Posts

Sage Intacct user Permissions

Sage Intacct User Permissions Give Companies’ the Ability to Scale 

Sage Intacct’s User Permissions is one of the key benefits of the software that gives companies the flexibility and security they need as their business grows.  Permissions allow a business to maintain the integrity of the financials by giving their team access to only the functions of the system that are necessary to do their job. An example is an accounts payable (AP) team member who could have access to create and pay bills but not have access to create vendors. Or perhaps you have a team member that needs to view bills within AP but not have the ability to edit or delete.

Sage Intacct’s permissions allow companies to easily build out their system and their users’ accessibility to their exact needs and use. 

Why Would You Want Permissions? 

There are many reasons why but a primary reason is to segregate duties and define a user’s role. While many companies start with one employee that fills many roles, as you grow and add staff you can deploy user permissions to define access rights and limit the functionality available to them within the system. This keeps the employee focused on their job and gives peace of mind that you have the system security in place to protect your financial data.

Permissions can also be used to set thresholds for approvals. For example, a user may have the ability to approve a transaction up to $5,000 but would need their manager’s approval for all transactions greater than $5,000. Approval permissions are customizable and can have multiple levels.
Companies that have more than one entity can give users access to one location, all locations, or a combination of locations. This can be very useful when you need to allow users to work across multiple companies, but don’t want them to access unnecessary or sensitive information.

The benefits of permissions aren’t limited to carrying out tasks. They can also help streamline the reporting process. An example would be giving your leadership team access to the departments they need on their dashboards. This limits their view to the specific information they need without filtering through unnecessary data. Easy access to granular insights will allow your team to make quick decisions with real-time data without an intense, manual process.

Sage Intacct’s permissions provide you with the flexibility and security you need to control access to your system financials. Permissions are managed through an easy to use user interface and provide a complete activity log of all changes.

Take A Tour Of Sage Intacct Now

What are the Different Types of Permissions? 

Sage Intacct allows for complete customization with user permissions. You can allow team members the ability to create lists, view, add, edit, delete, reverse, and reclassify as well as giving them access to different entities and modules. The capabilities within Sage Intacct’s user permissions are far superior to their competitors which generally only gives you the option to grant total access to different modules instead of the options for customization based on position. The user permissions are vast and allow for extremely customized user portals even with multiple entities set up.

One unique type of permission is reclassify which allows a user to reclassify a transaction while maintaining an audit log. An example is if you have cleaning service bills that have been coded as outside services, however, there is a separate account for cleaning services you can easily change the coding without having to re-enter the whole bill or enter a reclassifying journal entry. Each reclassification is tracked by Intacct and easily auditable via a pre-built reclassification report allowing you to keep up with changes that have been made in real-time.

Take A Tour Of Sage Intacct Now

How Do User Permissions allow You to Scale? 

With Intacct permissions, your company can scale with one ERP platform. Imagine the below situation and think about how permissions quickly go from an afterthought in a startup environment to a critical need in a growing, mid-market business.

As with most startups, you begin with one user that has complete access to the accounting system. As the company grows so does the accounting team, often from one person doing everything to three or four people touching different areas of the company’s finances. Now the company is likely going to have a controller or CFO with complete access, but will also likely have an AP and/or AR clerk(s). Now the company starts worrying about permissions on a high level, like restricting their AP clerk to only AP functions in their accounting software (I.e., not able to access financial reports, book journal entries, etc.) After another few years of growth, the companies finance team is now 6 or 8 people, with three team members dedicated to just AP. All three need access to the AP module, but team member one (AP clerk) needs to only enter bills (not delete or reclassify), team member two (senior AP staff) needs to add/delete/reclassify bills and approve payments up to $500, and team member three (AP manager) needs full access (approve all payments, access all reports). This is a very common example of a high growth company that went from no immediate need for user permissions to user permissions being mission-critical functionality. Sadly, many companies wait until user permissions are already mission-critical to address the need. With Intacct, user permissions are ready when you need them and can be quickly deployed within a matter of minutes.

