Inside Sage Intacct's Implementation Evolution

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

Matt Lescault: I'm really excited. We have a awesome guest with us, Greg Ekker from Sage. Sage Intacct. I'm going to say, um, who runs the Professional Services department that specializes in doing implementations internally for Sage Intacct. I had the pleasure of meeting Greg recently, and, uh, was just having a conversation [00:00:30] and said, hey, can I get you can I convince you to come on to this podcast that I do? And he agreed, I don't know why I'm, I'm I'm questioning it. I'm questioning whether this is going to be good for my, uh, my partnership with him and his team, but we'll figure it out. Um, but let me not introduce you, Greg. Say hi. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Greg Ekker: Yeah. Thanks, Matt. Uh, Greg Ekker, as established, I'm the vice president of professional services for the Sage [00:01:00] Intacct within Sage for North America. I joined in the intact side. We were acquired by Sage about six years ago. It's been a great ride. I joined in 2006 and I've been with intact for just had my 19th year anniversary. Moving into my 19th year and um, what else can I tell you? I've been doing consulting for about 30 years. I started in 1994 with what was known as the Big Six. Back in the day, um, I worked for the artist formerly known as Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, [00:01:30] and then spent some years with Pricewaterhouse so long ago that they merged with Coopers and Lybrand while I was there. So, uh, been around a while, and then after that I worked at Indian owned consultancy Infosys. We had a branch in the United States to, uh, do business transformation services. And then I got a call from a headhunter, as it happens. And I thought this internet technology thing, that sounds kind of interesting. And, uh, what year? What year.

Doug Lewis: Was this? Hold on the internet technology [00:02:00] thing? What what year are we are we looking at here, Greg?

Greg Ekker: 2005. 2006 or so when I joined intact the idea of a SaaS solution. So I remember early on when we do calls with prospects and we would have to explain what cloud technology was. Like nobody even understood how how what do you mean? You don't install anything at our facility. And obviously we're beyond those days. But initially that was a lot of the call was just explaining to them how the infrastructure works. And I got a little trivia for you if you're interested.

Matt Lescault: Okay. Come on. [00:02:30]

Greg Ekker: Where where did the term cloud technology come from? Why is it called the cloud?

Matt Lescault: Doug, do you have this?

Doug Lewis: I don't even have, like, a, like a witty guess no I don't. Okay, bear in mind bear in mind some of us are more youthful on this call. So I'm a digital native. Okay? I'm just. I'm used to it.

Greg Ekker: It's just in your blood, you know?

Doug Lewis: That's it. No, I get it. Matt, do you have any clue?

Matt Lescault: I don't know, I'm going with, like, you know, it's this, like, imaginary network and the only way that we could describe it is [00:03:00] that it's like the clouds. It just is. It's just up there. Being beam would be my guess.

Greg Ekker: That's right. It's a good.

Doug Lewis: Guess. Comparable is my guess would be all of your data is just up in the clouds. Like it's not here. I don't know what. What is it?

Matt Lescault: Great great, great.

Greg Ekker: Come on. Yeah. The big reveal. So supposedly, um, when internet technology came around, there was a technical architect doing a diagram of the infrastructure at their facility, and they were now using internet technology, and this person didn't know [00:03:30] how to represent internet technology. Everything else was a rectangle or a box or a circle. So he made the internet technology a cloud shape on his diagram or her diagram, supposedly. And, uh, that was where the birth of the term cloud technology came from was the cloud drawing of internet based technology. I don't know if that's true. I learned that years ago. But so you're saying it's kind of interesting this.

Doug Lewis: They could have easily like the cloud as we know it could have easily been like a cat if this guy just drew [00:04:00] some random thing on this paper. Like.

Greg Ekker: And from this point forward, we're going to refer to it as cat technology. I think we.

Doug Lewis: Should do that. Cat technology? Yeah, you heard it here first, folks. This is why everyone tunes in. All right? Right. Cutting edge, cutting edge.

Greg Ekker: Game changing information. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: That's really interesting. And I but I want to go back here because I think you told me the first time that we met that you were the second person that was hired into the department, [00:04:30] that you now run.

Greg Ekker: That's right. Although I thought about it, I was third, I was the third services person. There were two already on the team and, um, myself and a good friend of mine, we joined at the same time, didn't know each other at the time, but had been great friends since. And, uh, yeah, that was in 2006, as I mentioned. And we did. There was no really partner program at that point. So we did all the services. And as you can imagine, you're a scrappy small company. You can imagine what those projects were like. You sold what? [00:05:00] So we put some controls and processes in place to have the services team members be part of the sales process, and that way, you know, you're only signing up for what you agree to deliver. And we've we've really had those controls in ever since that. Um, at least internally I have service the sales team members. They participate in every opportunity that we're engaged in. They write the statement of work, and then the team that's going to deliver it has the right to review that statement of work. So they're not signing up for anything that they haven't agreed to themselves. And that tends [00:05:30] to work well.

Matt Lescault: You know, it's really interesting that you bring that up. I think I talk internally to my team. It's like, you know, our job as sales is not just to sell, it's to protect our our delivery team that, you know, we maintain and deliver expectations to the client that our team can, uh, can deliver on because how else are we successful together? Because, you know, what happens if a salesperson sells and we don't implement, right? The client lists and the salesperson doesn't get their commission.

