Customer: Streamline Publishing, Inc.
Location: Boca Raton, FL
Solution: Sage Intacct Accounting Software
Streamline Publishing, Inc. started as a print publication rooted in the radio industry in 1986. Growing and evolving over the years to become a multimedia organization, the company now serves the radio, television, and art industries. Its services have expanded, as well, to include print and digital publications, video and DVD production, and industry conferences.
As Streamline Publishing’s offerings became more diversified, its accounting needs did, as well.
The Challenge: A small Accounting Team Tasked with a Large Amount of Manual Data Entry
According to Laura Iserman, Director of Finance at Streamline Publishing, “We had been using Quickbooks desktop software for years, but it was no longer providing an efficient solution for us. It didn’t allow us to import data from Excel files, so we were spending hours every day taking data from other systems and manually entering it into the accounting system. We felt like computers, only much slower.”
Tasks like invoicing publications became tedious and time-consuming because billing information had to be accessed in the company’s CRM and then manually entered into Quickbooks. With over 250 customers to bill, the process was daunting.
“In some situations, it would take eight hours to invoice a publication,” said Iserman. “And we had 250 customers to send invoices to.”
With so much time spent on data entry, the accounting team didn’t have much opportunity to analyze financial information and evaluate performance.
“Although we realized we were outgrowing our accounting system, we were resistant to change. With only two people in our accounting group, we didn’t have a big team to oversee a transition to a new system,” explained Iserman. “It was scary, and we weren’t sure what the right solution might be. But we knew we had to find a better way of doing things.”
The Solution: Sage Intacct® Cloud Accounting Software Implemented by Cargas Systems
In 2016, Iserman connected with Sage Intacct to learn about the system’s capabilities, and she was introduced to Cargas Systems as a possible implementation partner.
In March 2017, with the help of Cargas, Streamline Publishing replaced its limiting Quickbooks desktop software with Sage Intacct’s cloud-based solution.
“We use it not only for invoicing our customers and tracking payments, but also for recording check deposits, accounts payables, and credit card charges,” said Iserman.
According to Iserman, the top benefit has been acquiring the ability to import information in Excel files into the accounting system. Although she heard Quickbooks Online has that capability, she didn’t want to lose other functionality in the process.
“With Sage Intacct, we now can import Excel sheets from other systems with the click of a button. This ease of use is a tremendous advantage for managing data from the 13 different credit card payment systems we deal with.”
Besides enabling Streamline Publishing to handle a large volume of transactions, Sage Intacct also provides customizable reporting capabilities. Iserman identified that as another significant advantage over Quickbooks.
“We have been able to set up customized reports tailored to what managers and executives within our company need to see to make informed business decisions,” Iserman explained. “The system generates automated reports and then sends them to the people who need them.”
Also, the company can now break down reports by individual publication, drilling down to see critical information for each magazine. For example, it can identify circulation subscription revenue by magazine, and it can compare the current month, quarter, or annual budget to actuals and the actuals for a current time period with those of a past time period (e.g., current month vs. prior month). It can also see variances in both dollars and percentages.
“We can slice and dice our data however we need to and send as much or as little of it to people based on what they want to know. They are getting timely insight now because they don’t have to wait for us to run reports manually.”
Laura Iserman, Director of Finance
The Impact
Iserman shared that Cargas and Sage Intacct have transformed the accounting function at Streamline Publishing.
“We were at the point of needing to hire a full-time person to help us due to our growth and the manual effort required to record transactions,” said Iserman. “Fortunately, Sage Intacct saved us from that cost, and our bookkeeper has time to take on other tasks. We were barely treading water, and now we can keep up and take on more consistently as we have fine-tuned our import processes over the past year.”
Another significant benefit is that the divisions within Streamline Publishing have a way to better assess their own areas of concentration—not only in terms of dollars and cents but also in units and specific products.
The company is also looking forward to tapping into Sage Intacct’s other features and functionality.
“Now that we’ve saved substantial time by being able to import data through Excel files, we are thinking about getting the other cloud-based systems that we use to link directly to Sage Intacct through its open API,” explained Iserman. “We realize there is even more opportunity to create efficiency through having Cargas help us with those integrations.”
Iserman also mentioned Streamline Publishing aspires to migrate to a different payment processor that is compatible with Sage Intacct, give staff members outside of the accounting department access to the software, and look into integrating AmEx vendor payments.
The Experience of Working with Cargas
Iserman admits that she had at first felt overwhelmed at the breadth of what needed to happen internally to transition from Quickbooks to Sage Intacct, but she said her partner at Cargas, Tom, talked her through everything and put her at ease.
“As is expected with any type of software change, we met some hurdles and delays. However, with the strong connection and rapport we have with Cargas, we could get past them confidently.”
She said she and her team enjoy working with Cargas because of the genuine care and personalized attention they receive.
“Cargas impressed me from the start because they cared about our business rather than just making a sale. They offered support throughout the implementation—and that encouragement continues today,” Iserman shared. “We feel very fortunate to have them on our side.”