Sage Intacct for Biotech & Life Science
Biotech and life science businesses live in a world of big ideas, long timelines and high stakes. You’re turning ideas into real health outcomes, all while navigating patents, funding and strict regulation. It’s exciting, yet complex.
For finance teams, that complexity comes in the form of multiple projects, shared costs and juggling multiple entities. This is where the right finance system can make the difference between a stagnant business and a thriving one.
In this article, we’ll look at a few of the tools in Sage Intacct and how they rise to the challenges of the biotech and life science industry.
Project Accounting
Having several projects running simultaneously can make it incredibly difficult to monitor and control costs. Each one might be for a different customer, at a different stage, and then there are shared costs across multiple projects.
Many finance systems weren’t designed with projects in mind and require 3rd party add-ons or manual workarounds. Sage Intacct, on the other hand, has a Project Accounting module which sits natively within the system, so you don’t have to worry about extra systems or syncing your data between the two.
With Sage Intacct Projects, you can:
- Track costs and outcomes by project
- Set budgets and estimates before work begins
- Share indirect costs, like lab space, across projects
- See profitability and spending in real-time
- Forecast demand and ensure resources are optimised
- Spot which types of projects really pay off
Plus, user permissions enable the whole team to work together, while only accessing what you want them to. For example, Project Managers can raise Purchase Orders and monitor spend against budget for just their own projects.
Automation
As your business grows, so does your workload. If you’ve got lots of manual processes, growth will mean more pressure, more hiring and more potential for mistakes. Automation is key to making your processes more efficient.
Just a few of the AI & automation features in Sage Intacct:
- Bank Feeds and Bank Reconciliation: Frees up time by automatically matching your bank account transactions with Sage.
- AP Automation: Populates Purchase Invoices for you and matches them to the corresponding Purchase Orders.
- Smart Rules & Events: Completes actions triggered by set criteria, e.g. email manager when a new supplier is added.
- Assurance Agent: Uses AI and Machine Learning to continuously monitor your GL for outliers, errors and mismatches.
- Approval Workflows: Allows you to set your own custom approval policies to save time and ensure compliance.
These features not only save time day-to-day, but they also make your month end close faster and smoother.
“I’ve clawed back at least half a day a month on bank reconciliations with Intacct. We have four companies, and each has two bank accounts, so the automated bank feed feature is a huge time saver,” – Nicola Groom, Finance Director at Creative Medical Research
Multi-Entity & Global Capabilities
Many UK biotech leaders are looking to the US IPO (Initial Public Offering) markets for funding and expansion, which often means new entities, currencies and compliance requirements.
To support your international growth strategy, first, you need the right tools. Sage Intacct is cloud-based and designed to handle multiple entities, locations, currencies and tax rules all in one place. This makes it ideal for international businesses and those looking to expand into new markets.
Multi-entity & global capabilities in Sage Intacct:
- Access to all entities through a single login
- Auto-balancing inter-company transactions
- Built-in automatic currency conversions
- Automatic consolidation and elimination
Reporting across all your entities is also much faster, because all your data is in one place ready for you. We’ll touch more on the reporting features next.
Dashboards & Reporting
Producing accurate financial records is essential for securing funding, building partnerships and maintaining trust with investors and shareholders.
The challenge is how long it can take to gather the reports. So, having the tools at hand to produce them quickly is game changing.
Sage Intacct’s reporting features are made up of 3 key elements:
Dashboards
Customisable dashboards give you a real-time view of what matters most to you in your role. They combine financial and operational data in clear and interactive visuals, with drilldown functionality and a variety of filters to help you get detailed insights.
Reporting
Reports are completely customisable, so you can quickly build what you need and automatically send reports to the right people at the right time. That means fewer spreadsheets, less room for error and quicker answers.
Dimensions
To categorise your transactions without turning the chart of accounts into a mess, Sage Intacct has dimensions, which act as tags. They allow you to get more detailed analysis by filtering reports and dashboards by project, department, funding source and more.
Together, these features make it easier than ever to fulfil your reporting responsibilities and access the insights you need to make informed decisions.
Halloran Consulting Group generated £3.2 million in new profit, after adopting a blended-rate consultant billing model, thanks to the insights delivered by Sage Intacct.
“If we didn’t have Sage Intacct, there’s no way we would have been comfortable making such a big change to our billing structure,” – Tania Zieja, CFO at Halloran Consulting Group
Other Tools
Depending on your specific needs, there are a couple of other tools worth noting:
Time Tracking
Capturing time accurately isn’t always easy, but it matters, especially for project costing and funding claims. The AI-powered Sage Intelligent Time module makes entering timesheets quick and easy by suggesting entries based on calendar, email and work activity.
Fixed Assets Management
If you have lots of high value fixed assets, you might need a fixed asset management solution. Sage Intacct has a built-in Fixed Assets module which helps you automate depreciation, track maintenance schedules, attribute asset-related costs and more, without the spreadsheets.
Conclusion
We’ve worked closely with biotech, life science and healthcare organisations to help them find solutions that support their growth. Read the Medical Research Network case study for more information.
Regardless of whether you’re looking for solutions or just a bit of advice, our team are happy to help. Contact us and we’ll go from there.
