OneStream launches IPO with the help of Sage Intacct
Learn how Sage Intacct supported OneStream to grow their CMRR by 800% in four years, overcome their manual accounting struggles, and position themselves for success as a public company.

OneStream, a comprehensive cloud-based platform to modernize the office of the CFO, launched their IPO in July with the help of Sage Intacct.
Here, we’ll be looking at how Sage Intacct supported OneStream to grow their CMRR by 800% in four years, overcome their manual accounting struggles, and position themselves for success as a public company.
Here’s what we’ll cover
Inhibitors to scale: Stuck in manual mode with QuickBooks
Before switching to Sage Intacct, OneStream faced several significant challenges and sought an ERP that would help the team scale and prepare for future growth.
Initially, they were using a small business accounting system that was suitable for the company’s early stages but couldn’t keep up with their rapidly expanding needs.
Because the prior accounting system relied heavily on manual processes, OneStream struggled with:
- billing inefficiencies and manual reconciliation processes
- the hassle of dealing with manual rev rec spreadsheets
- being limited to manual worksheets for scaling.
Clearly, something had to change for OneStream to achieve its goal to scale their transactional accounting processes.
Today, the company has more than 1,500 customers, 1,400 employees, and 250 go-to-market, implementation, and development partners.
They are now executing their vision to be the operating system for modern finance, digitizing core financial functions and empowering the CFO to become a critical driver of business strategy.
How did they get from point A to point B?
They embraced automation and upgraded their transactional accounting suite.
Why did OneStream upgrade their finance tech stack?
As OneStream found product-market fit and wanted to scale their sales velocity and GTM motion, the finance team aimed to support the growth of the company, the requirements to invoice, manage multi-entity accounting requirements and manage accounting processes in the previous accounting system required a lot of manual processing, support files and review procedures to ensure accuracy.
This was not scalable for the company or valuable work for the business.
1. Their primary finance workflows were too manual
Prior to upgrading to Sage Intacct, OneStream’s recurring billing, revenue recognition, and close processes required a lot of manual processing.
This high level of manual effort resulted in inefficiencies.
2. The lack of process automation led to scalability issues
As OneStream grew, the prior accounting was not ideal to handle the increased volume of transactions and complexity.
This created complexity with different revenue recognition models and made international close processes difficult as they continued to expand.
As OneStream pursued automation via tactical additions to their tech stack, they discovered another problem.
3. Lack of integration presented strategic difficulties
Integration capabilities with supplemental marketplace applications required manual record keeping.
This meant OneStream had a hard time streamlining operations for efficiency and consolidating data across the company’s various departments and systems.
Why OneStream chose Sage Intacct
Eventually, OneStream recognized the limits of the prior accounting software and the need for a more robust solution to support their recent growth.
They needed a truly flexible accounting tool that could help them reach their goal and requirements to scale.
After a careful assessment of the different options on the market, OneStream’s finance team chose Sage Intacct.
This important decision was driven by several key factors that are common among market-leading technology companies.
They anticipated growth in customers and employees
This meant that OneStream required an accounting system that could grow with them, meeting their scalability needs in billing transactions, billing models, expenses, and payables.
Sage Intacct’s ability to seamlessly scale with OneStream’s growth was a major draw.
It gave the company a way to handle the increasing volume and complexity of its transactions and operations.
They hoped to automate recurring billing and revenue recognition
OneStream’s billing and revenue recognition needs were multifaceted.
The company had a multi-product billing model which required heavy manual efforts and review as well as high volumes while accompanying professional services billing.

Sage Intacct’s contract recurring billing module gave them a way to handle all of these billing models.
With corresponding MEA revenue recognition across ASC 606 and IFRS 15, the software enabled OneStream to semi-automate billing and compliance.
Anticipating international expansion, they needed multi-entity and multi-currency consolidation
Sage Intacct’s ability to add new entities, whether from multi-country growth or acquisitions, made it a natural choice for OneStream.
The software allowed them to rapidly and successfully grow into new markets.
Further, Sage’s Fixed Assets solution was implemented to help them track the value of their fixed assets and maximize tax savings as they grew into a worldwide business.
