Sage has published a case study about the benefits that Vitamin Angels has leveraged from its financial management system, Sage Intacct. The case study expands on the information revealed by Rootstock 2 years ago. Vitamin Angels chose Sage Intacct to work alongside its Salesforce CRM application after it outgrew QuickBooks. The Rootstock Inventory management solution was added later and integrated seamlessly into the Sage Intacct ERP.
What is in the case study?
The case study has assessed Vitamin Angels’ improvements over three years. During those three years, Sage Intacct has helped deliver efficiency, visibility and insights.
The case study states that “next year it anticipates over $7 million in restricted revenue and $14 million over the next three years.” While this is slightly at odds with the press release headline, it is unclear whether it has grown donations by $14 million in the last 3 years or will do so in the next three years. Sage Intacct was installed before 2020, so it is difficult to tell.
Bonnie Forssell, CFO, Vitamin Angels, commented: “Sage Intacct met our needs and is a game-changer for us. It has completely improved our trajectory. Because we are more efficient now with our use of technology, we’re emboldened to seek new opportunities for growth through restricted funding – despite the fact these donations and grants come with more rigorous reporting requirements.”
Donations are the lifeblood of any non-profit. For Vitamin Angels, which seeks to improve nutrition worldwide, it will make a difference. It delivers evidence-based interventions in nutritionally vulnerable populations – pregnant women, infants, and young children.
By the end of 2021, Vitamin Angels had reached a total of 70 million underserved pregnant women and children in 65 countries. That included all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico through their network of 1,200 program partners. In 2021 it increased corporate partnerships by 2021, demonstrating that the technology underpinning the non-profit is helping with growth
Three years of growth supported by Sage Intacct
It selected Sage Intacct to replace its QuickBooks solution and the mainly manual-based accounting and reporting processes. Sage Intacct provided a more sophisticated multi-currency and multi-entity solution. It immediately saw benefits, especially in its Accounts Payable processes.
It estimates that efficiency improved 60%, with Forsell commenting: “All the technical accounting for multi-currency transactions, intercompany transactions and global consolidations is now completely automated within the system. We went from managing them in a cumbersome spreadsheet to just a few clicks with Sage Intacct.”
The benefits were immediate. Sage Intacct was able to track and report on shipping costs. The insights from the analysis of this information was a $200,000 logistical savings. Those resources were freed up, which meant it could support an additional 800,000 women and children.
As Forsell concluded: “Sage Intacct is a game-changer for us. It’s allowed finance to play a more strategic role in the organization and changed the way we look at ourselves as a team.”
Are the integrations moving forward though?
It has already completed the implementation of Salesforce and Sage Intacct. That has enabled the organisation to save 10 hours per month of revenue data entry with the information collected in Salesforce automatically passed to Sage Intacct.
Perhaps surprisingly, Vitamin Angels has not progressed its integration to Rootstock. The case study states: “Next, Vitamin Angels plans to fully integrate Sage Intacct with its Rootstock system for inventory management”.
In 2020 that was a flat-file integration. At that time, Forsell commented: “Vitamin Angels will have a flat-file integration-ready by early summer (2020), and they’ll plan to build an instant API in the near future.”
That near future seems to have stretched out by two years.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
The full case study reveals more details of the benefits and the additional donor funding Vitamin Angels has received. The transparency that Sage Intacct has delivered has also helped the organisation maintain a 4-star rating from Charity navigator for the tenth time. That places it in the top 3% of charities. A rating that it owes to “it’s strong financial health and commitment to accountability and transparency.”
There is no doubt that Sage Intacct has made a positive difference to Vitamin Angels, this is, however, one of the weaker case studies that Sage Intacct has published in recent years. It certainly raises some questions.
Without Sage Intacct to underpin that, it would have been difficult for the organisation to achieve such an accomplishment after its growth. Sage Intacct has a clear focus on helping non-profits improve their accounting and reporting processes. Its Non Profit Digital Board Book solution, for example, helps deliver the financial visibility of non-profits.