Greg Ekker: So right it's got and then they call it [00:06:00] a failed implementation. It was your fault that it didn't work right.

Matt Lescault: You know, it's an interesting it's an interesting play or balance. Now I have a question. So 2006, you start with Intacct. That's 10 or 11 years before Sage acquires intact. How many employees were there?

Greg Ekker: Uh, I would say less than 50. And a lot of them were they started right around when I did. Things started to pick up as a business around that [00:06:30] time, got some investment money and so build out a sales team. It was funny. We did a I remember doing like an initial meet and greet and we're all talking, how long have you been here? Two months. How long have you been here? 20 days. And so there were a lot of new faces. And the amazing thing, and I think it says a lot about intact as a product Sage as a company, you know, good product, good people, a lot of them are still with the company. Um, as I mentioned, I've been to a number. I've worked for a number of companies. And, you know, they always say the grass is always greener when you've been around [00:07:00] the block a little bit, you know, when you have a good thing. And so, you know, why go anywhere else?

Doug Lewis: Well, here you are 20 years later. I actually is really impressive today. It's like the new Nike, uh, guy. Did you see that resume that the guy who's running Nike now?

Greg Ekker: No, no, I didn't see that.

Doug Lewis: Oh. It's hilarious. You look it up. He's been there forever. He started off as, like, a merchandizing intern or some insane thing, and has just climbed the ladder all the way up to the top. Uh, the top dog now. And it's it's hilarious. It's a legendary resume. It's one company all [00:07:30] the way through and through. So it's pretty rare when you see it at 20 years like yourself. Now that's I think that speaks volumes about the culture that they have there, which is kind of interesting. Um, but to dive into some actual content, Greg, right out the gate, we'll get into best practices and, and great success stories at some point. But off the top of your head, can you think of the absolute hands down worst train wreck of an implementation you've ever seen. Feel free to to redact names or companies if you need to, but I just got to here like you've [00:08:00] seen a lot. What is just stands out as just oh my god, that was horrible from the get go.

Greg Ekker: Well, it was one that Matt here led and I'm just kidding. No kidding. Damn. No, no, I'm totally joking. Matt's fantastic. I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe that, so I'm totally kidding. But, um, I remember one that I actually did. It was really early on, and they wanted an on site visit, which is rare because typically you deliver for cost purposes [00:08:30] and because it's internet based technology, you can deliver all the services remotely. Um, but they wanted us on site. So I went on site, um, and we were talking about the general ledger. And so I was explaining, you know, you'll pull together your journal entries and, you know, the debits and credits and then, you know, as long as it balances, we'll get that loaded. And, uh, and the gentleman said, all sounds great. I got everything you just said. I just have one question. What's a debit and what's a credit? And I knew we were in a lot of trouble. Right? [00:09:00] Right. Then, uh, since it's the foundation of the software, the financials so quickly learned that they were oversold on the idea of the software, but really, they were totally unqualified.

Doug Lewis: Wait, can you can you specify what industry roughly were you in? Like, what was this company, you know, so.

Greg Ekker: This was you remember the there was that huge run of like mortgage refinancing. So it was a it was a refi company and and they were growing like gangbusters just because that was hot at the time. And so they thought that this was the right software [00:09:30] to scale the business. The problem was they knew how to get refi deals. They didn't have any idea how to run the financial side of the business. So it went south very quickly. So this was.

Doug Lewis: What, 2007, I'm guessing right before.

Greg Ekker: This was. Yeah, this was probably about 2007. You're right. Okay. Okay. So it was a small deal. You know, the the larger ones, Um, you know, nothing really jumps out. We've certainly had some challenging projects. Um, but that one is in particular, we always joke [00:10:00] on my team that we need to write a book of all of our intact experiences and all the kind of wild things that have happened over the years.

Matt Lescault: Isn't it really interesting, Greg, how sometimes the smallest implementations become the most challenging implementations, just, you know, from an expectation to delivery perspective?

Greg Ekker: Yeah, for sure. You know, we also joke about how, you know, the smaller companies, they have the, you know, the smaller requirements, but they they tend to have less availability or knowledge of the business [00:10:30] or, you know, an understanding. And then the larger companies have the more complex, you know, bigger requirements. Um, so those are harder to solve, but they have the team available. So it's like sometimes you get that sweet spot where you got the people engaged and they know what they need. Um, but generally, you know, there's usually challenges of some sort. No matter no matter the project.

Matt Lescault: Well, I gotta give a shout out. I don't know what your experience has been internally, and maybe, and maybe you're not doing as many of them as these pre-configured templates that you're [00:11:00] trusted Practice Solutions department has put out has really supported the smaller business side, and it's actually kind of smoothed the process in a lot because, you know, from a expectation delivery, we talk about sort of a standardized configuration process. We we talk about an approach that is kind of limited. And now we're not opening the door to every possibility that is intact. But we talk about what is possible in the future. Um, you know, have you have you had the same experience with that?

