A CFO Who Chose Intacct on Day One (And Would Do It Again)

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

Emily Madere: So I actually had a dream about this, like when we first started the podcast of like, we would be here like on the main stage in some capacity. So I guess dreams do come true.

Matt Lescault: Well, let me say this. I was talking to Brittany and she gave me a promise. She can't even hear me. A promise that the next year we'll have the whole room filled for [00:00:30] it. She didn't actually give me a promise.

Emily Madere: Well, we'll have to make it happen, but, um, we're we're back. We're on the Sage future stage in San Francisco, um, doing yet another podcast, but we're with a very special guest. David, thanks for joining us.

David Westbrook: My pleasure.

Matt Lescault: What makes them special?

Emily Madere: Well, your listeners can't see, but you are in a boot.

Emily Madere: David,

David Westbrook: I am in a boot.

Emily Madere: If you don't mind sharing what happened.

David Westbrook: Uh, it's called trying to stay or keep up with your 20 year old kids on [00:01:00] the mountain. I just snowboard and snowboard.

Matt Lescault: So where do you live?

David Westbrook: I in San Francisco.

Matt Lescault: Oh, you're you're you're you're local.

David Westbrook: I'm a local.

Matt Lescault: Okay. All right. And, um, when I said what makes them special. You're supposed to say he's a customer.

Emily Madere: Oh my gosh. Yes, you're a customer. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

David Westbrook: I am a customer, too. Yes.

Emily Madere: So, David, tell us a little bit about yourself. Um, you know, who do you work for that type of thing. Your blood type. Social security number.

David Westbrook: Security number.

Matt Lescault: I would prefer the bank [00:01:30] account number.

David Westbrook: The bank account number? Well, somewhere I have a tattoo, actually, with my blood type on, but courtesy of the military. Uh, but so, yeah, you know, I give you some background. So I grew up in South Africa.

Matt Lescault: Whoa whoa whoa.

David Westbrook: Stop. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Really?

David Westbrook: Yes. You don't notice the accent?

Matt Lescault: I notice the accent. I was going to ask. I don't know if you know this. Um, how would you how would he know this?

Emily Madere: How would he know? Well, he had listen to podcasts.

Matt Lescault: I mean, if if he had listened to. Yes, I am a Sage partner, as [00:02:00] well as a co-host with Emily here. And we actually have another co-host, Doug, who is on vacation. Um, but we're partners for Sage in the US, Canada, and Africa, Middle East with offices in South Africa. I was born in South Africa.

David Westbrook: Oh, okay.

Matt Lescault: Where I was born in Joburg. We lived in Botswana.

David Westbrook: Sorry for you. Uh.

Matt Lescault: Came back when I was three, so I know it doesn't really make a big difference, but what? Cape town?

David Westbrook: No. So I grew up in Durban.

Matt Lescault: In Durban. Yeah, I actually I really like Durban. Yeah, I'm a big fan. I was just in South Africa three weeks ago. Spent a couple of days [00:02:30] in Durban. Unfortunately, I didn't get any chance to like really enjoy it. But. So how long were you in South Africa?

David Westbrook: Uh, let's see. I grew up there till I lived there on and off till I was 28, 29 years old now.

Matt Lescault: So the real question here is like.

Emily Madere: I feel like I need to give you all the room.

Matt Lescault: The real question here is like, did Sage know this and set this up? Or is this just happenstance?

Emily Madere: I think it was maybe just happenstance. I feel like things like this have normally happened to you. Mm.

Matt Lescault: That's true.

Emily Madere: That is.

Matt Lescault: True. I'm very fortunate person. Anyway. Sorry.

David Westbrook: Yeah. No. Well, [00:03:00] of course, now I have to tell you. You see, you claim to be a Southerner since you're from Louisiana.

Emily Madere: Yes.

David Westbrook: Me and him don't think so. Because you're from. Because you're from north of the equator. Okay.

Matt Lescault: That was very true. So you just have a southern accent?

Emily Madere: Yeah. And I name sometimes.

David Westbrook: And yeah, so I grew up there and then worked for Deloitte for 20 odd years.

Emily Madere: Okay.

David Westbrook: And then decided I was.

Emily Madere: What did you do for Deloitte?

David Westbrook: Audit it audit financial audit.

Matt Lescault: Um, auditor.

David Westbrook: Auditor [00:03:30] all over the world. Um, so, you know, worked in London, South Africa, various places in the US and eventually got tired of being, as I call it, a film critic and picking on all these CFOs and telling them that they didn't know what they were doing and they needed to fix things. And so I decided to switch sides and become a CFO.

Matt Lescault: How long ago?

David Westbrook: In 2007.

Matt Lescault: Okay. So you've been a CFO now?

