ousands of former QuickBooks users have chosen to move to Intacct due to a multitude of situations. Whether it be a single accounting failure, a mandate to improve financial control and visibility, or the need for more sophisticated accounting functionality (including the automation of many financial processes), Intacct is the solution. As more and more businesses outgrow QuickBooks, Intacct is quickly becoming the de facto standard for QuickBooks graduates. So where should you begin your journey to a best-in-class financial management system?

1. QuickBooks™ Upgrade:
Questions, Myths, Insights, and Tips
WHITE PAPER

2. QuickBooks, with over 4.5 million users, is one of the most popular small business
accounting systems on the market (Source: PCWorld 9/13). While it is sufficient
in meeting the needs of small businesses, many growing and larger companies and
organizations find that it does not meet their needs due to its limitations.
Thousands of former QuickBooks users have chosen to move to Intacct due to a
multitude of situations. Whether it be a single accounting failure, a mandate to improve
financial control and visibility, or the need for more sophisticated accounting
functionality (including the automation of many financial processes), Intacct is
the solution. As more and more businesses outgrow QuickBooks, Intacct is quickly
becoming the de facto standard for QuickBooks graduates.
So where should you begin your journey to a best-in-class financial management system?
First, let’s look at 10 questions you should ask to determine if your company or
organization is ready to upgrade from QuickBooks. Then, we will share migration
myths, compare on-premise and SaaS options, show how Intacct can help save you
money, and tell you how to get started with Intacct.
10 Questions To Determine If You Are
Ready to Upgrade From QuickBooks
There are many reasons users choose to upgrade from Quickbooks. User count
limitations, the need for enhanced internal controls, lack of integration between
other software, and the inability to customize for specific needs; are all limitations
of QuickBooks that present a challenge for many growing companies. Below are ten
questions to determine if you should upgrade from QuickBooks:
1. Is QuickBooks meeting all of your financial and accounting needs?
Does it have all of the functionality and control you need today?
How about a year from now?
2. Can you provide your management team and board members with the
information they need in a timely fashion?
3. Are your auditors concerned about your financial controls or security? Do you
have the need to segregate your financial duties to reduce the risk of fraud?
1
QuickBooks™ Upgrade: Questions, Myths, Insights and Tips
Thousands of
QuickBooks users have
made the decision to
move to Intacct as
a result of a variety
of situations.

3. 4. Does your finance and accounting team spend significant time outside of
QuickBooks, using paper or Excel spreadsheets?
5. How much time and money would you save if you could automate your financial
processes to free your finance staff from repetitive, manual processing?
6. Do you need to manage complex requirements such as revenue deferral
and recognition?
7. Can QuickBooks handle your multi-currency and multi-entity requirements
as you add locations and do business in multiple currencies?
8. Have you been able to integrate QuickBooks with your other key business
systems, like salesforce automation, to avoid redundacny of data entry or
islands of information?
9. Can your team work remotely? Can you access your financial information
and perform common tasks like purchasing approvals from anywhere?
10. How are you managing backup and recovery? What would data loss cost
your business?
If you couldn’t effectively answer any of these questions, then you are ready to upgrade
Quickbooks. Following are some of the myths of migrating from Quickbooks.
2
QuickBooks™ Upgrade: Questions, Myths, Insights and Tips