Greg Ekker: Yeah. [00:11:30] So they're great, the trusted practice solutions. So I'm gonna toot my team's horn a little bit, but we had developed our own versions of that years ago, what was called the Sage Intacct Business Fundamentals template, as well as what was currently Sage ahead for software, a software based pre-configured environment, with the idea of accelerating go live accepting best practices because we. My team has done thousands of implementations over the years, so leverage that knowledge and then pre-build [00:12:00] it so that you don't have to start from scratch every time. And um, product management, which is fantastic team here. They kind of picked up on that notion and then built a Trusted Practice Solutions, which was bi vertical and micro vertical. You know, what are the most common things that customers need? And let's start there. And and like you said, I think it's been great. It accelerates, uh, you know, it's great when you log in and you're showing a customer what they have and they go, oh, that's, that's me. And you haven't even talked about a requirement [00:12:30] yet. So they've been they've been very helpful. Um, you know, in terms of developing and technology, that's one of the game changing, I'll say, ways that product management is providing options for us to make implementations faster, quicker, easier, you know, other things that are being worked on, um, something that I participated in my team, uh, data migration Service, affectionately known as DMs. So as everyone knows, data is one of the the big challenges in the implementation. Yeah, the ETL, extract, transform and load the full process. [00:13:00]

Greg Ekker: So what we've been trying to do is come up with easier ways to bring the data out of the legacy system. Um, tools that transform it with, you know, AI intelligence, you know, data deduping, you know, recommended risk errors, uh, automated fixes, things along those lines, you know, more than just Excel, which is what a lot of people use. And then simplifying the load process, whether it's through APIs or, you know, intelligent interface to bring the data in. And so product management, they they work with my team a [00:13:30] lot because they, you know, they come up with great things. But we're on this. You know, we're we're with the customers. So they bounce ideas off us off us to know, you know, is this one of the values of having an internal services team is, you know, you have people on the ground with the customer and you can tap into that as you work on the product. So, um, so we've gotten a beta review of some of the new tools that look really exciting in terms of data transformation and embedding logic into syntax, so that when you have an extract, you don't have to transform it offline into a particular [00:14:00] import template. It'll take the raw file and then suggest to you, based on analyzing the file, which columns mean what. And then you can store that as a map. So the next time you have that legacy system, you instantly have it in essence auto mapped from its raw extract. So there's there's a lot of really cool stuff on the horizon.

Matt Lescault: So I don't want to get in trouble. So I'm not going to say anything very specific, but I've heard some rumblings around a data migration tool that's being co-developed [00:14:30] with maybe another partner that is in beta with your team. Is that what we're talking about here?

Greg Ekker: No, this is a different offering. We worked on that as well. And we've done a number of projects leveraging that tool. Um, and what we want to make sure is that whatever tool we end up moving forward with is partner friendly, so it's easy for any partner to use those same tools. So we're still evaluating which way we're going to go. That's been successful. But we're just trying to see you know what what makes the most sense for for the customer as well [00:15:00] as all of our important partners.

Matt Lescault: So is this other product you're just talking about with the AI internally built or is it a. It's not. So it's not even partner led this one.

Greg Ekker: No. This one is is right where you normally use the import template screen. Yeah. Um there's I think either they may be available now in beta, a handful of them, but there's new versions of them, so it'll be right in the product as opposed to using something third party, which is exciting.

Matt Lescault: Did did you just give a little bit of a, uh, a view [00:15:30] under the curtain if you want to put it that way, that as a partner, I could ask to get beta into this new product and maybe see how it works from a data migration from my implementations.

Greg Ekker: I can't go that far because I will get killed by my product management team. But I you know, I don't know what their plan is in terms of, you know, testing these things out. I just know that, you know, they tend to use us because we're inside the walls. And, you know, we know each other so well through the years, so we just work well together.

Matt Lescault: So what you're saying is no [00:16:00] to the public, unfortunately.

Greg Ekker: I'm saying maybe I'm saying I'm the wrong guy to ask. And if I give you a definite answer, I'm going to get in trouble.

Matt Lescault: No, that's that's fair. That's fair. We don't want you to get in trouble. We don't want we don't want Sage to start not allowing people to come on the podcast and uh, uh, and censoring it. So that's really exciting. Uh, that's that's really exciting. Um, one of the things that I want to bring it back to is you said you were employee number three. How many people do you have in your [00:16:30] implementation department now?

Greg Ekker: Yeah, we have, uh, close to 40 at this point, uh, which is just amazing. And I can say, I mean, I literally love every single one of them. We have such a good team, just such good people who really care about the customers and their experience. Um, right now we're organized into, we'll say four practices. One is the service, the sales team. And they're focused on either new customers or existing customers who have additional needs. They get engaged in and analyze the requirements, [00:17:00] work with the solution consultants, and then put together the proposals and explain who we are, what we do and why we do it, and how we do it as part of the sales process. And then the other practices are general business. So that's kind of a catch all for healthcare, family office, NFP, you name it. And then a software and services practice separate from that focused on those particular industries. And the reason we focus that is they tend to have some of the more complicated modules. So we thought dedicating folks to really become experts in those modules would benefit our customers. [00:17:30] And then last but not least, we have an add ons practice. So when we do sell additional services, customers live. They're buying a new module. We have a team dedicated to serving the existing customer base and that could be advisory services, report development, you name it, whatever they're going through that they might need help with. You know, we dedicated folks to make sure that goes well for them as well.

Matt Lescault: So I have to ask, how many concurrent implementations is your team of 40 doing at any given time?