David Westbrook: Almost 20 years.

Matt Lescault: I was going to do the math. I [00:04:00] don't know why. This is 19. He's a CFO. I'm going to go with the math. I'm just kidding. Yeah. Awesome.

David Westbrook: And so then that's what brought me to my first introduction to intact was when they were first forming, creating the product back in the in the late 90s and 1999.

Emily Madere: I know that for very.

David Westbrook: Specific, I don't remember the exact date, but some of my team actually, we had a project with Deloitte where intact hired us and some of my team providing [00:04:30] input to the product back then.

Matt Lescault: Wow.

David Westbrook: And so now I curse them for some of the features. Um, I wasn't heavily involved in the project, but you know, that's amazing in the team that did it and have sort of followed the product over many years, but didn't actually use it anyway. Um.

Emily Madere: So, so in 2007, when you became a CFO, you didn't use it.

David Westbrook: No, no, I, you know, went to a company. They, they were using QuickBooks Um, desktop, uh, desktop version [00:05:00] back then because 2007. Um, and it was only there for a few years, uh, then moved and worked for the Rockefeller family for a number of years. And we were using a Sage product, uh, very low numbered Sage product, if I recall correctly. It was 50, but I could be wrong, but it was in the single digits.

Emily Madere: Was that, uh, peach tree or peach tree?

Matt Lescault: Sage peach tree? Yeah.

David Westbrook: Um, and then took this job in San Francisco with a startup called [00:05:30] Robertson Stephens. Uh, which is, if you know the history, that name has a long, storied history from being one of the big investment tech investment bankers.

Matt Lescault: Right. Give me the short version of that. Long story.

David Westbrook: Oh, okay. Well, they they were what they were known as the Four Horsemen, who basically did all the IPOs in the San Francisco area, all the tech companies, you know, uh, pick your tech company, Apple going all the way back to Apple. Okay. Um, and they Basically went up against the big investment banks in New York. And [00:06:00] their famous ad was, you know, old economy. We've got it. We'll take it from you. Um, and so but they were eventually acquired by Bank of Boston and the name was sunset. Um, and was just languishing. Um A one of their employees then took over the name and started a wealth management company. Uh, ran it for a while. Um, didn't do a great job. And then in [00:06:30] 2018, uh, a venture capital firm by the name of Long Arc acquired what was left. And we started the new Robertson Stephens, which some people affectionately call, uh, 3.0, uh, purely focused registered investment advisor focused on wealth management. And since then, we've grown the business from half a billion in assets in 2018 to 9.5 billion today.

Matt Lescault: All right, so you're an aria.

David Westbrook: Aria.

Matt Lescault: What year did [00:07:00] you start?

David Westbrook: So I started in 2018.

Matt Lescault: 2018. Okay. So you started right. Kind of when that 3.0 start happened.

David Westbrook: I had started with a blank slate of paper and went, what kind of system do I want to use?

Emily Madere: Yeah.

David Westbrook: Okay.

Emily Madere: And so I guess where did you land?

David Westbrook: So yeah, day one, I wanted something in the cloud. Uh, something I didn't, I didn't want nothing on prem. I mean, we were all of eight people, ten people. So I didn't really have much in the way of resources. Uh, so I looked around, I knew [00:07:30] of Sage Intacct because of my prior history with them, did not want to go with a QuickBooks because I knew if we QuickBooks would have been fine for a year or two, but we had plans to grow quickly. We also regulated. And so we needed something with more controls, more oomph to use a technical term. Uh, so we decided to, well, I decided I should say we, I decided to go with Sage Intacct. I mean, very, very bare bones at the beginning because we didn't need much. So we basically went with the base modules, gel [00:08:00] core financials. Yeah. There you go.

Matt Lescault: Now hold on, hold on. Let's just when did that move. Was that right. In 2018.

David Westbrook: Yep. 2018.

Emily Madere: So we was it was it intact or was it Sage Intacct. Yeah.

David Westbrook: No it was actually I think it was I think it was intact. It was just intact. Sage Intacct. I think it I don't know, it was right around there.

Matt Lescault: I think it was 17 that Sage purchased intact.

Emily Madere: Yeah. I was like 18 or 17.

David Westbrook: It was right around then. Okay. Um, about the same time. Um, and yeah, so we started [00:08:30] off with, you know, next to nothing on January 1st, 18 actually is when the company started. I was doing some help with them before I officially moved out to San Francisco from New York, uh, which is, you know, kind of bizarre thing to do a registered investment advisor in San Francisco and hire someone from Wall Street to do it. Uh, but that's, that's what I did. And yeah, and then slowly over time, we've taken on more modules and more modules, and now you're using a [00:09:00] lot of aspects of it. There's some modules we'll never use. You know, we we do not have inventory.