OneStream banking integration
As the company continued to grow, cash and banking management and integration was important.
The ability to integrate directly with the banking platform to review payments, perform cash reconciliations and perform reporting was very important
They wanted to simplify the close and reduce data delays for reports and forecasts.
OneStream knew they needed a scalable transactional reporting ERP that could:
- centralize the financial close ledgers and subledgers
- integrate with other SaaS products
- ensure a consistent and accurate close.
Sage Intacct gave them the transactional tool they were looking for.
Sage’s strong product partnerships supplied ease of integration with OneStream’s own product for planning, forecasting and analysis and consolidation, as well as JPM Access, Kimble PSA, Salesforce, Coupa, and Tesorio.
The company finally had a system that scaled for the transactional volume for it’s sub-ledgers, ledgers and integrated toolsets for all its financial data, as well as its ability to integrate with OneStream to enable real-time forecasting and reporting.
OneStream’s big wins after switching to Sage Intacct
With their newly improved tech stack, the finance team was able to scale to support that market traction and GTM acceleration — driving to, and through, their goal to become a public company.
Pam McIntyre, OneStream’s Corporate Controller and Senior Vice President of Finance, shares that the finance team achieved significant milestones that have propelled the organization’s growth and efficiency:
IPO
Pam says, “Sage Intacct gave us the robust financial transactional tools and compliance tools and integration capabilities we needed to prepare for our growth and becoming a public company.”
Reduced close time
The company cut its financial close time from 15+ days to just 5 days, complementing the process with OneStream’s Financial Close solution.
Customer growth
OneStream expanded its customer base from approximately 500 to more than1500 customers. “We didn’t need to significantly increase the size of our accounting team,” says Pam, “so we were able to control costs as we scaled.”
New product lines and billing types
The company successfully added new products and billing models, including seat-based, usage-based, platform-based, and professional services.
Revenue recognition
Sage Intacct gave OneStream access to ASC 606 and IFRS 15 revenue recognition at the push of a button. “Prior to Sage, revenue recognition was a consuming process,” Pam explains.
International expansion
They supported their expansion into 18 international ledgers, consolidating on their OneStream Financial Consolidation product.
Enhanced billing and cash flow
Integration with Salesforce CPQ and the rollout of new billing types accelerated billing processes.
Global cash management:
Sage Intacct’s integration with Sage Network and banking systems streamlined OneStream’s global cash management.
Improved financial reporting:
OneStream leveraged its newly accelerated close to quickly transfer accounting data into the company’s FP&A platform.
They achieved robust financial reporting and forecasting, raising their gross margin to 75% as of 9/30/2024.
Team culture transformation
Beyond all of these financial improvements, there was a great evolution for the team working hard to produce these outcomes.
Previously, the finance team spent much of their time on manual tasks.
But after switching to Sage, they were able to switch that time to focus on driving and supporting growth.
This cultural shift led to the finance team becoming proactive partners to business leaders.
It also led to reduced fire-fighting and created a more collaborative environment.
A place where teams analyzed data to find new areas of growth and efficiency.
Final thoughts
OneStream’s journey to IPO reflects a tremendous leadership team and group of colleagues backed by advanced accounting software.
With Sage Intacct in their tech stack, OneStream was equipped with powerful financial reporting to analyze SaaS metrics, helping them better forecast the future.
The problems OneStream faced on basic accounting software like QBO are common among high-growth technology companies that have found product-market fit and want to accelerate GTM motion.
By leveraging Sage Intacct’s robust capabilities, OneStream not only removed these inhibitors to scale and operational efficiency, but also positioned itself for a successful IPO, with predictable growth and profitability.
The ability to utilize a single unified tech stack across Sage and OneStream’s own enterprise platform fueled a transformation in team culture, and significant improvements in financial reporting and cash management.
This underscores the value of a scalable, integrated financial management solution in driving to OneStream’s IPO and their continued success.
Sage created a new offering, Sage for SaaS and Technology, that allows other technology companies to take a similar approach to producing frictionless finance automation & intelligence to grow through IPO.
Check out this 5-minute product tour to see how you could leverage this solution for yourself.
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