and that that is [00:48:00] powerful and that's impactful and that matters.

Doug: No, that that makes sense. And we'll do a part three. This is part two. Brett Sweet for S Tech, we'll do a part three. So if you do have questions, anyone [00:48:10] listening you wanna go through, so something specific, something that Matt said was grossly wrong or misinformed, let us know. We'll talk about it. Hey, we, we'll bring you on if you have questions, anything [00:48:20] you want us cover in part three, we will get some timing on when that is going to be moving forward.

But don't be shy, everybody. We're here to talk about whatever the heck you wanna hear about.

Matt: Or not hear about [00:48:30] it As long as you're listening.

Doug: That too. I don't care. As long as we're in front of you, that's all that matters. Um, Alright, Matt, so we've went through quite a bit today. Uh, for anyone who wants [00:48:40] to really just soak this in, read through, uh, get nerdy or whatever you said earlier, whatever that, what was your phrase?

Matt: Geek out, and I think it

Doug: geek out. Yeah. [00:48:50] Anyone wants to geek out on Enterprise Suite for Sage and Tech. Uh, where can they get some of this information? Matt?

Matt: so. This comparison that I did, uh, in which I mentioned [00:49:00] earlier, uh, we're gonna make a white paper. We're gonna have that available for download as you can look at it. Uh, I'd love feedback. Um, again, I do get things wrong. Uh, this was something that I put [00:49:10] together to the best of my knowledge and I think that, uh, feedback from the listeners, I'm sure Intuit will reach out to me if I, if I get any of this wrong too, and we'll, we'll update it.

Uh, I [00:49:20] think it's really important for, uh, the larger community to know what. The different, uh, the, the different solutions provide for their clients.

Doug: [00:49:30] No, that, that's, that's excellent. We'll have the links and everything associated here. Uh, so don't be shy from that standpoint. And like Matt said, give him feedback, mostly negative if you can, because that's how he [00:49:40] thrives

Matt: That's actually really true.

Doug: Yeah. No, it is true actually. Yeah. If you did get something wrong, let him know.

Please, the love of God. I cannot stop thinking about food since you said that. [00:49:50] Um, so we have to end this thing in a horrible dad joke, and I'm trying to find like a food related one, uh, because that's all I'm thinking about at the moment. Um, all right, [00:50:00] Matt, what do we

Matt: See, he already know. He knows better than even ask me. So just jump right in.

Doug: Oh, yeah, yeah. You're, you're, you've done it a few times and they've been just even worse than mine.

Somehow miraculously. [00:50:10] Um, oh, okay. Where, where did the broccoli go to grab a drink?

Matt: Something with Rob that's So [00:50:20] I'm feeling that come out.

Doug: The salad bar.

Matt: Um.

Doug: Oh God. Come on. That [00:50:30] was great. Get outta here. You don't deserve me. You don't deserve me. Well, we're gonna end that on a high note right there. Thanks for listening to everybody. Uh, come back next time and we'll, uh, we'll do [00:50:40] better for you. I can promise that. How about that, Matt?

Matt: We will definitely try.

Doug: And we'll have Emily back, which will be even, even better because then you'll have, so who knows what she's talking about.

Thanks for [00:50:50] listening and we'll, we'll talk to you next time.

Matt: It's great talking to you.

[00:51:00]