Building Blocks for Entertainment: Invoicing

Building an A-Level Accounting team

When RKL considers the many benefits that Sage Intacct provides for growing entertainment companies, we typically refer to three specific categories:

• Improve visibility – clients are able to get much better reporting and analysis with Sage Intacct than when they relied upon their previous financial system and lots of manual Excel work. We covered this in a number of blog posts with topics like reports and dashboards, dimensions, and account groups.
• Automate processes – accounting and finance team members are able to make the most of their time! They can stop pushing paper and relying upon workarounds for their purchase to payment, invoice to cash, and project accounting processes, and rely upon technology to go paperless, implement workflows, and configure (without custom code) the software to work like their business. See our prior purchase to pay and invoicing post (below) for inspiration
• Streamline integration – a lack of integration results in inefficiency as the same data is entered multiple times into various applications. Inevitably, this leads to increased errors and decreased trust. Sage Intacct was built to integrate with other “best-in-class” solutions and provides new levels of efficiency, accuracy, and confidence.

With that as backdrop, let’s consider the benefit of automating just one particular invoicing scenario.

Challenge

Many entertainment companies deliver project to clients in installments based on contractual arrangements. Each time a component of the project is delivered, an invoice needs to be generated and sent to the client. But it’s important to be able to understand each invoice in light of the overall project.

Unfortunately, in some entry-level systems like QuickBooks or legacy systems like Microsoft Great Plains or Sage 100, there’s no easy way to create a single invoice with multiple line items and then “release” individual line items. Rather, separate invoices end up being created and the accounting team is forced to invent a creative way to get reporting on what’s billed, unbilled, and paid (Queue the Excel spreadsheets and manual workarounds …)

Solution

Sage Intacct provides invoicing flexibility that’s highly beneficial to TV production companies or other entertainment companies required to bill multiple installments on a single project.

Using standard functionality called a “revenue template,” Sage Intacct can be configured to create a single sales order document with multiple line items, send an individual invoice for a single line item when desired, and then easily view a report for what has been billed, what is left to be billed, and what the client has paid (and when).

Note: for clients needing formal project accounting, we’ve addressed Sage Intacct’s project accounting capabilities in a separate blog post.

Benefits

While this is only one example, it gives you an idea of the flexibility of Sage Intacct to adapt to your business, automate core processes, and enable team members to do their best work. Combined with other automation opportunities, our clients report anywhere from 20 – 50% increased productivity!

Conclusion

If you could use a little (or a lot) more automation in your life, contact RKL. We’ll lead you through a discovery process, document your requirements, and then demonstrate the benefits of Sage Intacct for your specific needs.