Emily Madere: Yeah. You don't need to be hyper compliant.

David Westbrook: No, I don't need to be compliant. Um, but we yeah, we're using the least module. We're using the planning module. We're using the, the AI aspects of it. We've enhanced um, our accounts receivable accounts payable side of things. And just every time they roll something out, new out, I look at it and decide whether it'll work. Yeah, we need it or don't. And we just keep doing more and more with it.

Matt Lescault: Makes [00:09:30] a lot of sense. So from a, from a high level, you've been you've been with Ntac now for eight years. Yeah. So you've seen a lot of change. Yeah. You know, I can do, I can do like single digit.

Emily Madere: Okay.

Matt Lescault: Um, you've, you've seen a huge shift in what intact is as a product, obviously over that time period, especially because if you think about it, you came into this when Sage first purchased it, and then Sage invested a ton into the product in the years [00:10:00] from a high level. Tell me, as a consumer, how that journey has been, what you've seen, what you've liked. We're the unofficial Sage Intacct podcast, so you can also tell us if you have any gripes. Um, they might make us edit it out. No, they can't do that. But, but love to hear sort of what you've seen from investment and what you've liked and or what your feedback is from the development and so forth.

David Westbrook: Yeah. I mean, they certainly have been ups and downs. I will not claim it's been pure, you know. Uh, nice. [00:10:30] There been times where things just didn't go right. And partly because, you know, when we went with intact, there were parts of intact that weren't fully formed, I would say. Uh, so we actually went with bill to, for our payment system integrated into Sage Intacct. And we, we've, we've had some issues over the years with that integration. Um, today I was actually sitting in the various AP classes today because one of the things I'm interested in looking at is, can we shed bill [00:11:00] and move into the mineral tree? Ap automation.

Emily Madere: That is one of India's most popular, um, add ons is AP automation. Yeah.

David Westbrook: Yeah. So we, we don't use it currently because we have it built in, in bill. But there's huge advantages to us moving to that. So that's been part of my part of the reason I came.

Matt Lescault: Okay.

David Westbrook: Even partly crippled was to I went to, to look at that. Um, and so, you know, we've various [00:11:30] things that have, have worked and haven't worked sometimes because of our providers. We've had some issues with payroll because our payroll provider doesn't, doesn't, doesn't work. Play nicely with Sage Intacct more because of the way they do things than Sage Intacct. Um, so we are looking at a new payroll providers that will work nicely, nicely with Sage Intacct.

Emily Madere: And you'll find them here.

David Westbrook: Yep. That's one of the other things. Um, and we've also been able to leverage, uh, Sage for [00:12:00] a lot of our reporting that we can't do through our other systems. So we have Salesforce, we have some unique Aria products. Um, but, uh, as a result, our billing happens in various places and none of the other systems can report the whole picture. And so we bring it all into Sage Intacct every, every invoice, every customer, and we use it as our, as our master record.

Matt Lescault: Okay. So is it fair to assume that your multi entity.

David Westbrook: Oh [00:12:30] yeah. Multi entity.

Matt Lescault: How many.

David Westbrook: Uh, we currently have six entities.

Matt Lescault: Six entities. So what do you see as some of the most powerful, uh, modules, events, you know, outside of that core that is really driving success for your org.

David Westbrook: Yeah. So this, this two aspects of it. We have some modules that are helping us from sort of say administration perspective. So like lease accounting. Yeah. Not helping the business much, but it sure helps my team a lot in [00:13:00] getting that done. But the, the core product that we, which is a core product that we really leverage is, is the revenue module. And being able to do reporting, revenue management and reporting out of that, I'd say is key. The other part where we're starting to get a lot more value, it's still work in progress is the, the AI aspects of the AI to close, and then the AI to actually review, find the anomalies.

Emily Madere: Um, [00:13:30] yeah, let, let, I want to talk a little bit more about that. So, um, how are you using AI today? Um, and what does your team look like?

David Westbrook: Yeah. So fairly small. I mean, it has a company. So 2018, we were basically ten people today we're 120 people. Okay. So we, we're still pretty lean. Uh, we, we are, I say beyond the startup phase. So, you know, we were a startup for probably the last five, six years. We had the cracks where we were going from startup to high growth kind of thing or, um, whatever you [00:14:00] want to call it. Uh, so 120 people, uh, five people that are in the finance finance adjacent space, uh, that we have. Um, the nice thing about Sage Intacct is half of my team is in India. And so we can, you know, we work around the clock because, uh, they can work, we don't have to worry about, uh, you know, can they access the system remotely because Sage just works everywhere in the world. Yeah. Uh, which, which is great.

