Nulogy, a leading provider of digital supply chain solutions that connect customers and supplier communities, was prompted to re-evaluate its financial management platform when contract renewal time came around.
The Toronto-based SaaS company had run Oracle NetSuite for five years. But Nulogy faced a substantial increase in licensing costs, while leadership began to question NetSuite’s willingness to work with Nulogy as a long-term partner.
As the same time, Anthony Sangra, Nulogy’s newly hired director of financial planning and analysis, identified misalignments between data structures and business processes that compromised reporting, FP&A, and the financial close.
Nulogy wanted greater visibility, efficiency, and controls throughout accounting and FP&A, but worried it could require a year of costly professional services to re-engineer NetSuite to suit its needs.
“The finance leadership team took a hard look at our NetSuite instance and thought about how much effort it would take to change processes, clean the data, along with all the services costs,” said Sangra, who joined Nulogy in October 2022. “The equation didn’t add up.”
Better Results at Half the Cost
Sangra had worked with both Sage Intacct and NetSuite at past companies, as had Nulogy’s controller. After an in-depth evaluation, Sage Intacct emerged as the best choice as Nulogy continued its strong growth, with a presence in 20 countries and customers such as Procter & Gamble, L’Oréal, and Mars.
“With Sage Intacct, we were able to get a better product, cleaner reporting, and a faster close time at half the annual cost than if we had stayed on NetSuite,” Sangra says. “Sage Intacct is the best solution for what we want to accomplish over the next three years and beyond.”
After an expert implementation by BAASS Business Solutions, a top Sage Intacct partner headquartered in Toronto, Sage Intacct usage across the Nulogy finance and accounting team ramped up quickly as users embraced the change in financial management platforms.
“Everyone on our team has been thrilled with the cutover to Sage Intacct,” Sangra says. “No one would go back to NetSuite.”
Closing the Books 3x Faster
Only a few months into its Sage Intacct usage, Nulogy accelerated its monthly close more than 3x, from 15 to 20 business days down to just five. Financial reporting is markedly improved.
“Reporting to the board and investors that used to be highly manual with a million reports and a bunch of Excel files and adjustments is now clean with Sage Intacct,” Sangra says.
Rolling out Sage Intacct dashboards to department heads is improving understanding, collaboration, and accountability across the organization. Now leaders have key metrics and underlying data at their fingertips.
“Sage Intacct dashboards have really cut down on people not understanding how budgets work, or wondering what the status of an invoice is,” Sangra says. “It’s helped bring financial clarity to the entire leadership team.”
Plus, Nulogy has strengthened its financial controls and minimized risk of manual work errors with the move to Sage Intacct.
“We create monthly workbooks as part of our close and audit practice, and from the controller’s perspective, there are no more issues with workbooks,” says Sangra. “It’s become the easiest thing in the world.”
‘Absolutely Brilliant’ Contracts Module
Meanwhile, the Sage Intacct Contracts module has transformed processes around revenue recognition, renewals, forecasting, and more for Nulogy contracts, ranging from six months to five years.
“The Contracts module has brought such clarity to our day-to-day,” Sangra says. “Compared to the old methods we had with NetSuite, where it was impossible to do a forecast, the way Sage Intacct has it set up is absolutely brilliant.”
Sangra added, “We don’t have to do workarounds anymore to run independent billing schedules and rev rec, or see the full lifetime value of a contract. I can easily pull out a billing forecast from the Contracts module, and that’s nailed down my cash flow.”
Customizability and Intuitive Ease of Use
With his years of experience on Sage Intacct, Sangra finds the platform’s customizability for forecasting and reporting to be among his favorite characteristics.
“Sage Intacct is very customizable, and very intuitive once you get used to the terminology and reporting,” Sangra says. “We can make dimension groups, account groups, and create our own reports. I never had the same level of control with NetSuite, and it’s not as intuitive.”
That flexibility in Sage Intacct translates into rich, data-driven forecasting that’s based on timely, reliable information. Nulogy is eliminating uncertainties it had around data and forecasting while on NetSuite, vitally important as the company continues its rapid growth curve.
Straightforward pricing with no hidden “gotchas”, and strong customer support, also rank high on Sangra’s favorites list.
“You get a valuable business partner with the Sage Intacct Community, your implementation team or consulting firm, and Sage Intacct itself,” Sangra says. “I’ve never had an issue getting a hold of someone or getting a resolution to a question.”
Learn More
To find out more about what Sage Intacct, ranked #1 in customer satisfaction on G2, can do for your SaaS business, visit here.
Subscribe to the Sage Advice Newsletter
Get a roundup of our best business advice in your inbox every month.
Ask the author a question or share your advice