Greg Ekker: Uh, so for new customers [00:18:00] that aren't yet live, we typically have about 350 to 450 projects active at any given time. Um, each team is a combination of project managers and consultants, senior consultants, principal consultants. Um, so every project has a dedicated project manager. They're usually juggling about 15 to 20 projects at any given time, and then a dedicated consultant or consultants, depending on the requirements and complexity and size. And they're usually juggling about 10 to 15 projects in any given time. And [00:18:30] then our add ons team has 300, 400 active projects and that themselves. And that's usually because there's a lot of advisory. So it's kind of hit and miss as to when somebody might need some help. Um, but yeah, we have generally a lot of projects going on at any given time.

Matt Lescault: The scale of this seems so different than what us as partners are accustomed to or build. Do you have insights into kind of how what the difference is between what the typical partner partners approach is to implementation versus maybe how your team [00:19:00] is doing it, and kind of what you know, where you have come from initially to today and kind of best practices. Is there anything there that you can kind of like shed some light on to?

Greg Ekker: Sure, yeah. Um, so I work closely with the partner services team that they bring a lot of the things that we do, and they develop their own content as well, of course. But, um, they try to share those things with the partner network, things that work. We're we're an experiment type group. So somebody comes up with an idea, say, let's go try [00:19:30] it. If it doesn't work, we don't have to do it twice. But let's let's never stop evolving and try things and see what happens. Um, so one of the things we tried a number of years ago is we if you're a methodology nerd at all, um, which maybe I am an implementation methodology nerd. There's classic model is what's called waterfall. Um, you design it, you document everything, you get a sign off on those requirements, you then document all the solutions, you then go build it. You then go test it and you go live. [00:20:00] And and I would say about ten years ago or so, we realized, first of all, it takes forever. Second of all, usually once you go show the system, the requirements change. So all your documentation has to be updated. And then the reality is no one ever looks at the documents again once the project's over. So we we reinvented the implementation methodology really specific to Intacct because we could with the Intacct product. And the reality is, when you think about a build phase classically that's building something, whether it's coding. [00:20:30] Um, generally you're doing coding, but you don't do any of that with Intacct. It's all configuration based. So we don't need to build, we need to configure. So what we've developed is our own kind of what I call hybrid, agile and methodology and its four phases define where we define the project plan.

Greg Ekker: We define the initial primary requirements for the software. And then the next phase is configure. As I mentioned there's no build. So we were explicit about that. And the way we do it is we [00:21:00] go module by module. So we start with the core modules Glap R or as some call it Glacier and and the company administration module as well as cash management. So that's really the foundation. So we start there. We demonstrate everything the product can do live rather than document everything. If we're really the product is the key. So let's get the product up and visible to the customer. So they already have an idea of what that's going to look like. What we also find doing it the old way was your requirements are based on what you've always [00:21:30] done, but now you have new software and new possibilities. So by showing the software that opens up customers to think differently and go, oh, I've never done that before, that's really neat. So then once we've done that for the core. We can figure it all based on those walkthroughs or meetings. They go test that core set of modules and then the customer signs off. So now we have our foundation in place. And then from there we go to what I like to call the business management modules. Things like purchasing order entry contracts, project costing and billing, you name it. And we layer that [00:22:00] on top and we do it again module by module, piecemeal, um, allowing the customer to focus because it could be different resources at the customer in different modules.

Greg Ekker: Um, but it also it's not trying to do everything at once. And then once we've built or I should say configured all those additional modules, the uh, and they've tested them all and they've signed off on them all. We moved to what's called system readiness. So we finalize all the data, any data that we need to get loaded that we haven't already. And after system readiness, they go live. [00:22:30] And what we do as a best practice is we stay with our customers for 45 days after go live, a phase we call success assurance. So we want to be sure that they are using the system well. And what we found is you do about 90% of the same things month on month. So if we can get you through the first month, generally, you're going to be okay after that. And those additional 15 days are to help with that first month's book closing. And, you know, we make it 15 days because we want to. 15 days can be aggressive for some customers. We're trying to get that close even faster, [00:23:00] but we want to put a little pressure on them to try to achieve at least 15 days. And then it gets easier and easier as you do it over and over again. But went into a lot of detail. But, uh, but that's something that we, we invented ourselves. Um, and actually I looked into patenting it for our team, but, uh, apparently methodologies are hard to patent, so that failed. But we, uh, we've been using it ever since, and we find it to be lean and, you know, cost effective and still end up with the same positive result.

Doug Lewis: So hold on. For anyone listening, kind of. You [00:23:30] just laid a lot on there, which is all really interesting stuff, kind of behind the scenes. But are there any general timelines from the sales process for like first contact to closed deal and then day one implementation to go live. Are there any general like it's it's going to be a three month process on the sales side. It's going to be a four month process. You know, what are some general guidelines that people can understand. Understanding that of course, a larger enterprise account is going to take a lot [00:24:00] longer versus a smaller, quicker one. Industry specialization probably plays a role, but do you have any general guidelines internally that you kind of go by or live by for those two pieces?

