Sage Intacct – the future of finance in SA

Netesh Maharajh, Director, ALNET Technologies. (Image: ALNET Technologies)

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According to Sage Platinum partner, ALNET Technologies, South Africa’s finance professionals face mounting pressure to modernise, move to the cloud, automate and thus reduce costs and increase profit margins.

Netesh Maharajh, Director, ALNET Technologies, says growing cloud adoption bears testament to this trend. “A survey conducted by Statista in South Africa reports that over 40% of surveyed organisations have migrated more than half their workloads, primarily using hybrid models and a strong emphasis on infrastructure as a service (IaaS) initially. It notes this has been followed by platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). Statista projects significant growth for South Africa's public cloud market, with revenue expected to reach $6.04 billion in 2025 and grow to $17.42 billion by 2030, driven by a 23.59% annual growth rate. These are significant stats that represent the drive within the country for digital transformation,” says Maharajh.

He adds today’s accounting and finance leaders are expected to not only keep track of past transactions but also to provide a vision for how to move forward. “They are making concerted efforts to use their resources as efficiently as possible in the hyper-competitive financial services market. Streamlining and optimising finance processes is one of the most important investments a business can make to help ensure long-term sustainability,” he says.

“Sage Intacct has emerged as a market leader in the finance sector, with many leaders considering it to be the finance backbone for growth in South African companies, as customers report an on-average proven yield of 250% ROI in less than six months,” he notes.

Maharajh notes that by automating repetitive tasks such as bank reconciliations, vendor payments and purchase ordering workflows, finance leaders will be free to spend more time on business growth and strategic initiatives, which help their organisations to meet their broader goals.

Sage Intacct simplifies project accounting, while delivering real-time budget versus actual visibility for project managers, and detailed financial reporting for finance teams.

“Global entities such as PwC are in agreement that the finance drive for modernisation is being driven by digitalisation and the need for speed – real-time production of financial reports, removal of repetitive tasks. PwC highlights the need for transitioning to cloud solutions if finance professionals are to benefit from the latest industry best practices. Finance professionals are seeking to digitise finance functions, reduce costs and improve the efficiency of the finance function.”

He confirms the Sage Intacct cloud-based solution offers a better way for finance professionals with sophisticated, yet still easy to use, functionality, such as fast consolidations, multi-entity support, currency conversions, configurable dashboards and more.

Maharajh adds Sage Intacct is designed to accelerate success with a cloud financial management platform that delivers deep accounting capabilities across multiple industries. Business benefits of implanting Sage Intacct include:

• Scalability for mid-market firms.
• Integration with other business systems.
• Compliance advantages.
• Up to a 79% reduction in time to close.
• Delivers real-time reporting across hundreds of consolidated entities.
• Puts finance leaders in a position to drive more growth.

“Over 1.5 million projects are run on Sage Intacct for a variety of organisations, including consulting, biotech, marketing, technology, accounting and more.”

He says with so many alternatives for financial applications, finance leaders must ensure they understand the implications of all options: on-premises, hosted and cloud computing. “Ultimately, cloud computing is about capitalising on a new software delivery model that accelerates payback of a larger ROI and better aligns financial organisations with the new dynamics of growing their businesses. 

“Sage Intacct offers a world-class true cloud solution, with open APIs, and gives project-based businesses the connectivity, visibility and efficiency they need to drive project performance. Sage Intacct helps service organisations strategically grow their business through detailed insights to support critical decisions. In today’s market for accounting applications, the buyer has the power. No matter what solution you choose, you should expect faster financial closes, easier regulatory compliance, less manual work, real-time visibility and reporting, and an outstanding service level agreement. The bottom line is Sage Intacct puts finance leaders in all sectors in the power seat,” concludes Maharajh.