Using Sage Intacct software to tell memorable stories in reports

When Shadi Mossad gave his presentation at the 2022 Sage Transform Conference, he shared powerful ways financial experts can deepen their insights into organizational performance as well as create compelling narratives in their reports to management using Sage Intacct.

Mossad, a manager at Baker Tilly, has more than a dozen years of experience as a finance and business leader.

Mossad began his talk, titled “Reporting and Dashboards Tips and Tricks,” by reviewing the types of reports users can create using Sage Intacct’s software. As a first step, he suggested, he suggested, users define their intended audience, and tailor the information the best way that will be understood by them whether as numbers in a standard financial report, or as visualizations in more interpretive charts and graphs.

Standard, “out of the box” reports with pre-defined layouts work well for transactional information, he said. Those templates allow users to filter by time frame or dimension and drill down for more detailed information. However, if readers require different information than the basic templates provide, a custom report may be in order. Users can customize layouts, add computational columns, add basic analytical functions like “sum,” “count” and “average” and still drill down into individual transaction entries.

Custom reports are “great” at combining financial and non-financial data, Mossad said. This capability comes in handy, for example, when looking at total expenses along with the details of the vendor bills that make up those expenses. However, when users need to change the formatting – or add advanced formulas – to their reports, that’s the time to use the interactive custom reports capabilities, he recommended. Those reports can use rolling sums, CASE statements of if/then logic, create pivot tables and generate multiple views of the data in the same report.

Users can also add a time dimension to compare data over periods of time, from days to years. The financial report writer, which offers the flexibility to display comparisons of data by time periods or by budgets, calculate percent of revenue or gross margin percentage and create visualizations to show trends and performance.

Sage Intacct’s accounting software shines brightest in its ability to create meaningful visualizations, Mossad said, with more than 30 different types of graphs available, along with the ability to portray patterns and trends. These features help presenters turn numbers into compelling narratives or “stories” that leave audiences with unforgettable takeaways.

Mossad closed his presentation with demonstrations of several other useful features:

• Notations that explain variances in the numbers, or other matters of interest to auditors
• Billboards that remind users of deadlines and other important news
• Report groups that automatically assemble and deliver reports on similar subjects
• Cover letters that tie a report package together

To learn more about how you can enhance your reporting with Sage Intacct, contact us today.