Greg Ekker: Yeah, it's a great question. You know, the sales duration can vary. What I always recommend is if you have a go live date in mind, start buying six nine months before that. Allow time for the implementation. It's one of the biggest challenges that we have. The demos are so good, and Estes do such a great job that it looks easy. And then you get into [00:24:30] the implementation and, you know, we try to let customers know assume on average you're going to spend about 10 to 15 hours per week Role on the implementation. Doing various things in any given week could be at the learning Center. Learning about the product or populating data templates, or doing a walkthrough and helping us design the configuration. Um, but that's kind of the the barometer. And then if they can contribute that on average projects usually go live in about three months or so. Um, again, it depends on what [00:25:00] modules they're buying, their availability. As I highlighted, that's one of the biggest risk factors is their availability for the project. But that's typically how long a project takes. And then the sales cycle really just varies as you highlighted by industry or by size. How many people are involved in the sales process? Another challenge we run into, especially with the larger organizations, is, you know, even the smaller ones, really during the sales process, the people buying have a vision for how the software will improve the business, but then they're not the people who are doing [00:25:30] the implementation, it's others. And so if they're not part of the sales process, when we go to engage, you know, there are times where they don't even know what intact is because they just weren't involved. So, you know, it's another recommendation is to make sure that people are going to use the software, are part of the evaluation. You know, they live it every day. They'll know best if it's going to meet their needs. And then that's just that much easier that they've bought in. So when we get to the project, you know they want to be a part of it. They see the value.

Matt Lescault: I have a question because I want to see how how we, [00:26:00] uh, what's the right word, kind of, uh, compare to your team. I want to know the fastest implementation to go live that you've done from start to finish.

Doug Lewis: Post post sales, like complete. Yeah, yeah. No, no. Signed up. Ready to go.

Matt Lescault: Kick off, kick off to to go live.

Greg Ekker: So we offer a variety of services offerings. So we have what we call our bespoke implementation which is we're starting from scratch. We're going to analyze your requirements. We're going to set the system up tailored exactly to your business cases. Those [00:26:30] tend to be, you know, more, more thorough and longer. But we also offer what we call a services package. And that takes advantage of things like a TPS or, you know, some of the items I described. And those can go faster because you're relying on a pre-built environment. And the customer, if they, if they understand what they're buying, are accepting that, hey, this is going to be 80% of the 80 or 90% of the way there. But that's good enough. And it allows me to get live faster. So the fastest projects that we've done can be as as quickly as 30 days. We can get a customer [00:27:00] live in a month. Um, we've had others.

Matt Lescault: You make me feel good because we have we have done a couple in a 3 or 4 week period of time, but it's a it's a sprint.

Greg Ekker: It's a sprint. And I always tell customers, you know, you can get what you give, as the old saying goes. So don't think 10 to 15 hours a week in that scenario. It's going to take a lot more. But that's okay. If you, you know, as the old saying goes, we'll give it the old college try. And if you can put in that time, we can definitely make that happen. And another offering that we have, [00:27:30] it doesn't fit everybody, but we call it zero days to go live and it's really for existing or excuse me, former customers who've now moved to a new business they know intact. Well, we'll provide them a pre-configured environment and some advisory services. And because they know how to use Intacct, they could theoretically go live the day it's provisioned for them, because they already know how to dive in and get work done. And then the advisory services are there. If they run into any stumbling blocks or have any questions, those don't come up too often. But we do have a number of people who've moved around to other businesses and they [00:28:00] say, I want Intacct here. And and that works for them as well.

Doug Lewis: So you have the ability to flip the switch within 24 hours, essentially, and get up and running for someone who knows the system well.

Matt Lescault: Are you sure you actually.

Matt Lescault: Want to tell people this, Greg?

Greg Ekker: It's not for sale.

Doug Lewis: His sales team is sitting there, like.

Greg Ekker: Right salivating. But, uh, it's not for everybody. You got to be a former Intacct user who can demonstrate that they know what they're talking about. Otherwise, we're setting everybody up to fail, and there's no point in buying something that isn't going to work.

Matt Lescault: Well, [00:28:30] you know, in case my team is listening, um, I have a personal goal that I'm I'm constructing of how we deploy in two weeks or preconfigured templates and we deploy. And my concept is kind of a reverse implementation. I'm not going to go too far into it. I don't want to give away too many secrets. And I actually need to have it off. Uh, off recording conversation with Greg about my thought to make sure I'm not completely crazy. Um, but, uh, like, you [00:29:00] know, I think one of the key components of success with intact and what is really being driven from a leadership is how do we, you know, increase speed to delivery speed to to go live that, you know, part of the complex, uh, nature of intact is that it takes so long and it's hard from a sales perspective when somebody wants to get up right away or when it comes to, you know, on a smaller business perspective. Or they can, you know, considering this versus a Intuit product [00:29:30] or a another product. So, um, you know, speed delivery is an important part of how we can be successful as implementation partners.

Greg Ekker: Yeah, we're always as my team knows, we're always trying to figure out new ways to make it faster, cheaper and easier. Um, you know, we joke that if the sales process is kind of the honeymoon phase of of the of the whole experience, the implementation is the marriage 20 years later, it can be tough. And, um, so [00:30:00] the easier we can make it for customers, the better experience they can have, the less we have to have them involved in defining what they need. Um, the more we can give them right, right out of the box, it just makes it that much better for them. Um, and I and I know and I highlighted the, the data migration elements. We talked about the TPS. It is definitely a focus to try to, you know, reduce the the effort and cost and duration of an implementation. And [00:30:30] the good news is, you know, service providers might think, well, that puts us at risk. It really doesn't. It just means you may be working on more things at any given time, but the volume will be there as opposed to the the heavy hours on any particular project.