4. QuickBooks Migration Myths
Upgrading is too expensive – While an upgrade to a best-in-class financial management
solution does require an increased investment, sticking with an accounting system that
is not meeting your needs can have a devastating effect on the financial well-being
of your growing company. Consider the amount of money lost from decreased
productivity – manual tasks, expensive workarounds, and more – as a result of the
limitations of QuickBooks.
“Intacct has driven at least $50,000 in savings by eliminating
non-value added manual processes—transforming our finance department
from data collectors and pencil pushers to business analysts who now
provide deeper insight to help our business to grow and succeed.”
Dan Orlinski, Finance Director, Renal Ventures Management
Upgrading will take too long – Often, business owners are resistant to change due
to the fear that an upgrade will be a long, complicated process. Typically on-premise
systems require months of effort. In contrast, Intacct solutions can be implemented
in as little as four to six weeks. To speed up the implementation and conversion process,
you can take advantage of automated conversion tools that accelerate the process
of upgrading from QuickBooks to Intacct. Simply point the tools at your existing
QuickBooks data files, answer a few simple questions, and your data is automatically
converted and uploaded into Intacct.
“Lasco Enterprises implemented Intacct in less than two months—
despite several complexities in mapping historical data from its
QuickBooks instances.” (Case Study)
The learning curve will be too high – Many organizations stick with QuickBooks
because they fear a steep learning curve when implementing a new finincial software.
Intacct shortens the learning curve with familiar and easy-to-understand reports
and dashboards. Intacct QuickStart Financials lets you choose from a library of
pre-configured, industry-specific financial templates with built-in best practices
charts of accounts, financial processes, reports, dashboards and much more. Once
you select your template, QuickStart Financials easily maps your existing charts of
accounts to Intacct, automatically creating all of your account hierarchy structures
and giving you extensive financial reporting out of the box.
“Intacct is very intuitive, and the reports and dashboards are easy to
setup. Intacct makes it much easier to track every piece of information
that is crucial to our business. I feel like I have a much better understanding of how the business is doing and can more easily identify
areas for improvement. Intacct enables us to get the daily operational
data we need to properly manage and grow the business.”
Cheri Zandlo, CFO, Tango2
3
QuickBooks™ Upgrade: Questions, Myths, Insights and Tips
“Intacct has driven at
least $50,000 in savings
by eliminating non-value
added manual processes
—transforming our finance
department from data
collectors and pencil
pushers to business
analysts who now provide
deeper insight to help
our business to grow
and succeed.”
Dan Orlinski, Finance Director,
Renal Ventures Management

5. Choosing Between SaaS and On-Premise
Companies that graduate from QuickBooks have many options, but they primarily
fall into two categories— selecting another on-premise software package, or shifting
to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) alternative.
On-premise solutions from vendors like Microsoft, Oracle and Sage require customers
to purchase an upfront perpetual license; as well as the hardware to support the software.
In addition to these significant capital investments, on-premise applications also
place the burden of software deployment and management on the user, potentially
increasing IT resource needs.
The new breed of SaaS offerings from companies like Intacct permit users to pay on a
subscription basis and relieves them of added hardware costs, software deployment
and data management hassles. This allows users to focus on leveraging the software
functionality rather than worrying about the application availability. The SaaS model
also makes it easier for growing companies to add more user licenses as they need
them rather than having to purchase them upfront regardless of current need. Unlike
on-premise applications, which might be hosted by a software vendor, today’s SaaS
solutions have been built to fully leverage the web and permit end-users to utilize the
online tools at any time from any location.
On-Premises
Cloud Computing
68%
9%
Subscription fees
Software Licenses
32%
43%
Implementation,
Customization,
and Traininhg
Implementation
26%
Hardware
14%
IT Personnel
7%
Maintenance
1%
Training
Ongoing Costs
Ongoing Costs
Apply Fixes, Patches, Upgrade
Downtime
Performance tuning
Rewrite customizations
Rewrite integrations
Upgrade dependent applications
Maintain/upgrade hardware
Maintain/upgrade network
Maintain/upgrade security
Maintain/upgrade database
Subscription fee
Training
Configuration
*Source: Yankee DecisionNote Technology Analysis
Discover the cost savings associated with a cloud computing system like Intacct in
the next section.
4
QuickBooks™ Upgrade: Questions, Myths, Insights and Tips