Emily Madere: Uh, [00:14:30] and so that AI aspects, how are, how are you using it?

David Westbrook: So, so the aspect we really are still in a learning phase on it. Um, basically the issue is we, when we, when Sage started doing the AI, which we looked at and we said, hey, we spend a week every quarter where we go through everything and we're looking for the anomalies. What's wrong, what's right so we can fix it all and get good, clean reporting. And we've been able to leverage the AI for that. Now [00:15:00] that it takes, you know, less than a day to do, we basically, I'll get on the air, get my team all on a call, and we'll start running the AI and we'll be everybody will be looking at different things, using AI to assess the quality of our records.

Matt Lescault: Can I assume that's the close agent?

David Westbrook: Yes. Close agent. Um, and we also use the copilot though also just to ask questions, you know. Yeah. Has that conference been this month?

Emily Madere: Okay. Yeah. I'm curious, like, what is like the question that you seem to [00:15:30] ask all the time?

David Westbrook: Yeah. It's the big thing is, you know, what were we spending money on to simplify the word? But it's, you know, we were always interested in what conferences did people go to? And so we can understand what value they were getting from these conferences. You know, that golf conference you went to? I'm not sure sure why that's in my business account kind of thing.

Emily Madere: Um, and so, and so, um, it's your Salesforce and intact are connected so you can pull that information and living [00:16:00] intact.

David Westbrook: Yeah. We pull it. We actually go both ways. So there's information we put in it from Salesforce and intact and, and information we'll be sending to Salesforce from intact.

Matt Lescault: Uh, this might be a little more technical than we want to go into, but are you using the advanced CRM integration or are you doing a custom integration with Salesforce?

David Westbrook: We want to move to that, but we did a custom integration integration when we did it because it was a while ago.

Matt Lescault: That makes sense. I mean, it was a long time ago. I don't know exactly when the custom.

Emily Madere: It's barely noon. [00:16:30]

David Westbrook: Yeah. It wasn't available when we did it. I know that much.

Matt Lescault: So what other ways are you as the CFO, utilizing information within Sage for decision making, for driving the business and so forth?

David Westbrook: Yeah, I mean, having been an auditor for 20 years, I view it's critical. So we I am constantly looking at things, you know, team level, department level ROI. How [00:17:00] are we spending my money? You know, I went I went $2 worth for every buck I spent.

Matt Lescault: Okay.

David Westbrook: And so I am constantly in the monitoring and looking at things. Um, and that's where the AI is great. You know, before I was going in there, I was dropping dead into Excel, manipulating it, trying to figure look at things. Now I can go in and I just throw out the question. The hardest part is coming up with the question and how to word it. And it comes back in, you know, minutes versus [00:17:30] hours, days of work.

Matt Lescault: I have to know this. Do you consider your function, the function of the finance office to be a cost center or a profit center?

David Westbrook: Oh, I just consider us to be the boss. Uh, we both I mean, we, we definitely are both. Um, because, you know, my CEO said to me yesterday because of my current injury state, he's like, I'm really worried if you ever get hit by a bus because [00:18:00] we might have to close up shop. Um, but that's, that's what I try to make my finance team be is that one. And my answer was, no, it's fine because my team knows what I do is, you know, actually anyone on my team should be able to step up and take my place. But our team as a whole should be irreplaceable to the film because we are so integrated in everything. Um, and we are, I mean, we are, we are heavily involved in our business development, both inorganic and organic and [00:18:30] assessing those projects. Um, one of the things we do want to do, we haven't done yet is we want to start leveraging, uh, the Sage Intacct planning module for business development. So when we're doing inorganic growth and we're looking at an acquisition of your business, Feed it into our planet and see how it will actually what the impact would be.

Matt Lescault: Are you are you making me an offer right now?

David Westbrook: Yeah. Have you have any assets you got?

Matt Lescault: We're people business. I don't think that's [00:19:00] what you invest in.

David Westbrook: Everything's a people business at the end of the day.

Matt Lescault: So, you know, as we look at that that planning side. So, you know, Sage Intacct planning is not just a budgeting tool, it's a forecasting tool. What are you hoping to get out of that? Where do you see that really driving success for you?

Emily Madere: And Sage is making some, um, some big investments in that tool as well. So you can probably expect a lot more functionality.

David Westbrook: Yeah. I mean, we love it as it is. I mean, we use it as a budgeting tool. We also use it as our forecasting. We have a, we, we go out ten years with forecasting [00:19:30] it. Where I want to get to with it is the ability to actually now have more scenarios or more easily have scenarios. So if you do this and I add it into the planning module, I can see what would happen if you do this, then that if this, then that, you know, and and take it beyond that, you know. Yes. It's not a Monte Carlo, but kind of where I can say, okay, well, if you do that and he does that, where do we. And if you and, and look at those scenarios, because that's what [00:20:00] our board's looking for. That's what my CEO is looking for. That's what I'm interested in. Because, you know, I've put a significant amount of time and effort into this business. I want it to be a success.

