Ascentis has announced an integration partnership with Sage Intacct. Ascentis has integrated the payroll element of its HCM to Sage Intacct. It now has an entry on the Sage Intacct marketplace. Ironically Sage itself does not yet have an entry there.
Jeff Cronin, Ascentis Chief Product Officer, Asecntis commented “Ascentis is extremely proud to now offer our payroll clients a web services integration with Sage Intacct. As a full-suite HCM software provider, we pride ourselves in continually improving our solutions for users. Now users currently using or who choose to use Sage Intacct for accounting can close out the accounting period faster and more easily update general ledger journal entries with this Sage Intacct Integration.”
Ascentis offer a full HCM suite of software and is makes this partnership one sided. Ascentis is integrating to Intacct using its API’s rather than the other way around. It is a decision that Ascentis appears to have reached with customers wanting to reduce the complexity in their workday. Point solutions such as Ascentis will need to start offering these integrations to automate tasks within business.
Ascentis’ Principal Product Manager Aaron Price commented: “In talking with our customers, a recurring theme is the goal of technology to make their work lives simpler: fewer manual steps, less user intervention, more connected systems. This integration is another step in that direction. General ledger entries are automatically added to Sage Intacct when the payroll cycle is finished in Ascentis Payroll. It is quick and easy.”
This integration only seems to include the payroll elements, they have not delivered a deeper HCM integration as well. However, there is little detail about what exactly they have integrated. By adding a deeper integration might they have opened up a wider opportunity? Sage Intacct is likely to grow its customer base faster now that it is backed by Sage. Until Sage integrates its own payroll solutions to Sage Intacct there is a potential opportunity for Ascentis to take advantage of.
Good news for Sage Intacct
For Sage Intacct, this is good news. It shows that their open strategy through API’s is paying off. Companies with potentially competing products are integrating to the finance element in order to retain their customer base. What will be interesting to see is how quickly Sage People and Intacct market their solutions jointly.
Marc Linden, SVP and Head of Business Operations and Finance at Sage Intacct. “We continue to expand the integrated solutions available via the Sage Intacct Marketplace – making it easier for our customers to run their business the way they want, using the software on the market that best fit their needs. The integration of Ascentis and Sage Intacct extends the power of both solution and enables our joint customers to streamline process and work more efficiently.”
That marketplace is separate to the Sage Marketplace still though. This poses an interesting question for the wider Sage organisation. Will they merge the two in time? At present Sage Intacct is not part of its business cloud strategy announced recently. Though it will almost certainly be added at some point.
What does this mean
For Ascentis this appears to have been driven by customer demand and less by the potential opportunity for gaining market share. The cloud HCM market is a crowded place and while they may get leads through the Intacct marketplace there may be another benefit to them. Having integrated their solution to one finance solution will they add more?
Interestingly, they already have payroll integrations to ADP, Microsoft Dynamics, MPAY and Sage but no other finance integrations. Having done one will they also add integrations to others? They could integrate with Oracle NetSuite, Xero or Quickbooks. With Price alluding to further integrations, it might just happen.