Matt Lescault: Look, I think as service providers, we need to focus on value added services. What is phase two and three after Go live? How can we show clients how to really extend the product? How can we use smart events and smart rules? How can we show [00:31:00] them? Show them the deep customization of reporting? How can we show them that dashboards can be that much more for them? How can we really get the client to reinvest the money that they spent previously on the implementation into really value added solutions that Intacct provides? That's that's my mentality. You know, the implementation is kind of if you think about data migration, we're worried about old data that people really they think they care about, but they really don't because they care about where they're going forward. Implementation. [00:31:30] We're focused on how they're operating today because we're trying to get them into a product in a way that they're operating today, not about how they could operate later. So from my side of things, it's like that's all kind of the we have to do, not the how we actually create the long term value. And I've used that word enough times now. But the long term success for the customers. So I'm with you. Keep doing what you're doing. Let's make these implementations easier, faster and smarter is my [00:32:00] opinion.

Greg Ekker: Yeah.

Greg Ekker: No, I completely agree. And, uh, you know, you highlighted something which a lot of customers struggle with is, you know, I just want to get up and running. I want to be on my new system. But there's so much that Intacct can do that transforms the way you do business. And it's hard to get all that done and get live and just using. So, you know, you highlight a really good point, which is, you know, the implementation is just a milestone when it's over. It's not the end of the journey. You should really be thinking about that phase two and phase three. And how [00:32:30] do we how do we make it more than just a ledger or a transaction recording machine, but actually take advantage of the multiple dimensions? Um, the advanced report writers, the dashboards, the, the APIs to do integrations or push data in and out. There's just so many possibilities. I don't want to overwhelm, but at the same time, you know, you got to got to think a little different. And, you know, this isn't just recording transactions anymore. You can do so much more.

Matt Lescault: Now here [00:33:00] I'm going to try to get you in trouble. And you could you could plead the fifth if you want. Tell me your least favorite module in fintech.

Greg Ekker: Uh, there's no such thing. I don't know what you're talking about.

Matt Lescault: He just. He just pled the fifth. Did you hear that, Doug?

Doug Lewis: Yeah. There's. There's about 20s we just cut out of this thing, so, I don't know. The tape is, you know, the tape is gone.

Greg Ekker: It's like.

Greg Ekker: It's like asking, you know, who's your favorite child? You know you can't. There's no such thing.

Doug Lewis: Everybody has one. Come on.

Matt Lescault: Well, I. [00:33:30]

Matt Lescault: Was going to say, I.

Matt Lescault: Just tell. I tell both.

Matt Lescault: Of my kids they're my favorite when the other one's not around, and they'll eventually figure it out.

Greg Ekker: Right. Yeah. Hopefully they don't talk. Yeah.

Doug Lewis: That and the fact that they're not even your kids, that's, you know, so they'll figure it all out one day. But Greg, you've kind of talked about a lot of the advancements, um, you know, different features that are coming kind of what's down the pipeline from a development standpoint. Is there kind of an internal maybe even this is like a personal goal for you where we want implementation time to get to here. [00:34:00] You know, is it like we want three weeks across the board understanding it's going to vary a little bit. But like, do you have some type of goal from that perspective on how to get these things quicker, leaner, faster.

Greg Ekker: You know, not necessarily a goal. You know, I'm not establishing a duration up front. You know, different projects varied customers vary. Um, so I try to keep that in mind. And I wouldn't want to put that kind of pressure on, on my team to, you know, artificially achieve something. Just because it sounds [00:34:30] good. Um, back to Matt's point. We want to protect those who do the service. Um, but it's a great question. So the way we, we try to do that is learning through past projects what things take less time than we estimated? Can we reduce our estimates? How could we do something differently, like taking advantage of TPS, for example? Um, that could reduce effort. So we're we're constantly refining, um, how we do things and questioning the way we've done things in the past. And the good news with that is, as as [00:35:00] you know, there's four releases a year of new features and functionality that come out from product management. So how do those things change what we do that might make things easier than they were in the past? It's funny because, uh, so we use a pricing model to estimate what we think a project will take in terms of duration and effort. And it's all based on conversations in the sales process that my services sales team does. But that thing has changed a thousand times in the past 19 years. I mean, it's constantly being evolved. I you know, I looked at one [00:35:30] about six months ago, one of my original ones that I built from like 2007 or 8. It's just comical. I mean, the product is so much bigger, but also just our approach to figuring out what it takes has, has evolved significantly. And that's not all me. I mean, it's a credit to the team as well. You know, it takes it takes the whole the whole team to really transform the way we do things.

Doug Lewis: And part of part of the evolution, I'm sure, is continuous advancement in technology, of course. But you brought up something earlier too, the CAD accounting. Sorry, cloud accounting. Um, in the sense that. [00:36:00] So I do a lot of M&A transactions of accounting firms, accounting firm to accounting firm transaction and occasionally my team trips across a firm that's so legacy run that they're not even in the cloud. They're quite literally still doing everything on paper file cabinets, hosting on site, all that fun stuff. Do you come across that still in in any industries that you work in where people are looking to explore intact? But then you go in and go, wow, this is we're so far away from even trying [00:36:30] to implement this because of these legacy systems that are in place. Or is that something you see regularly still or like, can you talk to that a little bit?