Take A Tour Of Sage Intacct Now

Overall, user permissions allow your company to scale while giving your team access to everything they need to be successful in their roles. It provides robust security for your company’s data that is in such high demand in today’s digital world. Lastly, it mitigates disgruntled or bumbling employees from being able to damage a business’s financial information.  

Download “3 New Approaches for the Data Driven Finance Leader” by filling out the form below, and find out more about how Sage Intacct can help you scale.


 

Financial Services and Cloud Accounting

Focus on Customers Drives Cloud Computing Adoption in Financial Services

Remember the “no-internet policy?” It wasn’t so long ago that companies were keeping their employees from exploring the world wide web on company machines. But as all-things-internet have become ubiquitous, including mobile devices and, yes, cloud computing in the workplace, hopping online to get things done—to perform essential professional tasks, let alone browse favorite website—is commonplace. No wonder Gartner reports that by 2020, a corporate “no-cloud” policy will become as rare as a “no-internet” policy is today. Read more

ROI of Cloud Accounting

Exploring The ROI of Cloud Accounting

“What’s our ROI going to be?” If you’re considering moving your company’s accounting practices into the cloud, this is one of the top questions on your mind. You’re making a change to the way you manage your finances—and updating your technology is a big step in the right direction. But how can you be sure that your investment in a cloud-based solution is going to pay off and keep yielding returns?

Why the Cloud Delivers Faster Time to Value

A cloud environment, put simply, affords a growing business more agility and flexibility than any of their traditional alternatives. Consider the on-premise systems and boxed software programs that reside on your business machines (servers and PCs): they require you to maintain an IT infrastructure, which can be costly to establish and take care of. They’re costly from the get-go.

With cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, on the other hand, users access their apps, tools, and data over the internet. Their computing and delivery models make them inherently more cost-effective and scalable for long-term value. Take a look at these powerful stats:

  • Cloud application projects deliver 2.1x the ROI of on-premise ones, up 24% since 2012. (Nucleus Research)
  • Sage Intacct customers experience an average ROI of over 250%when switching to Intacct. (Sage Intacct)

Let’s take a closer look at what impacts the ROI of a cloud accounting solution:

Lower Implementation Costs

Cloud deployments, finds Nucleus Research, incur 63% lower initial consulting and implementation costs than on-premise ones. As we just stated, adopting a cloud accounting solution doesn’t require the purchase of new hardware and software licenses, or even the hiring of a skilled IT staff.

Moving financials to the cloud is a straightforward process for companies with basic infrastructures. They can upgrade to a best-in-class system without adding complexity to their tech environment. That means getting up to speed with web-based software is a faster, easier, and can provide results in a matter of a few short weeks—sometimes sooner.

Learn more in How Upgrading to the Cloud Lets You Hit the Ground Running.

Lower Maintenance Costs

According to Strategy&, the total cost of ownership for a cloud-based solution can be 50-60% less than for traditional solutions over a 10-year period. And Nucleus Research reports that on an ongoing basis, companies spend an average of 55% less on personnel to support cloud applications compared to on-premise deployments and they use an average of 91% less energy to boot.

These savings can be attributed to the cloud software vendors’ subscription model. Customers pay a per-user subscription fee for use of the software, hosting, and support, making the arrangement highly scalable as the company grows and adds new functionality and users. And vendor’s IT team—not your internal IT team—manages the upgrades, patching, user support, etc. It’s part of the service you pay for, enabling you to focus on building your business, not your IT systems.

“Automatic” Savings and Productivity Gains.

When your business replaces manual processes and workflows with automation, cost savings tend to follow naturally. Automating key financial and accounting processes is essential to saving time, increasing data accuracy, and ultimately, lowering costs. But don’t fail to take into account your employees’ ability to work from anywhere and on any connected device. And this includes users from the back office to the executive suite. There’s a great deal of ROI-supporting “power” in the real-time insights users can uncover 24/7. Take a more detailed look in How the Cloud Provides Real Time Insights for Real Time Decision Making.

