Club Greenwood Achieves Financial Fitness with Sage Intacct

“MicroAccounting is an essential resource for us. They’ve helped us configure Sage Intacct to match how we do business and to take advantage of the many efficiencies available. We’ve got additional plans for Sage Intacct, and MicroAccounting is part of those plans.

Club Greenwood is Denver’s premier luxury health club. Its expansive 153,000-square-foot facility offers over 140 weekly group fitness classes. If that’s not enough, there are also two swimming pools, four outdoor and seven indoor tennis courts, and a full-size basketball court. With 240 employees (over 300 during the summer), Club Greenwood is a vibrant and dynamic operation where there’s always something in motion. To ensure its accounting and financial operations can keep pace, Club Greenwood relies on Sage Intacct, supported by the talented consulting team at MicroAccounting.

Sage Intacct Flexes its Muscles

Previously, the company used Sage 100, supported by another Sage partner. Dan Gray, Club Greenwood’s COO and CFO, explains why they decided to switch. “Sage 100 was a bit clunky to access and use. We hosted it on an internal server, and employees accessed it through a remote desktop application, but it was slow and clumsy. Plus, we didn’t feel like our partner was supporting us adequately. We wanted to move to a modern cloud-based solution that is quick, agile, and securely accessible from anywhere.”

Gray recalls hearing good reviews of Sage Intacct and began investigating the solution further. “We were impressed by the clean, friendly user interface and its underlying capabilities,” he says. “I spoke to a colleague in another state whose company uses Sage Intacct and asked who their Sage business partner is. They recommended MicroAccounting.”

MicroAccounting Sets the Pace

During those early conversations with MicroAccounting, Gray and his team were quickly impressed. “They are very responsive, highly organized, and really listened to what we wanted from the software,” he says. “Plus, they were able to meet our fast timeline for implementation.”

To have meaningful reports right from the start, Club Greenwood migrated five years of data from Sage 100 to Sage Intacct. MicroAccounting built import templates to speed and streamline the process, and Club Greenwood was live on Sage Intacct within their timeline and their budget.

Saving 30% on AP Processing

Accounts payable processing is one of the most time-consuming, transaction-intensive processes within any company, and Club Greenwood was no different. However, Sage Intacct has transformed AP workflows, cutting the time spent on the tasks by 30%.

“Everything is more streamlined — it just flows,” explains Gray. “Entering payable invoices is quick and easy, and we can attach an electronic copy of the vendor’s invoice to the record. Plus, we have many recurring transactions, and Sage Intacct makes it incredibly easy to duplicate those, adjust the dates and amounts, and post them in the next period.”

To speed vendor payment processing, MicroAccounting developed an export utility that connects with Deluxe Payment Exchange (DPX), an online payment service that issues paper or eChecks to recipients. Club Greenwood simply completes payment processing normally within Sage Intacct, but rather than printing and mailing checks, the detailed payment file is sent to DPX. “What’s especially nice about it is that we include our own check number in the file, which makes reconciliation a breeze,” adds Gray.

Bank Reconciliation in Half the Time

Another previously time-consuming, manual task at Club Greenwood was bank reconciliation. MicroAccounting offered a solution to this challenge as well.

“They introduced us to the bank feed feature in Sage Intacct,” Gray explains. “Our bank transactions flow automatically into Sage Intacct, so we can quickly clear them throughout the month rather than waiting for the statement to arrive. It results in a 50%-time savings for our staff — and we have continual real-time insights into our cash holdings.”

Speeding Month-End Close by 20-30%

Applying the same automated workflows to its month-end close, Gray says Sage Intacct has sped the process by 20-30%. “We set up recurring journal entries that essentially run themselves,” he says. “The handful of journal entries we need to enter are sped up by duplicating a prior month’s entry and adjusting the amounts.”

The company imports data from its club management application (Club Automation) and payroll provider (ADP) into the general ledger, eliminating the need to create manual entries for this vital information. “We’ve been able to automate nearly the entire close,” notes Gray.

Accounting Dimensions Deliver Required Visibility

It’s essential for Club Greenwood to have a clear picture of each department’s activities — and to allow department managers to monitor their spending against budgeted amounts. To streamline these initiatives, MicroAccounting introduced Club Greenwood to the dimensions feature in Sage Intacct.

Companies like Club Greenwood use dimensions to categorize financial data, allowing for a more flexible and detailed way to organize, track, and analyze information without complicating their chart of accounts. Dimensions separate transactional data into meaningful categories, enabling users to slice and dice financial reports and gain deeper insights into their business operations.

For Club Greenwood, the most important dimension is the department. This dimension allows it to track revenues and expenses by different departments, such as personal training, aquatics, or tennis. Dimensions help the finance team —and the individual department heads — understand which departments are over or under budget and where the spending is directed. “We’re now able to produce departmental profit-and-loss statements, which is hugely valuable for budgeting and planning purposes,” notes Gray.

No Pain. Plenty of Gain

The automation and associated efficiencies Club Greenwood gains with Sage Intacct allow the organization to continue growing without adding staff. “We have a lean accounting and finance team, yet we’re able to manage a large volume of work because we’ve automated so many of the manual components,” says Gray. “We’ve all gained more time to focus on the strategic aspects of our jobs.”

“MicroAccounting is an essential resource for us,” concludes Gray. “They’ve helped us configure Sage Intacct to match how we do business and to take advantage of the many efficiencies available. Plus, they continue to support us and provide product news and updates to keep us moving forward. We’ve got additional plans for Sage Intacct, and MicroAccounting is part of those plans.”