Matt Lescault: I love that you say that because I think so many organizations look at budgeting as like a one a moment in time. I'm going to do the annual budget for this coming year. And really, that's not how business works, right?

David Westbrook: Yeah, I, I, I, I'm a strong proponent of rolling forecasts [00:20:30] and budgets. So we actually reforecast every quarter, but we have our original budget because that's our yardstick that we measure against. But yeah, no.

Emily Madere: And with all that reporting is just native into the system.

David Westbrook: Yeah, exactly. So we are now right now, because we've once done, we're looking at Q1 and saying, okay, well, what do we think we need to change? Because there's some software that our operations team had acquired but then decided, nah, [00:21:00] then it didn't work for them. Don't want it. Cancel the contract. We're done. Well, it's in our budget for the rest of the year, but I know I'm not going to spend that money. So let's, you know, reforecast it.

Emily Madere: All right. So I kind of want to take a look under under the hood. Right. There's you talk a lot of good things about about intact, but maybe what are some things that intact needs to work on and.

David Westbrook: Yeah. Oh, well, the one thing that even sitting and watching the AP module with the mineral, I think it, [00:21:30] it still needs work. Um, so I looking at looking at that, the other thing I would love to see is something more around vendor onboarding to support vendor onboarding process that goes beyond accounting. So you know, I'm assessing the vendor. Are they SoC compliant? Do they part? Am I doing my vendor diligence properly? I would love to see a module that's sort of bolted on in front of AP.

Matt Lescault: So credit control potentially.

David Westbrook: I know this is this is not [00:22:00] not really credit control. This is more about, you know, are you an appropriate vendor from a controls perspective? Okay. You know, have you been in business etc. that we go through it has a regulator entry. We require to have a vendor due diligence process. Yeah. You know, think of it like an investment due diligence process, but on your vendor.

Matt Lescault: No, that makes.

David Westbrook: Sense. Are they financially stable?

Matt Lescault: I'm, I shouldn't do this right now, but you may want to look at Sage forms that integrates with intact.

David Westbrook: Yes.

Matt Lescault: And that that [00:22:30] you'd be kind of I know you asked for a module, but that would be one way to.

David Westbrook: A way to do it. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: But I, you know.

David Westbrook: Yeah, I.

Matt Lescault: Want natural space.

David Westbrook: Yeah. I mean, and the vendors out there that are doing some of this stuff, we're using a vendor to do it where I can just phone them up and say, yeah, as a vendor, I'm thinking, and they will go do the whole assessment and diligence for me.

Matt Lescault: But you love that to be more.

David Westbrook: Of that built in to Sage Intacct because then it feeds right into my, you know, maintaining my vendor master list. It [00:23:00] can drive my, you know, revisiting of vendors because it's not a one and done. You know, one oh, you're great. We're done. No, you got to keep convincing me. I'm going to be your client. So we got to, you know, redo that vendor module. Um.

Matt Lescault: There's a really great feedback. And it was funny when we were at dinner last night, I was talking to one of the Sage, uh, team members. I'm not going to drop any names here because I don't want to get in trouble. But, uh, we were talking about different modules that would be impactful for [00:23:30] Sage to either develop or develop more around. So I think this is the kind of thing that Sage is looking for, is that kind of feedback of how it can be a more complete financial system.

Emily Madere: Yeah. And that's why I like to ask the question. I mean, I mean, I even ask it to the folks that I talk with on the on a daily basis is because, I mean, it's helpful information to know and you never know. I mean, just one conversation could have Sage starting to work on that.

Matt Lescault: All right. So if that's the one thing that's.

David Westbrook: Well, there's a couple more.

Matt Lescault: Oh, okay. Let's let's hear it because.

David Westbrook: The other one I'd love is [00:24:00] support for investment investments in investment accounting. Okay. Uh, which, you know, it's a bit nichey in the sense that it's, you know, firms like ours, you know, but most firms have, you know, they have some form of investments. So the ability to put stocks in, put your, your bonds and everything into the system and actually do the GAAP accounting for them instead of what we do now as we do the accounting outside and we post journal entries. But, you know, it's kind of like an inventory system, but for stocks [00:24:30] and bonds, right?

Matt Lescault: Right. Okay.

David Westbrook: Which would be there'll be another nice, nice feature to have. And, and then I, the one thing and this one is just a bit of a, you know, yeah.

