Professional Services Automation for Business Consulting Firms

Financial professionals in consulting organizations need to be able to ask hard questions, yet easily get answers. You need to know how to optimize client service levels, see which clients are most profitable, and determine how to best utilize staff.

Sage Intacct cloud professional services automation software takes the heavy lifting out of financial management for consulting firms, plus gives you instant access to a full view of your business in real time. As a result, you can get deeper insight, tackle more strategic issues, and help keep your whole organization focused on your clients.

Profitable Project Pricing

Gain visibility into your whole business—not just finance—so you can create accurate client estimates and more informed decisions. With Sage Intacct business accounting software, your jobs and projects are connected to your accounting transactions. That makes it possible to see metrics such as profitability by service type, utilization of billable resources, and direct and indirect costs of labor—for one project, some jobs, or all jobs. Sage Intacct can also show you revenue by service type, by location, and other factors that are unique to your business.

Revenue Recognition

Consulting companies charge different rates for different services. Adding to the accounting complexity, those services may each have different revenue recognition rules associated with them from bookings to billed to deferred revenue to collections. Sage Intacct offers automated, easy revenue recognition. So you can save staff time for more strategic work and easily get reports on the state of cash flow and deferred revenue.

Project Accounting

Most accounting software solutions are one-size-fits-all like QuickBooks, Freshbooks and Xero, so they fall short to provide the insight that consulting firms need to run profitable projects.

Accounting software with project accounting capabilities like Sage Intacct help consulting firms stay on top of critical project costs and to better meet client needs, without having to solely manage this information in Excel spreadsheets.

Sage Intacct's project accounting module allows you to see a real-time profit and loss (P&L) statement on every active project – see the Project Manager screen shot below:

Accelerate Cash Flow

Sage Intacct's Accounts Receivables billing and invoicing helps consulting firms get paid faster by offering the following:

• Automated and recurring billing
• Sending invoices by PDF over email
• Attaching project documents
• Allowing more client payment options
• Reports for invoice aging, client payment history and more

This shortens the cash cycle, ensures that invoices don't get lost and even improves client satisfaction when billing is clear and consistent.

More Financial Management Tools for Consulting Firms

• Dimensional Chart of Accounts: track revenues, expenses and profitability for any department, location, customer, vendor, employee, item, class, and project while also simplifying your chart of accounts – from setup through real-time reporting
• Salesforce Integration: links the best-in-class cloud accounting software with the best-in-class cloud CRM, giving you a full view of every client
• Payroll Integration: Sage Intacct is integrated with ADP Workforce Now, Kronos Workforce Go!, Paychex Flex and numerous other payroll applications
• Time & Expense Reporting Integration: Sage Intacct is integrated with numerous time and attendance and expense reporting software, including Paychex, Expensify and Nexonia
• Revenue Recognition: important if you sell software, manage contracts beyond a year and are subject to ASC 606

The Resource Group

We are the leading Sage Intacct professional services automation software reseller and integrator in Seattle, Portland and throughout both Washington and Oregon. We've implemented Sage Intacct for many consulting firms.

We believe that Sage Intacct is the best accounting software for consulting firms because of the clarity it gives you on project and overall profitability.

Contact us to learn more about professional services automation software for business consulting firms

Download the eBook:
Best Practices for Selecting Accounting Software for a Professional Services Firm

Download the White Paper:
Four New Mandates for Finance in Tech Services Firms

Several key mandates have emerged that, when followed, can position finance teams in tech and professional services firms to drive higher growth. Download this whitepaper to learn more.

For More Information