{"id":10303,"date":"2017-09-21T15:22:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T19:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/?p=10303"},"modified":"2023-04-05T09:33:15","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T13:33:15","slug":"how-bitly-extended-their-runway-by-six-months-by-choosing-sage-intacct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/how-bitly-extended-their-runway-by-six-months-by-choosing-sage-intacct\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bitly Extended Its Runway by Six Months by Choosing Sage Intacct"},"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-us\/blog\/category\/accountants\/\" class=\"entry-header__link\">Accountants<\/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\tHow Bitly Extended Its Runway by Six Months by Choosing Sage Intacct\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\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=\"2017-09-21T15:22:00-04:00\">September 21, 2017<\/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=\"How Bitly Extended Its Runway by Six Months by Choosing Sage Intacct\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-url=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/how-bitly-extended-their-runway-by-six-months-by-choosing-sage-intacct\/\"\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\t<\/header>\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-us\/blog\/author\/david-appel\/\">\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/07\/David-Appel-headshot-2023-1.jpg\" class=\"entry-author__image\" alt=\"David headshot\" \/>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"entry-author__name\">David Appel<\/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\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When\u00a0SaaS\u00a0or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/industry\/subscription-saas\/\r\">subscription companies<\/a> hit the revenue goals around Series B, processes that got them to that stage start to break down.\u00a0 I had the chance to speak with Peter Nesbitt, director of finance at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bitly.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bitly<\/a>, about how they knew they had to make a change to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/switch-to-sage\/quickbooks-alternative\/\r\">move off Quickbooks<\/a>, when they decided to do it, and what upside they leveraged from upgrading to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/us.intacct.com\/software-saas-accounting-software\">Sage Intacct<\/a>\u00a0for cloud financials.\u00a0 They found some big business value by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>automating the order entry out of Salesforce.com\u00a0into Sage Intacct, so that they automatically generate invoices and collections\u00a0<strong>which resulted in 6 months of an additional runway<\/strong>,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>automatically entering journal entries&nbsp;with dimensional reporting at the departmental level which&nbsp;<strong>reduced their close from four weeks down to one week<\/strong>, removing $200,000 of cost, and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>automatically performing revenue recognition<strong>, enabling&nbsp;<\/strong>real-time dashboards<strong>&nbsp;for the executive team<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>David<\/strong>:&nbsp; What were some of the things your company\/organization was struggling with prior to Sage Intacct?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Peter<\/strong>:\u00a0 The two things Bitly struggled with before Sage Intacct were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/product-capabilities\/extended-capabilities\/revenue-recognition\/\r\">revenue recognition<\/a> (rev rec) and reporting.\u00a0 We used Quickbooks before switching to Sage Intacct. Since Quickbooks doesn\u2019t do rev rec, we used Excel to calculate revenue recognized as well as deferred revenue. It was very challenging to track invoice changes or credit memos across\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bitly.com\/pages\/enterprise\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">800 paying customers<\/a>\u00a0and not check on whether SFDC was correct. The reporting tools in Quickbooks were very limited. I could export a P&amp;L and balance sheet, but everything else was non-existent or challenging to report on. Now with dimensions in Sage Intacct, we can do reports, such as P&amp;L by department or location. Also, we can upload budgets to report on actual versus budget. Finally, revenue-related reporting, such as deferred revenue forecasts and revenue by the customer is also very helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>David<\/strong>:\u00a0 How has switched to Sage Intacct helped your company improve performance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Peter<\/strong>:\u00a0 As I mentioned above, we used Excel to calculate the revenue recognized and the deferred revenue balance each month. It was a very time-consuming and error-prone process. \u00a0 With Sage Intacct, each invoice is entered with the starting and ending date of the revenue and then Sage Intacct does all the calculations down to the invoice level. \u00a0 This granularity ensures that each customer is being invoiced correctly and we are recognizing revenue correctly.\u00a0 The time and effort saved through superior technology like Sage Intacct have allowed us to continue to scale efficiently. Further,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/cp\/saas-intelligence-demo\/?utm_source=Reactful&amp;utm_medium=Lightbox&amp;utm_campaign=software-saas\">the accuracy around invoicing and revenue reporting<\/a> has enabled Bitly to feel confident in the numbers we report as well as in the cash we expect to collect. \u00a0 Since 80 percent of all business failures are related to cash flow, visibility into cash helps Bitly continue to build on its industry-leading link management platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>David<\/strong>:&nbsp; When thinking about the processes you&#8217;ve streamlined since switching to Sage Intacct, what are the estimated time and cost savings through these improvements?