Sage Intacct’s Intelligent GL Will Change the Role of Finance Executives

The annual Sage Intacct Advantage conference is an opportunity for the company to lay out its vision for the future and show off innovative new product features. One of the key themes of this year’s conference was achieving Finance 3.0 – the next era of accounting and finance. Here’s a simple breakdown of this evolution:

Finance 3.0 isn’t just an abstract concept, and it’s not a futuristic capability either. That’s because of the biggest announcement at Advantage: A groundbreaking technology that will transform how CFOs, Controllers, and everyone in finance do their job.

Sage Intacct has been teasing a product code-named Pacioli (after the creator of double-entry bookkeeping) for several years now. We finally got our first look at it during Advantage under its new name – Sage Intacct Intelligent General Ledger.

The new name is appropriate because it describes exactly what the feature offers: a smarter general ledger. Unlike past GL products that utilized simple automation, Intelligent GL incorporates true artificial intelligence. The difference comes down to scale. Automation makes things faster and more efficient, whereas AI makes them fully automated and largely removes human accountants from the equation.

We plan to write more in the coming months about the full capabilities of Intelligent GL. For this post, what’s most important is that an AI-driven general ledger makes Finance 3.0 possible, even accessible. Since technology can now handle the most time and labor-intensive aspects of accounting, decision-makers can focus all their energy on looking down the road. Constant foresight promises to make companies more agile, dynamic, and competitive in the face of uncertainty. It’s an exciting evolution and one that everyone needs to prepare for, most importantly those at the top.

In the past, the Controller was seen as the head accountant, and the CFO was seen as the leader of finance. Their roles were different, but in both cases, they were focused on the past. Most of their work was about helping companies understand how they got to where they are. 

Intelligent General Ledger finds, integrates, and analyzes past data automatically, enabling a kind of constant-close process that gives executives an up-to-the-minute perspective into all aspects of performance. With all that extra time and insight, the Controller and CFO can focus their energy on planning, forecasting, strategizing, and evangelizing. Finance is already the driver of most companies, and thanks to new technologies like Sage Intacct Intelligent GL, finance leaders can thrive in that role. It’s a new approach, but one that forward-thinking Controllers and CFOs are well prepared for – and now fully-equipped for, too.

If you’re curious about what the intelligent Sage Intacct general ledger can do, you’re not alone. It’s one of the biggest developments in enterprise accounting technology in some time and one that promises to make Finance 3.0 a reality. If you’re ready for what comes next, Sage Intacct is the ticket to get there. Contact us for more information.