When is the “Right” Time to Switch from Sage 300 CRE to Sage Intacct Construction?
Choosing a financial management solution for your construction company can be a complicated and time-intensive process. But whether you’re a general or specialty contractor, residential or commercial real estate developer, or even a property management company, Sage’s financial product suite boasts the largest footprint in North America. Over 50,000 construction companies rely on Sage to drive success in over 7 million sub-contracts, 500,000 construction projects, and 600,000 rental units.
The bulk of that is made up of two Sage products - Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate (300 CRE), and Sage 100 Contractor. For over 30 years, these two have held the helm as arguably the best-performing financial management products on the market.
But now, there’s a third option - a cloud-based solution born out of a union between the award-winning, Sage Intacct ecosystem and the workhorse engine of Sage 300 CRE. It’s name: Sage Intacct Construction.
This leaves an obvious question in the minds of decision makers in many construction and real estate companies: Is this cause to start immediately thinking about switching to cloud-based Sage Intacct Construction?
To find an answer, we tapped into the expertise of John Keaton and Jeff Williamson, strategic partners to Sockeye and co-owners of sky-line, a Portland-based technology solutions company delivering turnkey software solutions for the construction industry.
“The answer is, it depends. It depends on the current situation and needs of the client… but we are excited about the capabilities of cloud-based Sage Intacct Construction,” says John Keaton.
“The great thing about Sage CRE is that, on its own, it’s a complete solution that lets you manage your entire construction project or property lifecycle. On the other hand, an upgrade to cloud-based Intacct Construction does provide several interesting additions and new ways of doing things that could prove to be worth the migration”, says Jeff Williamson of Sky-line.
In concrete terms, there are several areas that make Sage Intacct Construction an interesting consideration for upgrading from Sage 300 CRE or Sage 100 Contractor.
Cloud-based access, improved user interface
“One of the big challenges construction and real estate companies face these days is wanting connectivity from anywhere,” says Jeff. This is where a cloud-based solution like Sage Intacct Construction can really fit the bill.
First, being cloud-based provides unlimited access from anywhere. There’s no reliance on on-premise servers or infrastructure, no need to maintain networks/IT staff, and no more issues when trying to remotely access the system using hardware that could potentially lead to issues.
A second - and equally important - headache that John and Jeff both encounter has to do with versioning control of client systems. “Version control and year-end updates can be difficult to keep track of and deal with,” says Jeff. With Intacct Construction, that concern is nonexistent, as everybody’s on the same web-based version.
Likewise, an upgrade to Intacct Construction provides a much-needed user interface upgrade.
Reporting and dashboards make visualizing data easier
“When it comes to getting at the data, Sage 300 CRE is quite robust, but it’s definitely more report-centric,” says Jeff.
“On top of that, reporting in Sage 300 CRE requires the use of external reporting engines to be able to report against data within the ERP system,” he says.
With Sage Intacct Construction, reporting can be as “report-centric”, or as visual, as you’d like. Using the Dashboards feature and KPIs, you can visualize your data in ways that were previously not possible. On top of that, all reporting is being done with the same application and UI - all within Sage Intacct’s web interface.
And for current users of Sage 300 CRE, while all this may seem a bit foreign, you can take comfort in the following news: Intacct, like 300 CRE, works very well with Excel - but without the need for a costly Sage module. “Importing and exporting Excel reports natively with Sage Intacct is a big plus,” says John.
Customization and seamless 3rd party integration with 200+ providers - including most Sage 300 apps
Perhaps the most impressive feature that Sage Intacct Construction boasts is its 3rd party-friendly integration capabilities.
The Sage Intacct Marketplace features 3rd party software integrations from over 200 different developers and companies that can be set up with just a click of a button, compared to the roughly 30 direct integrations available with Sage 300 CRE.
Most Sage 300 CRE direct integrations, like Procore and TimberScan, are already available within the Sage Intacct Marketplace. Along with construction and real estate-specific apps, the Intacct Marketplace also features AP/AR automations, budgeting and planning, CRM, project management, and more.
Intacct as a platform allows you to extend out and create vendor portals, customer portals, brand new applications within the software that can be really unique for these companies. This is a great advantage for general contractors, who frequently like the ability to extend out the system and don’t want to be limited by an older codebase.
Migrating from Sage 300 CRE to Sage Intacct Construction means that your accounting team doesn’t have to learn a whole new system, or throw out everything they were doing and start over. The great part is, there’s no rush to have to make that change. Whether you prefer an on-premise or cloud-based solution, both platforms are safe investments that will continue to have viable roadmaps into the future.
CASE STUDY
How A Sage Intacct Cloud Accounting Upgrade Saved A Construction Company 20 Hours A Month In Forced Downtime
Delta Constructors, a self-performing construction company operating across 3 different regions in North America, recently upgraded their aging accounting system to Sage Intacct Construction Cloud Accounting. CFO John Farner said Sockeye’s implementation of Sage Intacct was “the best I’ve ever seen”.
Sage Intacct Construction
Sockeye + Sage Intacct enables construction companies to become proactive business leaders with total control over every aspect of project financial management.