Emily Madere: This is.

David Westbrook: This is.

Emily Madere: This.

David Westbrook: Is because this cosmetic thing. I mean, I think it really is time that we refresh the look of Sage Intacct when you come in, uh, you know, it's it's looking a bit dated.

Matt Lescault: Okay.

Emily Madere: Those are one of the things that they have to do very, very slow though. I mean, um, do you remember the, how the list views [00:25:00] changed in intact? It was over a long period of time.

David Westbrook: Yeah.

David Westbrook: I still sometimes switch to the old version.

Matt Lescault: So he wants a new look, but he likes the old look.

David Westbrook: Yeah. Yeah.

David Westbrook: It's. Yeah. So so we have customer. We never happy.

Matt Lescault: I'm glad you say that. Um, now, if those are your wish lists. I don't think it would be fair not to ask what are the what are your top two things that you love the most about intact?

Emily Madere: A [00:25:30] rapid fire, rapid fire.

David Westbrook: Yeah. So the most reporting and the flexibility you get to generate reports different ways very quickly. And it's pretty easy to check the integrity of your ports. So that's, that's number one. Um accounts receivable. The core modules are easy. Great to use in my opinion. Um so that's the other aspect, the one aspect I don't like. Sorry I'm dropping down likes again. See it's in order to 20 years you keep being penny is um [00:26:00] the banking bill reconciliation doesn't work well for us.

Emily Madere: Um like it doesn't connect to your bank.

David Westbrook: Yeah. It doesn't connect to our bank and, and so it just is a is problematic. I wish that would work with more banks and work easier.

Emily Madere: And most of the time it's on the banks. It's the banks on the bank side of things. So um, yeah, I don't know if there's a way for them to, if they're listening to standardize that because I do have that same thought.

David Westbrook: Yeah. Same. So that's the one area I'd really, you know, it was a little mundane type of improvement I'd like [00:26:30] to see.

Matt Lescault: You saying I want a solution. This is like the world I live in.

Emily Madere: I know, I know.

David Westbrook: That's what I heard from 20 years from every one of my clients. So they didn't give me a solution. Give me a solution.

Matt Lescault: Oh, there's a problem in both. Both Emily and I are on the sales side. I don't think, Emily, you do the scoping necessarily from implementation.

Emily Madere: I do that, you do.

Matt Lescault: You do a tad. I do a lot of scoping. And so my, my job, like on a daily basis is to solution around problems. So I hear this, I want to go into it, but then I'm gonna extend this way too long into [00:27:00] it and it's not fair to you. Um, but no, that's, I mean, it's great feedback. And I think that what is obvious to me is even though you're saying here are the things that would be better, you have a deep respect for what the capability of the product is. And it sounds like the way you utilize it, it supports heavily the success of the organization. Is that fair to say?

David Westbrook: Oh, very much so. Very much so.

Emily Madere: If Sage is Sage Intacct disappeared tomorrow.

David Westbrook: I'm retiring. You're retiring someone [00:27:30] else's problem.

Matt Lescault: Should we. Should we should we send a statement to CEO?

David Westbrook: Yeah. No, I it would be I mean, I get phone calls from other, you know, competitors of Sage Intacct all the time. And I'm just like, yeah, no, I'm not interested in even talking to you.

Emily Madere: Um, don't call David. Yeah. He doesn't want you.

David Westbrook: It is so ingrained, entwined in what we do. If we, you know, you may waive that horrible black witch wand of yours and [00:28:00] Sage Intacct disappear.

Emily Madere: No, no, I don't want to make Sage Intacct.

David Westbrook: Because that's what you would be, in my opinion,

Emily Madere: I'd be out of a job.

Matt Lescault: So let's say you're now a black. Black bad.

David Westbrook: Yeah. Yeah.

David Westbrook: It's gotta be.

Emily Madere: I am from Louisiana, so I prefer the term voodoo.

David Westbrook: Yeah yeah ye

Matt Lescault: And it's funny too. She's dressed in all black.

Emily Madere: And I am I okay, okay, let's move on. Let's move on.

David Westbrook: Yeah. No, it would be like having a heart transplant and a liver transplant and a brain transplant all at once. To us, it would be a disaster.

Matt Lescault: So [00:28:30] don't we? Do you have more rapid fire questions?

Emily Madere: Rapid fire questions. Um, quickly touch on the implementation. I guess it was a little while ago, but how was that? You were a startup, so you didn't have any historical data?

David Westbrook: Yep.