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Peter<\/strong>:\u00a0 We have seen huge time and cost savings just from the rev rec and reporting piece. First off, our monthly close has moved from four weeks down to one week.\u00a0 Also, we save about two days per month on rev rec and one hour per day for other reporting, for over 400 hours saved between two accounting team members in a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>David<\/strong>:&nbsp; What does the increased financial and operational visibility provided by Sage Intacct mean to your company?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Peter<\/strong>: With improved accuracy around rev rec, we better understand the projected cash flows to the company. This has given us confidence in spending cash in other areas of investment like technology and people. \u00a0 With dimensions, we were able to do department budgets empowering managers to understand spending across categories. For example, now we can give specific budgets for software and T&amp;E to each department, like engineering or product. Sage Intacct has enabled us to tighten up expenses, identify opportunities for savings, and provide transparency to the executive team on expenses and budgets. We also implemented the Sage Intacct -to Salesforce integration, which now gives real-time insights to our sales team into invoices and aging customers, which empowers them to identify churn risk by lack of payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>David<\/strong>:&nbsp; What other business applications have you integrated with Sage Intacct?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Peter<\/strong>:\u00a0 We have integrated with Anytime Collect and Salesforce. With integration with Anytime Collect, we have improved our AR dramatically while cutting our AR staffing time in half. We implemented ATC in December 2016, we were able to cut DSO in half and improve CEI to over 75% from 50%. This led to a change in operational cash flow of additional months of the runway which was like bridge funding but without any dilution in equity or additional liabilities.\u00a0 With the Salesforce integration, we are having better communication with the sales team while cutting our staff time to 10% less. Also, removing manual invoicing processing reduces human error in the quote-to-cash process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>David<\/strong>:\u00a0 How has Sage Intacct enabled your finance team to contribute to any ongoing business and organizational improvements?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Peter<\/strong>:&nbsp; By switching from Quickbooks to Sage Intacct, we are definitely more audit ready in accordance with GAAP compliance. &nbsp;Sage Intacct tracks changes in transaction level and offers options to attach documentation for the backups. &nbsp; Also, Sage Intacct automates billing and revenue reconciliation which is a huge benefit for SaaS companies. &nbsp; Intacct has overall improved our financial accuracy and controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>David<\/strong>:&nbsp; How would you describe the overall benefits you&#8217;ve seen from using Sage Intacct?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Peter<\/strong>:&nbsp; Beyond the improvements already mentioned in terms of improved collections, improved quote-to-cash, improved budgeting, more accurate financials, and improved forecasting, Sage Intacct has let us scale the business without additional headcount. We expect to easily double in size without requiring another finance headcount, where we would have certainly needed more employees if we had stayed on Quickbooks, saving us $200,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Peter and the Bitly Finance team have a great story to share, and Bitly continues its leadership in link management. Using\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/cp\/saas-intelligence-demo\/?utm_source=Reactful&amp;utm_medium=Lightbox&amp;utm_campaign=software-saas\">Sage Intacct <\/a>for their cloud financials has increased cash flow through\u00a0automated order entry and billing, given collaborative consciousness to the executive team in decision-making, and sped the financial close and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/cp\/saas-intelligence-demo\/?utm_source=Reactful&amp;utm_medium=Lightbox&amp;utm_campaign=software-saas\">reporting for accurate views on valuation and SaaS metrics<\/a>.<\/p>\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 our 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>Get our latest business advice delivered directly to your inbox.<\/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-ab515c6e-7e90-4c2f-a67e-113872516e8b\"\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-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1073797282-1440x810.jpg\" class=\"single-cta__image\" alt=\"Working from home with tea in hand\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/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>When\u00a0SaaS\u00a0or subscription companies hit the revenue goals around Series B, processes that got them to that stage start to break down.\u00a0 I had the chance to speak with Peter Nesbitt, director of finance at\u00a0Bitly, about how they knew they had to make a change to\u00a0move off Quickbooks, when they decided to do it, and what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1433,"featured_media":8977,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sage_video":false,"post_featured_image_hide":false,"sage_hide_published_date":false,"sage_hide_read_time":false,"sage_hide_share_buttons":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[158,44,48],"tags":[2,4,420,168,287],"business_type":[312],"lilypad":[],"context":[418,429],"industry":[57,55,450,204],"persona":[150],"imagine_tag":[],"coauthors":[599],"class_list":["post-10303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accountants","category-strategy-legal-operations","category-technology-innovation","tag-accountants","tag-business-intelligence","tag-cloud-financial-management","tag-sage-accounting","tag-sage-news","business_type-accountants","industry-financial-services","industry-professional-services","industry-software-saas","industry-technology"],"sage_meta":{"region":"en-us","author_name":"David 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