{"id":7542,"date":"2021-04-21T04:52:58","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T08:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/?p=7542"},"modified":"2026-01-16T06:46:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T11:46:47","slug":"sage-intacct-powers-the-family-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/sage-intacct-powers-the-family-centre\/","title":{"rendered":"Sage Intacct Empowers the Family Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header has-dark-background-color entry-header--has-illustration entry-header--has-illustration--generic\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__row row align-center\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col col-lg-7 col-xlg-6 entry-header__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"component component-single-header\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__misc text--subtitle text--uppercase text--small\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/category\/money-matters\/\" class=\"entry-header__link\">Money Matters<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-title-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"entry-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSage Intacct Empowers the Family Centre\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"entry-header__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"single-post-details container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"posted-on \"><time class=\"entry-date published\" datetime=\"2021-04-21T04:52:58-04:00\">April 21, 2021<\/time><\/span><span class=\"reading-time\"> min read<\/span>\n\t\t<button\n\t\t\ttype=\"button\"\n\t\t\tclass=\"social-share-button button button--icon button--secondary js-social-share-button\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-title=\"Sage Intacct Empowers the Family Centre\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-url=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/sage-intacct-powers-the-family-centre\/\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-text=\"Please read this interesting article\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__share-label\">Share<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-label\" hidden>Copy Link<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-tooltip\" aria-hidden=\"true\" hidden>Copied<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-post-author has-dark-background-color alignfull\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"co-authors\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-author-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<a class=\"entry-author\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/author\/owen\/\">\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/fr-ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2019\/04\/Owen_sage-advice-002.jpg\" class=\"entry-author__image\" height=\"40\" width=\"40\" fetchpriority=\"high\" \/>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"entry-author__name\">Owen Sweeney<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sage-block-classic-wrapper\">\n\n\n\n<p>Although nonprofit in nature, the needs of the finance departments supporting the charity and support sector in Canada mirror those of their for-profit peers.<\/p>\n<p>Stephanie Kolibaba, Director of Finance at the Edmonton-based nonprofit The Family Centre, speaks to Sage Advice about how her finance team embraced digital transformation to undo bottlenecks, reduce manual processes and analyze better data in the organization.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p7c1Yjn9G_M\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>A nonprofit\u2019s challenge<\/h2>\n<p>The Family Centre is a counselling and resource centre that provides a safe space for everyone. The centre supports people of all ages, cultures, ethnicities, experiences, gender expressions, gender identities, religions, and sexual orientations and helps its clients navigate through change, raise healthy children, develop strong and healthy relationships, and heal from trauma.<\/p>\n<p>With a mandate like this, it\u2019s imperative that the Family Centre runs a smooth accounting operation in order to ensure that the organization\u2019s resources are used properly and in full.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven though we\u2019re not for profit, we have a cost accounting type situation because obviously as a non for profit, we want to use our resources\u2026all of our resources,\u201d explains Stephanie Kolibaba, Director of Finance. \u201cWe don\u2019t want any surplus at the end of the day, and we definitely don\u2019t want a deficit. We want to make sure that every dollar is used and is going towards our community and directly to our clients.\u201d The more Stephanie shared the challenges her finance team had to overcome, the easier it was to draw parallels between a scaling for profit business with a growing non-profit organization.<\/p>\n<h2>Escaping Excel<\/h2>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cWe were doing a $23 million budget in excel and you cannot imagine how painful that is.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>For finance managers in a bustling business over-relying on Microsoft Excel, this may be an all too familiar situation. Many scaling organizations develop accounting requirements such as revenue recognition and multi-entity consolidation, but unfortunately, their existing financial software was not purpose-built for these emerging business needs. This puts pressure on the finance teams to design cumbersome workarounds to fill their reporting gap. For some businesses, this burden is often accompanied by the following challenges.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Exporting data to multiple spreadsheets<\/li>\n<li>Creating additional journal entries each month<\/li>\n<li>Using a third-party tool to report revenue that doesn\u2019t integrate with the primary accounting solution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These workarounds lead to entry errors, incorrect or outdated data, process inefficiencies, wasted time and resources, and a lack of control and compliance.<\/p>\n<h2>Dimensional reporting<\/h2>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cWe went from heavy segmenting with no consistency to an organized dimensional system that allows me to slice and dice the information without manually having to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Before the switch to the cloud, The Family Centre\u2019s core financials and accounting solutions were limited to canned reports without catch-all dashboards. This meant that the organization was fitting their financial reports around the programs\u2019 limitations and not on the requirements of the finance team. Furthermore, the solution would deem requests for detailed information has too much to manage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReporting was a big issue for us, and our previous Sage Solution was not built to do reporting. It was built to do transactions. It\u2019s difficult to extract the reporting information we need. We were struggling a lot to get all the information we need on one report. The reports needed to be better and faster and not something that I had to spend 80% of my time to create, versus applying that information to how we can do things better,\u201d says Stephanie.<\/p>\n<p>Sage Intacct allows for heavy customization of reporting, thus ensuring users can pull reports that only contain data that is relevant to their organization. A configurable workflow is no longer \u2018a nice to have\u2019, it\u2019s a fundamental requirement for businesses seeking a solution that can power their journey to scale.