David Westbrook: So it's made it easy. Yeah. The hardest thing was coming up with that chart of accounts, to be honest with you. It was really, you know, phoned them up, placed the order, got the username and passwords, and we were up and running. So it was, it was really easy for us because of where we were. [00:29:00]

Matt Lescault: You know, from a, from a similar question. But I always talk to, you know, organizations that have used intact for long term about or for a long time, uh, about really like the journey of continuing to, to make it better. And so like looking at your chart of accounts, looking at your dimensional structure, report generation and so forth, what does that kind of that.

Emily Madere: Yeah. Have you done. Health check?

David Westbrook: Yeah, we, we have. And I [00:29:30] mean, one of the things that I, we are actually thinking of. Re-implementing. Sage Intacct. Um, mainly for various reasons, but at one point I'd outsourced and was using it because it was just me and I was using an outsourced bookkeeping company. And they unfortunately, Sage, uh, one of their senior managers happened to call up Sage and said, oh, we need to enable multi-currency for this client because all the other clients had multi-currency. Well, we are purely a US company. And so Sage listened [00:30:00] to the person and enabled it. Now we stuck with it. And so.

Emily Madere: That has some that has some impacts.

David Westbrook: Yes, it has impact. It has some baggage that it creates. If you're not, I mean, it would be great if we were multi-currency, but we're not. Um, so that's part of the reason we're thinking of re-implementing. But also we have some historical data that we never put into Sage Intacct back in the early days. Um, and given some of the questions we get asked for, you know, five years, ten years, looking back, we, we also thinking [00:30:30] of re-implementing and sucking that information in so that we would then have a, um, you know, be able to use Sage to.

Emily Madere: Yeah. For a holistic view.

David Westbrook: Yeah. Yeah. So then I can tell you this client for the last ten years, you know, since 2018, this has been their revenue. We don't have that currently for 18, 19, 20 because we didn't we didn't not nothing to do with Sage Intacct. We we just captured a total number.

Matt Lescault: Okay.

Emily Madere: Well, I think there are definitely some good implementation partners out there to help you do that. [00:31:00]

David Westbrook: No, I've been talking to a couple, but again, I'm kind of like, do I really want to go through all that work?

Emily Madere: Yeah.

Emily Madere: Yeah. I like when I, when I talk to clients about bringing them on to intact, I'm always like, no, no one wants to wake up in the morning and implement a new system. But at the, at the end, when you're done, it's, it's completely different and you're a lot better for it. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Do you know what I say to every, uh, in, in every, like, SOW review?

Emily Madere: Am I copying.

Matt Lescault: You? You're copying me.

Emily Madere: You're you're copying.

Matt Lescault: Me. No, I don't know. I don't know. You're too young for me. [00:31:30]

Matt Lescault: I'm kidding.

Matt Lescault: Um, no, I said I was like, I've never met anybody from a little a little child, a little baby. That said, I've just been dreaming about the day I could implement a new accounting software, a new ERP. Yeah. Never met anybody that's ever said that.

David Westbrook: I had to say that. But I used to say that when I was at Deloitte, because there was lots of money for me, because I was implementing it for you or you or you.

Matt Lescault: Yeah. But you didn't you, I don't think at like four years old, you were like, I, I'm gonna grow up and I'm [00:32:00] gonna implement accounting.

David Westbrook: No, I don't think so. Unfortunately, I think when I was four years old, they weren't much in the way of computers around. So.

Matt Lescault: Uh, we're, we're, we're, we're all dating each other.

Emily Madere: I know, I know. Well, okay, I guess maybe kind of, kind of bring down the conversation. What is one thing that you would want our podcasters listeners to know? Um, maybe about intact or maybe they're, um, trying to get on the train with intact and they're just not there yet. What, what are your thoughts?

David Westbrook: Uh, [00:32:30] you know, I'd say the, the reason I would say go for it is Sage has shown a strong desire to continue to improve the product. So it is a it's a full featured product as it is, but they keep finding new things to add to it and things that are great. And so that is, you know, part of why I think it's important. Uh, I, you know, I work for health nonprofits and other people who use other accounting systems. And [00:33:00] I literally a recent nonprofit that I was just helping with, volunteering with and sat down with the treasurer and I was like, huh, this is the same system I looked at 12, 15 years ago. And it really hasn't changed. It works for them, but it really hasn't moved.

Matt Lescault: To what system.

David Westbrook: Are we allowed to say?

Matt Lescault: You say whether he is.

David Westbrook: Yeah. Uh, well, one is QuickBooks, which has not really changed in years. Um, and [00:33:30] that's what they are. And I literally was like, huh, you know, I, I, it felt like I was picking up where I was, You know, as I say, ten, 15 years ago, helping other nonprofits with QuickBooks.

Emily Madere: And especially if you're a nonprofit intact is, is the solution.

Matt Lescault: If you're a nonprofit with grants, especially.

Emily Madere: Especially.

