Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate to Sage Intacct Construction: Upgrading to Cloud Accounting Software

How A Sage Intacct Cloud Accounting Upgrade Saved A Construction Company 20 Hours A Month In Forced Downtime

Delta Constructors is an innovative, self-performing construction company specialized in the Upstream and Midstream oil and gas industries. In recent years the company’s client-driven partnership business model has allowed it to gain major contracts and experience massive expansion into a variety of regions including Alaska, Texas, and New Mexico.

Delta’s consistent growth and profitability is due to its ability to be nimble and reactive. With over 700 employees and a project-based business model that’s highly susceptible to oil price swings, internal systems need to be able to handle increases in transactional volumes without the need to bring on new personnel.

THE PROBLEM

Issues with Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate - an outdated, aging platform.

Unfortunately, the finance and accounting team’s reliance on Sage 300 CRE, an on-premise, rigid and aging accounting platform, presented a multitude of challenges with respect to scalability, automation, and workflow.

1. Reliance on slow third party software leads to inaccurate reporting

Brandi Zeman, Business Manager at Delta Constructors recalls the long and winding process of creating simple reports with Sage 300. “We had a consultant on hand, and any time we needed a report available to us, we would have to contact her, have the report built, and go back and forth before we could actually use or publish it.”

Delta’s senior accountant and controller would also spend over 6-8 hours a month manually calculating fixed assets using third-party software, which involved further reconciliation, formatting, and error debugging before finally uploading to the Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate system.

2. Payroll processing dilemmas

During payroll processing, the entire Delta team had to log out of the Sage 300 CRE system for at least 1 hour per week, which greatly hindered productivity.

Brandi recalls more than a few instances in which an issue was discovered during processing. “The whole company [was] down for almost a half day trying to figure out the error so that we could continue to process payroll.”

3. Rigid general ledger system prevents accurate cross-entity transaction reporting

As an international company operating across 3 different regions in North America, Delta Constructors regularly ran into issues when it came to reconciling cross-entity transactions.

This especially came into play with Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate’s rigid general and sub-ledger system. As Brandi notes, “We were constantly trying to keep them balanced. It was easy, surprisingly, to get them out of balance, and then you would have to research what causes your variances.”

THE SOLUTION

Upgrading to Sage Intacct Construction Cloud Accounting Software

In 2019, Delta Constructors began realizing the need for a more robust and modern HRMS system. Further research confirmed that integration between Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate and a new HRMS system would prove both costly and time-consuming.

John Farner, CFO of Delta, reached out to Nick, CEO of Sockeye, to discuss the challenges that he and his team were facing with their current system, and to explore options to upgrade to a new accounting platform. Ultimately, the decision was made to leverage Sage Intacct Construction and Real Estate, a scalable and automatable cloud-based platform featuring robust integration abilities (API) with other “best in class” software.

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How the Sage Intacct Cloud Accounting Upgrade has automated Delta’s workflows

1. Month-end and quarterly reports at a click of a button

“Financial reporting in Intacct is the best I’ve seen”, says John. This comes, in large part, due to the general ledger feature. Sage Intacct Construction and Real Estate also utilizes a Dimensions feature, which as John notes, has facilitated closing. “Time to close has decreased significantly. We are now able to constantly close the books at month-end on a timely basis. 2019 was our first year on Intacct, despite this and having our highest gross revenues ever we were able to complete our audit in record time.”

"We are now able to consistently close the books at month-end on a timely basis. 2019 was our first year on Intacct, despite this and having our highest gross revenues ever, we were able to complete our audit in record time."

John Farner, CFO of Delta Constructors

2. Real-time Dashboards enhances monitoring capabilities

John notes that one of the most visible improvements from switching to Sage Intacct is the ability to use Dashboards to present relevant data in an easy and efficient way to managers. “In the past, Delta would send out excel-based reports that managers would review, then request more detail as needed. This required an analyst to generate that report, which takes quite a bit of time," John says. Now, it just takes one click of the mouse to get the same information.

3. Automated payroll processing and fixed asset accounting

Posting payroll in Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate required the entire team to log out of the system for at least 1 hour per week. Now, Delta’s team can continue working in the system while payroll is being processed, with no interruption in business. Revision updates within Sage Intacct now happen seamlessly behind the scenes.

Sage Intacct’s fixed asset module allows the senior accountant to calculate and post depreciation immediately, and on an automated monthly basis. This has saved the team 6-8 hours a month and also eliminated the need for third party fixed asset accounting software.

THE OUTCOME

Streamlined processes shift Delta’s focus from playing catch-up, to financial analysis that’s forward-looking.

With over 20 hours per month in increased productivity per month, there are now 3 main areas in which Delta’s accounting and FP&A team has been actively reinvesting their time - with the goal of building out business.

Accounts payable/ maintaining clean records

Delta’s accounts payable team is now able to focus on ensuring that payables are not only caught up, but moving through the system on time and efficiently. Likewise, they’re now able to utilize this extra time to ensure that all information in the system is accurate and up-to-date - something the Delta team was constantly struggling with before.

Financial analysis/ analytics

Brandi notes, “We have been able to dive more into the data that's hitting the system… doing more analytics and making sure that we have the reporting tools and information that the project teams need.”

Project reporting and KPIs

With Sage Intacct's interactive custom report writer feature, the team is now able to develop financial reports to “summarize project cost data in categories, for quick overviews of project performance”. Delta is able to break down costs by project-specific items like materials, sub-contractors and labor. From there, the team is able to easily track man hours, cost per man hour, equipment hours, and other costs.

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How A Sage Intacct Cloud Accounting Upgrade Saved A Construction Company 20 Hours A Month In Forced Downtime

Read Sockeye's case study to learn more about how Delta Constructors choice to upgrade from Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate to Sage Intacct Construction has positively impacted their business operations. View, print, or share the PDF below.

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Make the Switch to Sage Intacct and Get Total Control of Your Project Financial Management

When you make the switch to Sage Intacct, you can expect to cut your close time in half each month. Finance teams typically see a productivity boost of 40 percent or more. And with Sockeye support, you’ll always have a trusted partner by your side making sure your software is helping you stay proactive and maximize your profitability.