<\/p>\n<h2>Slimming down the chart of accounts<\/h2>\n<p>One of the most critical components of the finance team\u2019s operations is the chart of accounts. This is an index of all the financial accounts in the general ledger of a company. It\u2019s the organizational tool that provides a digestible breakdown of all the financial transactions that a company conducted during a specific accounting period, broken down into subcategories. In the case of the Family Centre, as the operations began to scale, the binder of accounts started to swell. Once Sage Intacct was implemented, this changed dramatically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the biggest things was our chart of accounts. We went from a binder full of accounts, (and there was no way I could explain this to other managers outside of finance), we went from 3500 accounts down to 200. It\u2019s thanks to this dimensional reporting,\u201d says Stephanie.<\/p>\n<h2>No stress cloud updates<\/h2>\n<p>Having previously dealt with an on-premises legacy system, fixes, updates and repairs were next to impossible for a team with no dedicated IT resource. For growing organizations, or simply organizations without an IT headcount it\u2019s essential that they are equipped with a cloud-based solution that can provide frictionless updates and add new functionality to businesses and nonprofits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m no IT expert, and we don\u2019t have an IT department but I would have to try and rustle up some help there was an update to our existing solution because it was on-premise and now this is no longer a thing\u2026every update is already in there. It saves a lot of time and stress,\u201d says Stephanie<\/p>\n<h2>A highly adaptable and customizable solution was required<\/h2>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cCustomization was a big factor in my buying choice and Sage Intacct was highly customizable. The budgeting module, although an add on, was the thing that really sold it to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If you were to ask Stephanie about her buying journey on the route to Sage Intacct she would admit there were some failures along the way, as they tried to figure out what the organization really needed. The Family Centre sought an automated and integrated solution. One consideration was the integration of the existing database that could talk to the chosen accounting system.<\/p>\n<p>One of the key recommendations that Stephanie has to offer to like-minded nonprofits or business starting their purchase journey is to lean on an accredited Sage partner to help you find exactly what you need. Stephanie and the Family Centre leveraged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.asyma.com\/\">Asyma Solutions.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI straight up told Asyma Solutions \u2018let\u2019s be partners\u2019. They heard what we needed and who we were as an organization. This was the first time someone had really taken the time to listen to our requirements,\u201d explains Stephanie.<\/p>\n<h2>Finally, a complete view of company finances<\/h2>\n<p>The Family Centre went from heavy segmenting with no consistency to an organized dimensional system that allows the finance team to slice and dice the information without being bogged down in manual processes. This gave the team the time to actually analyze the data and make critical changes to the way they run operations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s like we went from looking at a 2D image of our financial business to a 3D comprehensive view of our business with a clarity you wouldn\u2019t expect, it\u2019s liberating,\u201d concludes Stephanie.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The Family Centre\u2019s steps to success<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Took stock of everything they wanted and needed<\/li>\n<li>Shopped around the market<\/li>\n<li>Did not settle for lack of customization<\/li>\n<li>Talked to a solutions partner<\/li>\n<li>Reduced manual processes<\/li>\n<li>Developed dimensional reporting<\/li>\n<li>Reduced number of accounts from 3500 to 200<\/li>\n<li>Continued to enjoy instant cloud-based updates<\/li>\n<li>Now enjoy a 3D comprehensive view of their organization<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.familycentre.org\/\">Click to learn more about the Family Centre.<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"single-cta\">\n\t<div class=\"single-cta__positioner\">\n\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__wrapper has-dark-background-color\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"single-cta__title h3\">Discover Sage Intacct<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Our cloud financial management platform delivers deep accounting capabilities across multiple industries designed with a single aim\u2014to accelerate your success.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tclass=\"single-cta__button button button--primary\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tid=\"cta-id-7124\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-button-location=\"cta_box\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t>Learn more about Sage Intacct<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1440\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-954307646-1440x810.jpg\" class=\"single-cta__image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-954307646-1440x810.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 48em) 33vw, 100vw\" \/>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"single-cta\">\n\t<div class=\"single-cta__positioner\">\n\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__wrapper has-dark-background-color\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"single-cta__title h3\">Subscribe to the Sage Advice Newsletter<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"cta-content__title\">Get a roundup of our best business advice in your inbox every month.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"#gate-8949a954-88b2-43bb-8b8a-77c53eb34350\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tclass=\"single-cta__button button button--primary\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t>Subscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1440\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1073797282-1440x810.jpg\" class=\"single-cta__image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1073797282-1440x810.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 48em) 33vw, 100vw\" \/>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although nonprofit in nature, the needs of the finance departments supporting the charity and support sector in Canada mirror those of their for-profit peers. Stephanie Kolibaba, Director of Finance at the Edmonton-based nonprofit The Family Centre, speaks to Sage Advice about how her finance team embraced digital transformation to undo bottlenecks, reduce manual processes and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":737,"featured_media":158,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sage_video":true,"post_featured_image_hide":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"business_type":[99],"lilypad":[],"context":[],"industry":[],"persona":[],"imagine_tag":[],"coauthors":[310],"class_list":["post-7542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-money-matters","business_type-medium-business"],"sage_meta":{"region":"en-ca","author_name":"Owen Sweeney","featured_image":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-588934529_super.jpg","imagine_tags":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice Canada English","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/737"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"business_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/business_type?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"lilypad","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/lilypad?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"context","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/context?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"persona","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/persona?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"imagine_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/imagine_tag?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ca\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}