Matt Lescault: Especially.

Emily Madere: Especially.

David Westbrook: Yeah.

Emily Madere: We, we didn't really talk about it, but in tax dimensionalized ability and its ability to have dimensions.

David Westbrook: Oh, we use it all the time. Yeah, yeah, we, I mean, we, we throw classes [00:34:00] and dimensions out there all the time. Anytime something special is going on, you know, we you.

Emily Madere: Make it.

David Westbrook: You add another one on it makes it the reporting so much easier. Um.

Matt Lescault: So which you, which you might not know is that I can tell that he's a Sage enthusiast, but see, he's probably known the Sage name since he was four years old.

Emily Madere: Yeah.

David Westbrook: I don't know if they were around that long.

Matt Lescault: No they weren't. It was it was 80. 1 or 82.

Emily Madere: I'm fully transparent. The only reason [00:34:30] I know that intact it was in the 90s was because I was born in 99 at the same time that Integra was created.

Matt Lescault: So I really don't want to talk to you anymore. Um, but what's interesting, like for, for South Africa is, you know, Sage from an HR and payroll is 60% of the market share in, in South Africa. There's a long standing of Sage products that were purchased. And so like you, you, you, you, you grew up your professional life [00:35:00] around.

David Westbrook: Yeah, I put it this way. I've seen Sage acquire many, many of the companies that I've used, worked with over the time, over the.

Matt Lescault: So you, you, you saw the pastel acquisition?

David Westbrook: Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Emily Madere: Well, Matt, any any final thoughts to really bring us home?

Matt Lescault: Well, look, I think that what we're what we're hearing is what's so impactful and so important to the listeners about how does a customer actually look at the intact products? What [00:35:30] does it do for them? And what I hope, you know, throughout this year and our relaunch is that we get to hear more and more from customers and what they're getting out of it, because I think that, David, you talked about some really great things, but every customer uses intact a little bit differently and it impacts them differently. And I think that's what's so unknown. Like when I think about QuickBooks or I think about some of the non subledger products out there, people kind of get the same thing each time.

Emily Madere: But every time. [00:36:00] The number one thing people love about intact is it's reporting.

Matt Lescault: Absolutely.

Emily Madere: Yeah.

David Westbrook: And the one extension I would like to see on reporting to sort of save my, I would love if they got some sort of, say, non-accountants involved so that they could, we could actually have reporting and dashboards that are more intuitive to your CEO who doesn't really know a debit from a credit.

Matt Lescault: Okay.

David Westbrook: Because I've seen that a few times where then I have to sit there and say, okay, [00:36:30] let me explain your dashboard to you. And then I love to debate what's credit, you know. Um, and I think that would actually go a great way because that's one of the things we want to roll out actually. Whereas we give department managers access to dashboards and managers and where they can go in and, and look at things and understand we're all a bit too accounting centric, I think right now in that reporting. And I think getting input from people who aren't accountants, uh, [00:37:00] on how to present data might be, might be a useful exercise.

Emily Madere: All right. Uh, Sage. Take notes. Okay. Any anything else before we kind of close it out?

Matt Lescault: No, I think we've had a wonderful time here with David. I think we're I think we're wrapping up on our time.

Emily Madere: Yes.

Matt Lescault: They told us we're kicking us off the stage.

Emily Madere: They're gonna they're gonna pull us off the stage. Uh, David, we like to end every podcast with a with a joke. It could be a good joke. Bad joke. Just joke.

Matt Lescault: Mostly bad jokes, though.

Emily Madere: It's mostly.

Matt Lescault: Bad jokes. Not a bar [00:37:30] yet.

Emily Madere: Do you have a joke for us?

David Westbrook: Yeah, I know you said, do I have a dad joke? And I was like, oh, my kids are growing up. I don't have dad jokes anymore. Um, but I mean, the thing I would say, you know, about life in general is you can either be a critic or you can be an owner and you got to decide what you are. And then if that's a joke, but.

Emily Madere: Well, maybe we should turn to life advice. Maybe someday, maybe it'll be dad jokes slash life advice.

David Westbrook: Yeah, well, that's what dad jokes are supposed to be.

Emily Madere: There you go. There you go. Well, um, we have we have a special [00:38:00] gift for you. I know I'm I'm wearing mine today, but we have a a Sage Intacct, um, unofficial Sage Intacct podcast t shirt for you. So thank you. I'll hand that to you. And thank you again for spending this time with us.

Matt Lescault: And I'm just going to let you know that if I if I don't see you wearing that tomorrow at the conference, I'm going to be offended. Not really. Thank you so much.

David Westbrook: Okay. My pleasure. And thanks for having me.

Matt Lescault: Yeah. Awesome.