Reach For A Dream partners with ALNET Technologies for Sage Intacct real-time reporting

Netesh Maharajh, Director at ALNET Technologies.

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ALNET Technologies, a Sage Platinum Business Partner, has been selected by Reach For A Dream to implement Sage Intacct – a best-of-breed cloud finance software solution. The revered SA non-profit organisation has been operating for over 36 years with the mission to fulfil the dreams of children with life-threatening illnesses, providing them with hope.

ALNET Technologies is a provider of the complete suite of Sage Evolution ERP, Sage Intacct, CRM, Payroll and Cloud Solutions.

According to Netesh Maharajh, Director at ALNET Technologies, the Sage Intacct solution helped Reach For A Dream to overcome business and financial reporting challenges. “Sage Intacct is truly the future of finance available right now. The solution is suited to organisations of all sizes, from SMEs to global enterprises; it grows with the customer’s business,” says Maharajh.

He says previously, the foundation was using Power BI for its reporting needs, but this was dependant on manual uploads. “With Intacct Dashboards and real-time reporting, they are now able to get a holistic view over their entire organisation at given time. Manual intervention and reviews were required from their accountant when it came to capturing information such as donors, dreamers, events and fundraising. With the use of Intacct dimensions, this has helped branch managers to capture transactions, which in turn alleviates pressure on the accountant and results in a more effective process,” he explains.

Michelle van Huyssteen, Reach For A Dream’s Finance Administrator, highlights the mammoth task that faced the ALNET Technologies team. “Our implementation partner, ALNET, had to create an Intacct platform unique to our foundation and one that would cater for how we account the various aspects of our non-profit organisation. The deployment had many growing pains and challenges, but throughout, the ALNET team made themselves available to assist with an incredible level of pre- and post-implementation support. They displayed endless patience to assist us in the understanding and navigation of the system, trouble-shooting an array of processing challenges, and helpfully responding to requests to diversify and improve on tools used in the system,” says Van Huyssteen.

Maharajh says previously, bank statements were manually uploaded to reconcile bank accounts. “With the use of Cash Management and Bank Feeds in Intacct, the organisation can capture straight from the bank feeds and reconcile transactions at the same time,” he adds.

With regards to stock, Reach For A Dream had historic challenges on capturing and allocating stock. “With the Sage Intacct Inventory module, they can now incorporate dimensions and allocate stock from donors to dreamers, as well as branches, allowing for more accurate reporting. Moreover, records of dreams fulfilled were retained on an external Excel system. On Intacct, using statistical journals, these can now be captured, as well as statistical dream budgets, which can be displayed straight from the Dashboards. Additionally, these are being used to calculate the average cost per dream automatically,” notes Maharajh.

Van Huyssteen says the system’s potential to provide “near” live information is a great advantage. “This assists our business to analyse data and make meaningful business decisions. The Sage Community, plus help and support options, as well as the webinars empower users with immediate, practical guidelines to navigate and problem-solve in real-time. Sage University further provides users with the opportunity to qualify their Intacct experience and skills, which in turn adds value to the company and all staff,” she concludes.