Greg Ekker: Yeah. We do. Uh, um, it's usually smaller businesses, um, not picking on any vertical per se, but it tends to be like a smaller business that has reached a point where they may feel that I need to take advantage of this new technology. Everybody's talking about, you know, SaaS solutions and things like that. But they don't really they don't really understand [00:37:00] what they're getting. We had a customer not that long ago who, you know, on our kickoff call for the project. He said, when can I expect you here to set everything up? And, you know, it's cloud based accounting and financial management software. So we were like, well, uh, never because it's all in the cloud. You know, you should have received a provisioning notice. That's how you log in. Et cetera. Et cetera. But literally it was this year, 2024. Yeah. Um, where they were expecting us to come on site and set up machines. Yeah, like install.

Doug Lewis: A server on site. [00:37:30] Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Ekker: Yes.

Doug Lewis: That's interesting.

Greg Ekker: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Well, I have a question. You know, intact or Sage, I should say Sage is very much a partner led organization. It's kind of the business model. Now, obviously you're an internal team doing implementations. What's the thought process around deciding whether to take a project internally versus bringing a partner in? What does that look like from a decision making process?

Greg Ekker: Yeah, it's a great question. Um, you know, a [00:38:00] lot of factors. We, you know, geography could be part of it. A size, um, past experiences, um, success record. Um, Sage also likes to consider, you know, fairly or unfairly, you know, what has the partner done for Sage? You know, we like to reward our partners who bring us business, who, you know, contribute in other ways. And by deciding on a direct new opportunity, which service provider is going to be Selected. You know, those are some of the factors as far as whether internally [00:38:30] it's really a lot of the same things. Um, you know, is it a strategic customer that we want to keep close? Um, do we have capacity and we just need business, you know, could be a variety of things, but it's, you know, attempted to be done intelligently and fairly and absolutely that such a strong partner network. And they're so important to the success of Sage and Sage Intacct. And, you know, spawning question from that is, so how do you guys exist if it's all partner driven? So as I highlighted, you know, that there's [00:39:00] ways in which we can be utilized strategically. Obviously we work with product management. You know, we we take on certain projects. We take on certain challenges that, um, you know, you might not put onto a partner because maybe it wouldn't be profitable. So, you know, we're a break even organization. Whereas a partner might obviously a services led partner. They're looking to generate revenue. As you highlighted, phase two, phase three. That's not our focus. As much as customer having success. The subscription is the key. Uh, so, um, hopefully that [00:39:30] gave you some insight into the question.

Matt Lescault: So what you're saying to all the partners that are listening, that Christmas gifts are really helpful in, uh, in the overall Sage ecosystem?

Greg Ekker: No no no, no, definitely no.

Greg Ekker: Not corrupting the purchasing and decision making process.

Doug Lewis: No no no no no. Just just to you personally, Greg.

Greg Ekker: Oh, well, in that.

Doug Lewis: Case, yes. Not. No.

Doug Lewis: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doug Lewis: And your home address, just for all of our listeners, just everybody knows your home address.

Greg Ekker: No, no, nothing like that.

Matt Lescault: No, no, look, I.

Greg Ekker: Used [00:40:00] to do, um. Yeah. I previously worked at a company where we did buyer and, uh, spend management consulting, and that was one of the first rules is, you know, no gifts, no corruption, and, you know, no corrupting the decision making process of which vendors to use and things like that. So we would never do that.

Matt Lescault: No and I absolute joke. I think the important part there that you highlighted is aligning the right partner with the right customer based on skill set culture perspective. You [00:40:30] know?

Greg Ekker: Absolutely.

Matt Lescault: You know, and just.

Greg Ekker: What's most important? Being live fast cost. Um, you know, we have, you know, partners. We're fortunate. We have partners who you know, what industry are they in? Do they want particular expertise? Do they may be moving to intact, but they also need accounting services as well, or an outsourced CFO. Or they want industry expertise that to evolve their business. And so those are also factors as to you know, fortunately we have so many great partners that, you know, we can [00:41:00] line those things up and give a customer a great experience.

Matt Lescault: Well, what what.

Matt Lescault: You know, what I can attest to is just sort of like the approach that I've seen with our own firm and how, you know, we're brought into specific deals. But there's other times where we've been asked questions and we'll say, hey, it's probably not the best place for us to, you know, I don't know that we can bring success for that deal because of X, Y, or Z, and we can have that open conversation, whether that's with yourself or with the sales reps, the reps, or whoever's in that process at the time of of assessment. [00:41:30] Um, I appreciate that because, you know, at the end of the day, if I'm not getting good reviews, if I'm not being successful as an implementer, it's going to tarnish my, my, my ability to to have trust or it's going to break down that trust with, uh, with intact with Sage. And so that's, that's a really important part of what, you know, what that looks like. And I'm really happy with sort of how that's been approached, at least for us. And I can't speak for other partners, obviously.

Greg Ekker: Yeah I mean, you highlight something that's important is that trust [00:42:00] and, you know, a healthy relationship communication and say, say, you know, no one is trying to force anybody to do something that they're not comfortable with. And we do have that, you know, back and forth, open dialog. Hey, this this is not one for us. And that's okay. We'll find you a different one. And you know that that ability to not just take it and actually be able to share your your, you know, your thoughts and feelings on on what's been provided to you is is really a testament to the culture. It's it's not always like that [00:42:30] at companies where, you know, things are forced on people and you have to deal with it. It's definitely, definitely if that's happening, let me know. But it's definitely not the case here.

