Is it Time to Tune Up your Intacct Company?
Perhaps it’s been years since your Intacct implementation and perhaps the Intacct subject matter experts have long since left the team. How do you work with what has already been set up by your predecessors to optimize your environment? In today’s post we’ll go through a few ideas to help you with creative customizations to make the most out of your inherited system.
Some of the methods in which we can help tune up your Intacct company are:
- Dimensional Hierarchies
- Type Field on Dimensions
- Manager Field on Dimensions
- Dimension Groups and Structures
- Dimension Relationships
- Statistical Accounts
- Smart Rules
- Email Templates
- Custom Invoices and Statements
- Dimension Requirements
So let’s go through each!
1. Dimensional Hierarchies
Every dimension (besides Item) has the ability to build in a hierarchy (even User Defined Dimensions). Using a hierarchy is a really efficient way to accomplish grouping and expanding in reporting.
A nice example might be, imagine you have funds all set up in a single dimension (flat hierarchy). Certain funds might always be restricted and others always unrestricted. Maybe you are currently tracking that in a field, if instead you set up a hierarchy where the parent is the type of restriction and the children are the individual funds, you can then expand on just the parents (not all levels) or set account groups filtered to include funds where the parent is a specific restriction.
Customer hierarchies are another case building a hierarchy might come in handy, specifically in the case of a reseller situation. The added benefit being you can tag the child customer on the line item but still record the invoice to the reseller. So if you aren’t using dimensional hierarchies yet, it might be worth a second look.
2. Using the Type Field on Dimensions
Many standard reports in Intacct use the type field to filter reports (Sales Register, Customer Aging, Vendor Aging, and Bills Register just to name a few). You can use this to your advantage and even use a mass upload to update this field on previously created dimensions.
By inactivating old vendor or customer types and creating new ones as replacements, you can take your existing standard Intacct reports and give them a whole new life.
3. Using the Manager Field on Dimensions
The Manager Field can be used in purchasing approvals as well as now filtering dashboards and account groups by current user. If you have multiple dashboards set up for different managers, you can now instead set up a single dashboard that is filtered for current user. This way, when a manager logs in although they are accessing the same dashboard as another manager, the data they see is filtered for departments which they manage and they do not see any other manager’s data. As long as the manager is set on the department, you can move to managing a single dashboard instead of multiple dashboards. Even better, should a manager leave and a new one come on board it’s as easy as editing the department and assigning the new manager. Want to learn more about this feature? Read this blog post over here!
4. Dimension Groups and Structures
Did you know you can create an infinite amount of dimension groupings for reporting purposes? (And there’s no limit even long after you’ve been live). Each of Intacct’s core dimensions allows for custom groupings to provide the strategic reporting you’ve always wished for and permits report readers to choose only relevant data to be presented. Read about dimension groups and structures here!
5. Dimension Relationships
It’s logical that certain dimensions when coded on a transaction belong together, having the experience and background on the business, you likely know what those should be. However, hire someone new and there’s likely a slight learning curve to catch on initially. Rather than being forced into a constant after-the-fact error fixing cycle, you can set up dimension relationships to prevent mistakes up front and save yourself the time and potential risk of inaccurate reports. Dimension relationships allow for either auto-filling upon entry or filtering a list of related dimensions. You can read more about how they work here or feel free to reach out for some help!
6. Statistical Accounts
Statistical accounts have also come a long way in terms of ease of use and long-term management. Read this post (here) to learn about setting up recurring statistical entries and dimension counts using stat accounts.
7. Smart Rules
Smart Rules help to preserve the integrity of your data. If data is incorrect, you risk basing huge financial decisions on incorrect information. The problem with achieving data integrity is that there are often a variety of people entering data. Therefore, it’s hard to maintain the accuracy and consistency of the data. That’s when Intacct Smart Rules come in handy! Get a great introduction to smart rules here. Or reach out to us with more complex smart rules.
8. Order Entry Email Templates
Previously, there was not a way to customize the email that gets sent to customers out of Intacct. If you were implemented prior to the release that changed that you may be exporting invoices and sending them out manually, if that’s the case it may be worth taking a look at the Order Entry Templates to see if what you are including in your emails is possible to set up in Intacct.
9. Invoice Formats & Custom Statements
Invoice formats have also come leaps and bounds forward (you can even customize statements now!). One of the recent additions to invoices is the ability to include aging at the bottom of an invoice. Need help customizing your invoices and aren’t quite sure how? Reach out to us! We’ll be happy to evaluate whether it’s something that can be done in Intacct or help you build custom invoices and statements.
10. Dimension Requirements
If certain dimensions should always be coded when certain accounts are chosen, you can easily set that up on the GL Account. Need help updating GL dimension requirements? Currently, Intacct does not allow for updating GL Accounts via a mass update, however CLA’s toolbox does just that. Want more information on the toolbox? Reach out to us!
These are just a few ideas as to ways you can tune up your Intacct Company and make it once again into the efficient machine it once was. If it’s been a few years since your initial implementation, recent updates may have been released that might be worth taking a look at. A lot of the things mentioned in this list are relatively new additions in more recent releases that weren’t even available a few years ago. So you never know if a process you are currently doing because it wasn’t possible in Intacct before might actually be possible now.
If you’d like to work with a CLA Intacct team member to re-evaluate your system feel free to reach out to us. We can help work on these things alongside you or simply make suggestions for improvements and provide guidance. The time and personalized attention might make a larger difference than you imagined.
Kathy Jastrzebski is a manager with CLA’s Intacct team. CLA is an Intacct Premier Partner with a partnership that spans over 20 years and more than 1,000 successful implementations. Kathy brings five years of accounting experience along with seven years of Sage Intacct implementation experience. Along with her accounting experience, she has a passion for leveraging technology to lead finance teams worldwide through system implementations with a mission of increasing department efficiency through business process improvements.