6. Intacct Savings
Users who should upgrade from QuickBooks typically adapt processes to work around
its limitations. The “hidden costs” can be incredibly damaging to a growing organization.
Factors such as over-reliance on manual, paper-based processes, a lack of integration
between financials and other business critical applications, decreased staff productivity
as a result of inefficient and manual processes, and inadequate data; all slow down
the monthly accounting process, thereby increasing costs. Increasing productivity by
eliminating such processes can result in impressive cost savings for your company or
organization.
“Intacct has rich functionality, great reporting and it’s tremendously
flexible. Intacct makes us more productive, allowing us to strategically
redeploy some of our staff –ultimately saving the company more than
$100,000 annually in added salary.”
CEO, ASP Global Services
Intacct savings continue when the need arises to consolidate multiple entities,
account for multiple currencies, and integrate with other business solutions. Intacct
seemlessly integrates with CRM, business intelligence, expense management and
more than 120 partner applications.
Show Me the Money - Beyond significant cost savings for staff and productivity,
Intacct delivers best-in-class financial metrics*:
Payback Period
.3 Years or 4 months after
Implementation
Return on Investment
345%
*Source: Nucleus Research, financial modeling, revised July, 2013
Net Present Value (NPV)
$121,134
“Intacct has rich
functionality, great
reporting and it’s
tremendously flexible.
Intacct makes us more
productive, allowing
us to strategically
redeploy some of our
staff – ultimately saving
the company more
than $100,000 annually
in added salary.”
CEO, ASP Global Services
5
QuickBooks™ Upgrade: Questions, Myths, Insights and Tips

7. Getting Started With Intacct
Getting started with Intacct is easy. After determining that QuickBooks is no longer
meeting the needs of your company, there are 6 simple phases of Intacct implementation.
Phase 1: Define
You’ll work collaboratively with your project manager to align the capabilities of
your Intacct system with current and future business requirements, develop a
customized project plan, and finalize the go-live criteria.
Phase 2: Educate
Get users up to speed on Intacct using self-paced education through Intacct’s online
Education Management Center with both pre-recorded and live web meetings.
Phase 3: Build
Brittenford will work with you to construct a fully working system that reflects
the scope, requirements, and processes defined in Phase 1.
Phase 4: Model
Your team will receive access to the completed test Intacct system. Use this replica
to test the system before deployment and to make sure you’ve properly connected
other critical systems with Intacct.
Phase 5: Deploy
Go live with your customized Intacct system and officially begin using Intacct as
your core financial system. You can immediately make the move to your new Intacct
system, or run Intacct in parallel with your current applications for a period of time.
6 Phases of
Intacct
Implementation
QuickBooks™ Upgrade: Questions, Myths, Insights and Tips
PHASE 2
Educate
PHASE 3
Build
PHASE 4
Model
Deploy
PHASE 6
6
Define
PHASE 5
Phase 6: Evolve
Congratulations! You’re live on Intacct. As your business needs change and you need
additional features, take full advantage of Intacct’s flexibility and adaptability to
implement new functionality and update your business processes. You can also
contact Brittenford Systems for a Health Check Evaluation, a standard service we
provide to periodically evaluate your system and help you get the most from your
upgrade to Intacct.
PHASE 1
Evolve

8. QuickBooks to Intacct Case Studies
Interested in learning more about graduating from QuickBooks? Discover
how the following companies graduated from QuickBooks to Intacct:
1. Platinum Hospitality Streamlines Operations and Simplifies Multi-Entity
Financial Management with Intacct
2. Potential Church Uses Intacct to Streamline Financial Processes While
Accelerating Growth
3. Renal Ventures Management Streamlines Its Financial Processes and
Improves Business Reporting with Intacct
4. The Knowland Group Manages Rapid Growth with Intacct’s Cloud
Financial Management Applications
5. Nucleus Research: TOA Technologies Supports Rapid Growth by
Automating processes with Intacct
6. Accordia Global Health Foundation Upgrades to Intacct Financial
Accounting System
About Brittenford
Brittenford Systems is a nationally recognized consulting firm that specializes in
delivering financial management and business intelligence solutions as well as CIO
Advisory Services to mid-market companies. Based in the Washington, DC area,
we help our clients leverage technology solutions to improve business processes and
productivity, reduce operational costs, and get timely financial information so they
can run their businesses more efficiently.
At Brittenford, we understand that managing financial information effectively is the
backbone of a business. With our extensive industry experience and unique approach,
we help non-profit, project-based, and international organizations implement and
support cloud-based Intacct and Host Analytics, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and Dynamics
SL. For more information about Brittenford Systems, please visit www.brittenford.com
or call 703-860-6945.
7
QuickBooks™ Upgrade: Questions, Myths, Insights and Tips