Features and Functionality

Cloud-based software solutions are ideal for companies in the midst of growth. A cloud environment is an ecosystem that’s ready for evolution. Cloud accounting software suites typically come standard with core functionality that can be expanded as your business needs change—as your company takes on new clients, partners with more vendors, adds locations or product lines, etc. It’s easy to plug wew cloud accounting software modules into your existing workflow without a great deal of programming or “moving around” of data. This holds true for integrations, too, as cloud software is built with flexible APIs that enable seamless connecting of business systems.

The net result of this scalable product enhancement is that your business can grow without significant additional investments—and with each addition of new functionality, your team is able to add more value. Find out How Cloud Accounting Lets Users Take Control of Process.

Contact us to learn more about our cloud technology services and solutions.

Security in the Cloud

Intacct Delivers Security and Peace of Mind to Today’s Financial Teams

For some, making the move away from traditional financial and accounting management systems toward an automated, digital solution can feel like a leap of faith. There’s a level of perceived security in something you can hold in your hands—the paper spreadsheets, for instance—and imagining your data floating out there in the cloud is might make you feel apprehensive. But in reality, cloud-based systems offer more control, security, and peace of mind than any manual system ever could provide. Let’s find out why.

There are Inherent Risks in a Paper-Based System

Consider an environment that depends on paper. Paper invoices, paper expense reports, paper payments, paper-filled drawers and filing cabinets, etc. Offices operating in a paper paradigm are vulnerable to data compromise and loss due to human error, misplacement of files, and even theft. What’s more, the technology they do use may run with sub-optimal environmental and system security measures, including out-of-date software, insufficient redundancy and backup, and weak firewalls.

Related: Stop Relying on Spreadsheets and Luck—There’s a Better Way

Cloud Solutions Offer Outstanding Application Security

It was uncovered at a 2013 Digital CPA Conference that information security is the primary barrier of adoption for starting to use cloud accounting services. Even so, nearly half of survey takers said they were using cloud-enabled business services to some degree in their firms, up from 44% 2012. Fast-forward to 2017, and cloud-based solutions are even more popular, as professionals get the message that the technology is sound and technology vendors are doing their due diligence to keep their customers’ data secure.

As for lingering concerns about web-based data storage, “Cloud-based accounting systems don’t actually store your data in a vapor mist in the sky,” CPA J. Carlton Collins explains in Journal of Accountancy. “Rather your accounting data are stored in world-class data centers with fortified concrete walls, steel doors, retina scans needed for entry, world-class firewalls, state-of-the-art anti-virus technology, continuous backups, and often a mirrored backup of the entire data center.

A Closer Look at Intacct’s Secure Solution

Intacct’s world-class financial management and accounting system is built on the highly reliable Oracle database infrastructure. It includes various security features that help prevent outside attacks as well as unauthorized user and program access into system processes, resources, and data—ensuring optimal safety of your digital assets.

Highlights of Intacct’s Security Features:

  • A data center that’s monitored around-the-clock and is equipped with backup power supplies and redundant network components.
  • Applications that require 2-step user verification every time a user signs on through an unrecognized device, enforced password changes and automatic session timeouts, and the option to set acceptable user log-in IP ranges.
  • System security that’s SSAE 16 SOC1 Type II and PCI DSS Level 1 certified, designed to protect your business via restricted access to production data, hardened networks and firewalls, real-time activity log tracking, automated security scanning and third party white hat penetration testing, and minimum 128-bit encryption for all data transmission.
  • Data that’s safeguarded through full daily backups to multiple locations, Continuous backups of transaction data, and secure streaming of transaction data to remote disaster recovery center.

Get full details here.

The Best Cloud Services from the Trusted Team at rinehimerbaker

As an Intacct Partner, we are proud to help growing businesses implement technology that makes it easier to manage their finances in the cloud. If you’re interested in upgrading from QuickBooks to Intacct, don’t miss the informative white paper, Outgrowing QuickBooks – How to Know When It’s Time to Change. Learn more about our services, and get in contact with us for more information.