Many construction companies find themselves struggling with the limitations of entry-level accounting solutions like QuickBooks. This traditional platform lacks the capability to support the complex needs of growing construction companies, leading to numerous challenges such as manual data entry, error-prone calculations, inefficient processes, and a lack of real-time visibility into financial health. To overcome these challenges, many companies have recognized the need to adopt Sage Intacct Construction, a robust, cloud-based solution tailored specifically for the construction industry. Sage Intacct empowers you to manage every aspect of your business within a single solution, enabling timely, data-driven decisions with full visibility into your operations. This flexible system is equipped with advanced features that streamline operations, enhance accuracy, and support informed decision-making in the ever-evolving construction landscape. Below we explore the 7 key areas where Sage Intacct excels over QuickBooks and why it stands as the superior choice for growing construction companies:
1. Multi-Entity Consolidations
If your construction company operates in multiple locations, managing inter-entity transactions and consolidations can be a complex challenge. Sage Intacct Construction excels in this regard, offering advanced multi-entity consolidation capabilities that surpass QuickBooks.
Sage Intacct is designed to support the needs of construction companies operating across multiple entities, in various locations, dealing with multiple currencies, and serving multiple users. The platform’s consolidated environment enables you to easily transition between entities, seamlessly sharing company data such as vendors, customers, GL accounts, departments, and more. In contrast, QuickBooks treats each entity as a separate environment, requiring manual consolidation and time- consuming processes in Excel. This includes the creation of due to/due from postings, as well as the recreation of GL accounts in each separate entity.
You can further streamline the consolidation process by utilizing Sage Intacct’s multi-entity mapping functionality, which automates the creation of elimination entries. This automation significantly reduces manual tasks, saving you and your team valuable time and providing immediate visibility into results. QuickBooks lacks the built-in capabilities for handling these complex processes, leaving you dependent on spreadsheets and manual data entry.
2. Enhanced Reporting & Dashboards
Accurate and timely financial reporting is crucial for construction companies, and Sage Intacct Construction offers an extensive range of reporting capabilities that go beyond what is available in QuickBooks. QuickBooks is not equipped with built-in reporting capabilities, forcing users to perform manual reporting in Excel spreadsheets. This manual process can lead to entry errors, incorrect or outdated data, process inefficiencies, and wasted time and resources for your construction company.
On the other hand, Sage Intacct handles all reporting directly within the system, eliminating the need for spreadsheets and time-consuming manual calculations. It offers flexible report templates, dashboards, Excel-like formulas, and customizable financial statements to meet specific reporting requirements. With the ability to create and view real-time reports and dashboards, you gain complete visibility into your cash flow, empowering you to make informed financial decisions.
The system is equipped with advanced reporting tools, such as financial charts and the Interactive Custom Report Writer (ICRW), allowing you to drill, pivot, and filter data easily. This can help improve your business insights and enhance day-to-day accounting operations.
3. Job Dimensions & AP Automation
Sage Intacct Construction stands out from QuickBooks with its job dimension capabilities, allowing you to create detailed job records and track job costs, revenue, and profitability on a per-project basis. The system lets you represent project work in a visual hierarchy by utilizing the project, task, and cost type dimensions, known as a work breakdown structure (WBS). This enables users to measure project cost and productivity throughout the entire job lifecycle.
In addition, Sage Intacct’s the Accounts Payable (AP) software automates manual AP processes and eliminates inefficient workflows. It covers everything from vendor and bill creation to approvals, payments, reconciliation, and reporting, providing an all-in-one solution for managing your entire AP process. You have the ability to email your invoices directly into the system and use advanced scanning to transfer that data, eliminating manual processes.
4. A Customizable Platform
Every construction company has unique needs, and QuickBooks’ one-size-fits-all platform can hinder your company’s growth potential. Sage Intacct’s customizable platform is purposefully designed to meet your requirements, offering construction-specific functionalities.
Unlike QuickBooks, Sage Intacct allows you to create additional customized workflows, data entries, and journal entries that would otherwise need to be performed manually. You can leverage the platform’s open APIs to automate these processes using system triggers. This could involve triggering actions based on specific events and conditions, such as creating a journal entry or adjustment, automating invoice approvals, generating and sending invoices, and streamlining other accounting and financial processes. For example, if a project’s attributes change, you can set up a system trigger that generates a new workflow tailored to those specific project changes, effectively eliminating the need for manual and time-consuming processes.
5. Advanced Invoicing
As a construction company, managing and processing payments can be time-consuming and complicated. Sage Intacct Construction’s advanced system allows you to automate your invoicing process. Invoices are automatically generated and sent to customers, reducing the time and effort required to manage this task manually. Users can create customized American Institute of Architects (AIA) templates directly in the system to guarantee an efficient and error-free invoice process. The system also allows you to set up workflows for AR invoices, ensuring that invoices are sent out promptly and accurately.
In addition, Sage Intacct includes a feature for processing retainage within the system. This allows you to bill construction retainage when generating project contract invoices. You can easily deduct retainage from both vendor and customer invoices.
6. Open API Integrations
Unlike QuickBooks, Sage Intacct is designed specifically to integrate with other essential business systems that you need to run your construction company smoothly, including various project management, document management, payroll, and CRM systems. The open API allows you to seamlessly connect to existing or future systems, so you can leverage key data from the field, payroll, budgeting, customer relationship management solutions, and others to track critical metrics, bridging the gap between accounting and operations. The native integrations eliminate time-consuming manual data entry, improve overall efficiency, and help to enhance data accuracy and consistency across systems. With Sage Intacct Construction, you get an all-in-one solution that allows you to see real-time information and make more informed business decisions. Explore the Sage Intacct Marketplace to discover other best-in-class applications you can integrate with your accounting system to extend your success in the cloud.
7. Seamless Closing Process
QuickBooks does not provide the ability to lock down a period upon closing, a feature seamlessly offered by Sage Intacct Construction. When you close a period in Sage Intacct, it becomes locked, preventing any further transactions from being entered in that period. Users with access privileges can still open and post transactions within the closed period, but these entries are recorded separately in a different journal, making it easy to track changes. You also have the flexibility to close based on entity, company, and subsidiary depending on your specific closing procedures. These features provide users with a seamless and user-friendly closing process, enhancing overall efficiency
The CompuData Difference – Choosing the Right Sage Intacct Construction Partner
It is essential to work with a partner that understands how construction companies do business and can help design a financial management solution tailored to your specific needs.
CompuData is a leading Sage Diamond Partner with over 30 years’ experience migrating and implementing Sage solutions. Our team of certified Sage Intacct Construction consultants have the expertise, resources, and methodology needed to support you. CompuData was recognized by Sage Intacct as a top performing Sage Intacct partner in 2022 for our success in helping our clients leverage the power of Sage Intacct to improve their business.
