Stealth SaaS Startup Poised for Growth with Upgrade to Sage Ahead

Running QuickBooks Online, a fast-growth security SaaS company was at risk of falling behind on financial management as the cybersecurity managed detection and response (MDR) software and services provider grew its business.

Now the firm is poised to leap ahead with a new offering from Sage Intacct, Sage Ahead for Startups.

Bundling software and services, Sage Ahead for Startups delivers a pre-packaged FinOps (financial operations) tech stack with implementation by Sage Intacct experts. Customers can go live in as little as 60 days, and at 40% less cost than buying technologies separately.

“Sage Ahead for Startups came in with two important elements — lower price point and bundled implementation that correlates to less time and effort on our side,” says their CFO, who spearheaded the upgrade from QuickBooks.

The Sage Intacct vs. Oracle NetSuite Showdown

The company selected Sage Ahead for Startups after a rigorous evaluation of leading cloud financial management platforms, including suite products.

The CFO had used another cloud suite provider in a previous role and, despite misgivings with the software, initially envisioned that offering as the frontrunner.

That changed when the finance team conducted head-to-head comparisons between Sage Intacct and that suite solution.

Superior Ease of Use and Market Momentum

In contrast, the CFO was impressed with the intuitive ease of use he found in the Sage Intacct platform, including its customizable role-based dashboards.

“I had a much higher comfort level with Sage Intacct’s ease of use and its inviting interface,” the CFO says. “Sage Intacct allows us to have the information that we need to run and grow the business at our fingertips.”

The CFO also took note of Sage Intacct’s rapid ascent in the SaaS and software market, overtaking other products in studies by The SaaS CFO as the #1 solution of choice for companies moving up from QuickBooks or a legacy system.

“Compared to what I have used previously, Sage Intacct has more momentum in the marketplace,” the CFO  says. “The pace of growth was certainly accelerating at Sage Intacct, and that caught my attention as well.”

In addition, the CFO found that Sage Intacct Planning delivered a better budgeting and planning solution compared to the other vendor’s offering, with more sophisticated modeling capabilities that are important as the security SaaS firm expands its FP&A (financial planning and analysis) function.

An All-in-One FinOps Tech Stack

Those differentiators build on the core premise of Sage Intacct for Startups, an all-in-one subscription billing and ERP geared expressly for SaaS companies to seamlessly manage revenue across Salesforce CRM, billing, and general ledger (GL).

Bundling capabilities for automated billing, revenue recognition, financial reporting, expense management, a faster close, and regulatory compliance, Sage Ahead provides customers with:

·   500+ subscription, usage, and hybrid billing and revenue models

·   200+ investor-grade SaaS reports and forecasts, created up to 80% faster

·   Implementation in as little as 60 days

·   Costs up to 40% less than buying FinOps tech stack components separately

The Shift from Manual Reporting to Data on Demand

With Sage Ahead for Startups, the CFO will be able to put an end to the extensive Excel usage that’s been required while using QuickBooks for core accounting.

“Everything’s been very manual, with spreadsheet after spreadsheet — and that’s not scalable,” the CFO says. “We won’t have to go through all these different gyrations in Excel because Sage Intacct feeds us the information we need to run the business.”

That’s especially important as startups court external investors, who look for strong and defensible metrics that can be extremely difficult to generate through spreadsheets.

“Professional investment firms expect frequently updated, timely, and robust information, and you need a robust system to be able to support that,” the CFO says. “I’m confident that Sage Ahead for Startups is the best solution for our immediate needs and over the long term.”

Learn More

To find out what Sage Ahead for Startups can offer to your SaaS/software business:

·   Learn more at our web page

·   View a brief overview and demo

In addition, at www.sage.com/us/sageahead, you can find a wealth of resources on topics such as reporting, revenue recognition, subscription billing, SaaS metrics, and more.