Sage Intacct Accountants (SIA) is designed specifically to help accounting firms attract and manage larger clients with more complex accounting needs.
Having said that, SIA is not for everyone. We’ve created a checklist that you can go through to see if SIA is a good fit for your business.
Is Your Firm a Fit for SIA?
Ideally, at least 20% of your client base must need a mid-market product. It’s preferable if you have another 20% that are in the early stages of growth, but are extremely likely to get a lot of value from the product as they expand.
If not, then SIA isn’t quite right for your firm.
If you answered yes, then you can continue down the checklist.
- You want to attract higher-value clients in the upper SMB to mid-market range.
- You want to extend your target market to include clients that need advisory-level consulting.
- You want to establish yourself as the advisor of choice (the subject matter expert), so you are always the first port of call when it comes to your clients’ finance operations and finance tech stack.
- You want to microverticalize your firm to provide your clients with scalable solutions. This means specializing in niche sectors, like patient care organizations within the healthcare sector.
Service Model & Strategic Goals
In a nutshell, you have ambitions to stop being an accounting service provider (an ordinary monthly expense) and transform into a service dynamo (a true value bucket) that boosts your clients’ bottom line.
Practically speaking, the shift is toward a far more strategic role. Advisory work becomes the centre of value. You start bringing insight, direction, and forward planning to the table. Services like Financial Planning and Analysis become a natural extension of your work, because clients rely on you not only for accurate numbers but for guidance on what those numbers mean for growth.
This means:
- Delivering high-level and high-touch components of business support to your outsourced clients.
- Focusing on services that go beyond the financial core.
- Providing expert data delivery and analysis, as well as accurate forecasting.
- Automating as many day-to-day transactional tasks as possible, using advanced software automation features.
Internal Capabilities and Adoption
Joining Sage Intacct Accountants is a process of give and take. Initially, you must be willing to invest time and money into Sage Intacct Accountants. This includes fully adopting the product and using the dimensionalized structure, subledger structure, and statistical capabilities. Simply shifting from QuickBooks or Xero to Intacct won’t cut it.
This means:
- Being ready and able to teach clients how to use Sage products in a very advanced manner.
- Committing to consistent Sage Intacct deployment to ensure healthy scalability and standardize staff training and onboarding.
- Using SIA as a professional development path for staff. A genuine interest in staff development leads to happier staff and a loyal (sticky) staff base.
Operational Commitments (Implementation and Scaling)
Implementation and scaling place real demands on your operations. Firms joining Sage Intacct Accountants are not left to figure this out alone. You work with an implementation partner who supports licensing, deployment, and the operational setup needed for a smooth rollout.
Additional commitments include:
- Collaborating with your partner to identify which modules are best for each client.
- Committing to the aggressive scaling target, which aims for the first implementation to be complete in 60 days, the second in 30 days, the third in 15 days, and each subsequent implementation in just five days.
- Being prepared for the initial onboarding steps, which include qualification and discovery to ensure you have an attainable client base (20%), and reviewing example pricing to set expectations.
What You Need to Know
When new firms sign up to SIA, they can expect:
- Preferred pricing on Sage Intacct solutions.
- Ongoing training, especially for product upgrades or new releases.
- Access to exclusive resources, including certification courses.
- Access to a dedicated account manager who will ensure you are successfully onboarded to Sage Intacct Accountants.
If you want to understand what this could look like for your firm, and whether Sage Intacct Accountants is the right step, you can book a discovery session below.