Infor VISUAL vs. Sage Intacct

The original version of Visual Manufacturing (Lilly Software) was intended for mechanical manufacturing. It was adapted at our facility (we were not the first) to accomodate electronic manufacturing. For electronic manufacturing process control it is not ideal when referencing in-line or custom processes used to build product. For material control it is excellent unless a modification to a standard product is required (and we did this on 60% of product going out the door). The co-product feature that removes material from an assembly requires the creator of the work order to calculate the percentage of cost the removed items are from the completed product. On the business operations side regional tax reports were difficult to extract and an external module to go into the data base and extract that had to be created. The system itself was stable for the most part. Occasional "data collisions" corrupted transactions at times. The accounting procedures in place found them by the end of the month .where they were corrected. For a small business with less formal processes Infor Visual can be used with little training for the operators. If the processes need a higher level of accountability and control the processes can be formalized with workflow scripts to ensure that higher level of control.

Incentivized

It is well-suited for nonprofit accounting with its ability to track expenses and revenues by both department and funding source. It is easy to set up vendors and customers for invoices and bill payments. It is less appropriate for proper budget management and purchasing with multiple approvers, particularly when edits are required.

Incentivized

• Part/BOM libraries
• Traceability from customer order to work order
• Job status representation

Incentivized

• Custom, real-time financial reporting. I am able to streamline my reporting to pull in various account groups and calculations which save me time from having to do it in Excel.
• Out of the box standard reports for clients who don't require as custom of reporting or even as a great starting point to build out reports.
• Integrations with other platforms, such as Airbase, various banks, Rippling, etc.
• The dashboard module is extremely helpful in my monthly review of various entities.

Incentivized

• At times a "shadow part" is necessary in the manufacturing process. This shadow part does not require an inventory transaction but is made a as a separate process - sometimes out of sequence to the general process flow. Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 does not have that capability.
• When generating forms for business and manufacturing operations Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 has a limited number of options. To change or add forms requires an unsupported editor. When the stock and custom options are depleted an outside programming module is required as well as programmers to develop the forms.
• While free software upgrades to the main operations modules have been part of the maintenance agreement. One upgrade required database and hardware support not justifiable for the current business model. The system was frozen at the current version at that time.
• There is no easy way to differentiate between engineering documentation and production documentation.

Incentivized

• Downloading bill register reports for all the entities at the top level would be helpful.
• An increase in the Time frame of the Auto-Log out feature for security will be helpful.
• I think there is some room in the automation part that can be improved.

Incentivized

Good Technical and Customer Support during and after implementation tasks. Good Project Plan and Management support for implementation and post implementation. Financial functionality could be more comprehensive particularly with Budgeting and Cash Management. Inventory Management capability was adequate but could be more comprehensive as well. "Out of the Box" functionality was adequate but requested add-ons and enhancements seemed to be a bit pricey.

Sage Intacct continues to well-satisfy our needs and is an easy-to-use product. Service reliability has been excellent. The ability to integrate Sage Intacct with best-in-class companion products that handle expense reporting, budgeting, etc... makes Sage Intacct an excellent value. We continue to be extremely well-satisfied with the results and performance of our experience using Sage Intacct.

Incentivized

Because of use cases and easy implementation and the vertical and horizontal scaling.

Incentivized

The ease of use as a seasoned user is wonderful; however, new users struggle to adapt to the program efficiently. Better training videos--all in one location--would be beneficial. The use of a "sandbox" environment is a great tool for new employees or for the fiscal department to test certain journal entries or other transactions to verify accuracy of data.

Incentivized

There has only been one occurrence where Sage Intacct was not available to me, however I had already been working a number of hours trying to get a project completed. It honestly allowed me to step back and take a much needed break.

Incentivized

As fas as integration is concerned I don't feel this slows Sage Intacct down at all. However, sometimes I do feel it takes some larger reports more time to load due to all the detail. As well as, I "move very fast" in my motions so sometimes I double click on fuctions too quickly and the system seems to think that I have a duplicate request.

Incentivized

As we have seen the live environment and the use cases where we implement.

Incentivized

Only a few times have we had to reach out to support, and every time we did, we received a relatively quick response and a solution was found fairly quickly. Only once was there an issue that took longer than a week to resolve, but it still did eventually get solved.

Incentivized

I have taken in person training classes at several of the annual Sage Intacct user conferences. It is very interactive and the trainers are very easy to follow and understand. They are great at getting everyone in the class involved. They also make sure everyone has learned to task before moving to a new one.

Incentivized

The free training is very minimal. For what we pay for the service, I would like more training. We end up training new users in-house because the provided free training is not nearly comprehensive enough. That being said, the training provided, for the material covered, was adequate and relevant for the given topics.

Incentivized

Could have used more hands-on approach. There are multiple webinars and information sessions but until you actually use the system, these are not very helpful.

Incentivized

I would not use a thrid party administrator to implement your system, especially if you are going to be modifying the system at all. Use Intacct implementors as they will be able to better support you on any issues that come up after you go live.

Incentivized

We unfortunately did not evaluate any other ERP software. VISUAL was a legacy system and we determined that changing systems would be too difficult, and not cost effective. We reached out to our local VISUAL rep who knew how the software functioned, but not how to apply it more appropriately to our business model, so we continued on with what we had rather than looking elsewhere.

Incentivized

As a CPA in public accounting, I was exposed to many systems. I was in on the ground floor with the implementation of NetSuite for a client; it was clunky, the reporting was ugly, and it wasn’t user friendly. Sage Intacct is a great option for mid-size organizations who have outgrown Quickbooks.

There is so much that we have yet to learn with and about Sage Intacct, I am excited for the future.

Incentivized

• Good Billing provided
• Easy to implement and use
• scales vertical and horizontal

Incentivized

• Sage Intacct has made a very positive impact to our business objectives; it has provided strong ROI through automation features that reduce manual data input and associated risk of error, enhancing accuracy and operational efficiency.
• It empowers us to make data-driven decisions that further refine our strategic plan by bettering the process of financial close with real-time and detailed reporting.
• This also extends to multi-entity management, which eased consolidation and thus supported growth and scaling. This feature-rich software finally serves to drive productivity further and facilitate resource usage.

Incentivized