Sage Intacct Gives the USO a Faster Close and a Clearer View of Spending
Key Takeaways
⇨ Sage Intacct reduced USO bank reconciliation from five or six days to around three.
⇨ The nonprofit also shortened its monthly financial close by roughly a day and a half.
⇨ Role-based permissions and broader financial visibility give USO budget owners faster access to spending information.
The United Service Organizations (USO) has moved its core finance operations onto Sage Intacct, according to a Sage customer story. The Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit supports service members and their families worldwide. Its finance team had previously relied on manual processes, lengthy bank reconciliations and labour-intensive reporting.
Intacct replaced much of that manual work with templates, imports, bank integrations and role-based controls. Sage reports that bank reconciliations now take around three days instead of five or six, while the monthly close has been reduced by roughly a day and a half. Finance has also gained a clearer view across the organisation and can provide programme leaders with more timely information.
From Manual Reconciliation to a Shorter Close
The USO’s programmes span regions and environments where needs can change quickly. Finance needs to move funds where they are needed while maintaining appropriate controls. Diane Fraber, vice president and controller, and Michelle Turner, senior director of accounting, lead that work. Fraber described stewardship as part of the USO’s mission.
Before the move to Intacct, routine accounting consumed a significant amount of the team’s time. The case study describes extensive data entry, lengthy reconciliations and processes that still depended on paper or manual workarounds.
Intacct changed how much of that work is handled. Templates and imports now manage entries that staff previously entered manually, while integrations with banks and other systems remove additional manual steps. Finance can also see which items are waiting, which have been approved and what actions are required next.
Sage reports the results in terms of cycle time. According to the case study, the streamlined daily processes save the finance team days each month, giving it more time to support the wider organisation.
Permissions and Visibility Support Oversight
Stewardship at the USO also means showing donors and leadership how funds are being used. Turner said the organisation has an accountability to donors, leadership and the people it serves, making systems that support that accountability important.
Intacct provides part of that structure through role-based permissions. Sage’s case study says stronger permissions support separation of duties, a control practice that divides transaction responsibilities between different people.
The same system gives finance greater visibility into activity across the organisation. This allows the team to provide programme and department leaders with more timely information, while budget owners can access answers they can use to make decisions.
Turner also described a change in how the USO allocates spending. The organisation has narrowed its focus to core programmes, moving funding away from programmes that reached relatively few service members at around $500 per service instance. That funding is now directed towards programmes that serve significantly more people. The case study presents this alongside the finance system changes but does not establish that Intacct data directly drove those decisions.
Intacct provides the permission structure and reporting data, while role design and decisions about what budget owners can access remain finance responsibilities.
What This Means for ERP Insiders
Treat reconciliation as an early lever for improving the close. The USO’s reported improvements began with bank reconciliation, which fell from five or six days to around three. ERP teams can track reconciliation time separately and prioritise automated feeds and matching early in the process, potentially freeing up close days without redesigning the entire finance function.
Define roles before widening access to financial data. The USO combines role-based permissions with more timely information for programme and department leaders. ERP teams expanding financial reporting to budget owners can establish role definitions first, allowing leaders to access information more quickly while maintaining separation of duties.
Build budget-owner reporting around spending decisions. Turner described moving funding away from programmes that served relatively few people at a high cost per service instance. ERP teams can design reporting around the measures leaders actually use to compare programmes, assess value and redirect resources.