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NetSuite vs. Intacct: Which One Is Right for Your Business?

It’s a common tale. A company spends months (and sometimes years) researching and building internal support for implementing a new financial software system. It vets different vendors, selects one, pays for and implements the software all with a goal of
hoping to drive accuracy and more efficiency across the company, while giving leaders access to finance data to help make decisions about business strategy. But Excel-based work, particularly for more complex financial processes, persists. Senior accountants struggle with revenue recognition ultimately discovering that the company needs a bolt-on module to properly handle it. The company’s plan to introduce subscription-based product offerings is slowed by the difficulty of integrating billing processes and properly recognizing that revenue in accordance with accounting standards. Product teams trying to view profitability by different product lines can’t easily define dimensions and segment data. A billing clerk finds herself manually entering sales information from the CRM system into the accounting system and invoicing clients at unpredictable intervals—even though the company was promised a “seamless integration” between its CRM and accounting system. Everyone begins to wonder: what was the benefit of investing in this software at all? When startups and growing businesses decide it’s time to upgrade beyond Excel and entry-level accounting systems, NetSuite and Intacct are often two of the vendors on the shortlist. But one is head and shoulders above the other in ways that may surprise you. In evaluating NetSuite vs. Intacct for accounting and finance, here are some of the criteria to consider.

What do you need?

Let’s address the proverbial elephant in the room.NetSuite is an ERP system. Intacct is not. NetSuite can manage and automate the processes of many business functions outside of accounting and finance. This includes human resources, supply chain, warehouse management, inventory and order management, some parts of the manufacturing process, ecommerce, procurement, professional services automation—you get the picture.

NetSuite is a complete business platform.

And, while it offers a much broader range of functionality, customers can also start with basic accounting and financial functionality and extend the system as the business grows or needs arise. Intacct is a robust accounting platform with some basic functionality for order management, inventory management and time entry and tracking. Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re not ready for all of that ERP functionality yet and you’re looking to begin the ERP journey with finance and accounting. Your buying decision is probably being led by one of these factors below.

  •  You have no accounting software.
  • You have entry-level accounting software but it’s no longer sufficient for the growing complexity of your accounting processes. This could be for a number of reasons, such as a need for better financial reporting for future fundingrounds, increases in transaction volume, the need to manage the books of multiple entities or subsidiaries in a more automated way, conducting business in different countries, selling products or services using a subscription model or preparing for an IPO.
  •  You have legacy, on-premises software and want to move to the cloud. NetSuite and Intacct are both cloud-based ERP systems with multi-tenant, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deployment models. With multi-tenant software, all customers are on the same version of the software, which creates economies of scale and makes it much easier to upgrade. Upgrades are propagated by the vendor and require little effort from the business, with customizations and integrations carrying forward automatically.NetSuite and Intacct both deliver what most vendors call core finance functionality in this SaaS model. This includes the ability to automate processes associated with Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable, managing cost centers, automatically reconciling transactions and posting them to the general ledger, creating financial statements and more. The software also provides internal controls and segregation of duties. However, most businesses will need functionality that extends beyond core financials. Look no further than research from Intacct itself—which recently released a report that covered the top technology priorities for finance leaders of nonprofits in 2021.Many of the items in the top five will resonate across all businesses. This includes the ability to automate