Matt Lescault: No, look, I've I've felt very supported around the process. And so I just I just wanted to highlight that, you know, all jokes aside, I think that, you know, alignment of of opportunities with, with appropriate solution providers is a key because what I've always talked about internally and whoever else will listen to me is the [00:43:00] success of implementations isn't just about that one implementation, it's about the entire ecosystem. So if there's good reviews across the board, we're going to gain trust of the customers. We're going to be able to increase market share. And we as a collective group of providers, of intact solutions, of Sage solutions can, can, Can lean on that from from our own sales process. Our own close process. And if we start seeing degradation in quality, that then [00:43:30] becomes and we all know a client is far more likely to tell you about a bad experience than a good one.

Greg Ekker: Right?

Greg Ekker: I call that good tie. Bad tie. When you wear a good tie, no one notices. But when you wear a bad tie, everyone notices.

Matt Lescault: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: And, uh, and I think I, you know, I think it's so important to, to protect that and protect that, that brand. Um, with that being said, I think we're getting close to our our closing time here. Doug, [00:44:00] any last questions?

Doug Lewis: Uh, yeah. Last one for you, Greg. And it's sure we've we've not really plugged anything this whole time. Right. So I'll give you the opportunity to just crap all over your competitors. Know if somebody is considering a change. Honestly, just as in the least salesy way you can possibly imagine, why. Sage Intacct.

Greg Ekker: Uh, well, I would say, as I highlighted at the beginning, good product, good people. I've [00:44:30] had a 30 year career. I've been here 19 years of that. And I think that's a testament to why you would want to work with a company and use the software of Sage Intacct. It's it's people like that who care, who have been here a long time, who want to do the right thing. And that culture is critical as as I often say. And my team would laugh because they hear it enough. But we're the people who tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. And that's not always an easy message to deliver or receive, but that's the person [00:45:00] you want to partner with and trust. Um, because, you know, anybody can tell you what you want to hear and that's how they get you to buy. But we'll tell you when it's not the right thing or that, you know, no, that's not possible. Here's what's possible and that's okay. Um, and those are reasons why, you know, I think Sage Intacct is in the least salesy, salesy way I can. Sage Intacct is a great option for people to choose.

Doug Lewis: Like that and to cap it. So I usually throw out a terrible [00:45:30] dad joke at the end of these things. Matt attempted 1 or 2 to date.

Matt Lescault: It was one and I'm never doing it again.

Doug Lewis: Yeah, sorry.

Doug Lewis: He's not funny. He's not enjoyable to listen to. He doesn't know any jokes now. So, Greg, I gotta know. Yeah. Do you have a good dad joke on hand?

Greg Ekker: So here's the thing is, my family ridicules me for my terrible jokes. My dad jokes. And for some reason or another, nothing is coming to me right now. You're kidding me. Disappoint everyone in my household. But, [00:46:00] uh, I need a minute to come up with one. It's. It's crazy that nothing's just popping into my head.

Doug Lewis: You gotta give me. Give me the last one. You did. How about that? Let's, like, throw that one out there.

Greg Ekker: Well, why? Why didn't Adam and Eve have a date?

Doug Lewis: Oh, I'm gonna say something about an apple. Yeah, something with an apple.

Greg Ekker: An apple. Not a date.

Doug Lewis: Oh, jeez.

Greg Ekker: That's terrible.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. You weren't kidding. You weren't kidding. Terrible dad jokes.

Greg Ekker: That is [00:46:30] horrendous. But it is.

Doug Lewis: It is enjoyable.

Greg Ekker: Hopefully nobody's ears are bleeding after hearing that.

Doug Lewis: But no, just from the first, you know, 40 minutes of this thing. Not the not the last.30s.

Greg Ekker: Yeah, exactly.

Doug Lewis: Well, Greg, thanks for joining us. Honestly it is it has been interesting to get the insider view. Um, hope to have you back at some point down the road, too, so we can actually we can get some updates on some of the kind of future, you know, little teases you dropped out here and some of the features coming out.

Greg Ekker: Yeah, that sounds great. I'd love to be back. I've had a great time. You guys are a lot [00:47:00] of fun to talk to and ask great questions. So I'm I'm happy to come back anytime. I really appreciate you having me on.

Matt Lescault: Oh thank you. I mean, I, I do appreciate it and I, I do want to say one thing that, uh, should be highlighted here. I mean, having somebody like yourself at Sage Intacct, um, run the professional services, having that knowledge of 19 years, really coming out and understanding where the product has come from and where it's going. I think that that is such [00:47:30] a differentiator within the ecosystem, because I'm sure that other products have seen many people in your position come and go, come and go, and they don't have that background. They don't have that, uh, that, that history that allows you to, to do the job that you do. And so I think that is super important to the success of how, uh, Intacct is operated. So I want to say that. Thank you. It was wonderful to have you on. Yeah.

Greg Ekker: Thank you.Very much.

Matt Lescault: We'll get you back here. Don't worry. [00:48:00]

Greg Ekker: Sounds good to me.I'll have another dad joke. I'll be prepared this time.

Doug Lewis: Yes.

Matt Lescault: Here we go. Yes,

Doug Lewis: There we go.

Doug Lewis: Thanks, Greg.

Greg Ekker: Yeah. Thanks a lot, guys. Take care.