Sage has announced the launch of Sage Intacct Paperless. The new cloud-based product aims to transform construction SMEs from manual, paper-based accounts payable practices to automated electronic processes and documents. The solution provides a means for firms to store, retrieve, and route Accounts Payable (AP) documents.
The solution is an add-on feature to Sage Intacct Construction. However, it is the cloud-based version of Sage Paperless Construction on premises which offers similar benefits for Sage on-premise solutions Sage 100 Contractor, Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate and Sage Intacct. With the launch of Sage Intacct Paperless, Sage now has a complete set of on-premise and cloud-based solutions.
Julie Adams, Senior Vice President of Product, Construction and Real Estate Sage, commented, “Document management plays a critical role in ensuring the success of construction projects by facilitating compliance, risk management, collaboration, communication, efficiency, and accountability throughout the project lifecycle.
“Sage Intacct Paperless helps take the frustration out of document management and saves construction businesses invaluable time and resources, delivering real business results.”
Sage Intacct Paperless
While Sage Paperless stores data on the organisation’s on-premises servers, Sage Intacct Paperless stores documents in the Cloud. The advantage is that they are secure and easily available to users on site. That enables AP workflows to function more effectively, reducing the time taken for many processes.
Sage Intacct Paperless includes components to manage both data and workflows necessary to automate the end to end AP processes.
Customers already using Sage Paperless Construction are seeing benefits. A.M. Ortega Construction, Inc. is an underground utility contractor based in San Diego. A case study explains the benefits Sage Paperless Construction delivered.
Bruce Evenrud, CFO, A.M. Ortega Construction Inc. commented, “Our time and material jobs profits have increased about $3-4 million per year due the process changes made possible with this product. We’ve also reduced our billing cycle from 15 – 20 days down to two days. This single process change increased our cash flow by over $4 million per month.”
Capture
The ability to capture, upload and import any type of document from any location. Users can scan, capture photos from mobile devices, drag and drop, import files from a network drive or print capture. Document types supported include:
- Project management documents including contracts, pictures, and change orders
- HR forms
- Service work order
- Purchase requisition
- Plans and drawings for estimating take-off
- General ledger adjustment entries
- Daily mail/email
Index and store
Users can define document types and indexes. The documents are securely stored on the cloud and it is possible to look up and backfill index values from external databases.
Retrieve
Using the index fields, keyword searches, or user-defined folder views, users can easily retrieve documents, whether files or images. An audit trail is maintained, and its revision history is available.
Document Lifecycle Management
Maintain revision history and audit logs while automating archival and end-of-life purging functions.
AP Entry and Routing
Sage has embedded the APFlow module from Paperless Environments to enter, route, approve, and export accounts payable invoices into their accounting systems – all in a paperless environment. Invoices can be tracked throughout the workflow, ensuring no invoices are inadvertently overlooked.
Users can create invoice routing rules that systematically send invoices to specified reviewer(s) for coding and approval or route invoices manually. The rules can be assigned based on different criteria such as Vendor ID, value, location, Job, and GL Account. Approvals can be conducted in the field, and the data will automatically posts to the Sage Intacct system.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Sage continues to build out the functionality of Sage Intacct Construction. In August 2022, it launched Sage Field Operations, and in 2021, it added integration to ProEst for Sage Intacct Construction. In November 2023, it launched Construction Management in Canada, taking advantage of the booming construction industry there.
This latest announcement brings its Sage Intacct Construction functionality even closer to that of Sage CRE. As modern AP management solutions are often born in the cloud and optimising these processes, Sage will hope that this launch will capture more revenue while easing the burden of AP administration on clients.
