Contracts that have both a subscription and a service component can create some interesting challenges under ASC 606.  The impact of re-estimating a project with unclear completion dates can  pose unique challenges for accounting and finance teams. Contracts and the timing of revenue are just two of the things that a program such as Sage Intacct can make easier.

The basic tasks an accounting program can help make easier include:

• More accurate forecasts
• Greater visibility into draft contracts
• Compliance Issues –especially in relation to ASC 606
• Task-level visibility to control your project profitability
• Operational insights with interactive reports
• Gain budget context from your financial reports with a couple clicks

Draft Contracts

Contracts are written, but often times they require additional research or review and approval by another person within the organization before it can be posted. Your cloud accounting program should allow you to create and save a draft contract, contract line and contract expense. You can continue to save your progress without having to post to the contracts general or sub-ledger. The ability to save drafts increases your visibility into what to expect and consequently helps you to forecast more accurately.

Control your Project Profitability with Task-Level Visibility

Using an accounting program like Sage Intacct allows you to analyze costs and profitability right down to the task level. Expenses and revenues created across Sage Intacct can be easily associated to a task whether in General Ledger, Purchasing, Accounts Payable, or Accounts Receivable. Associated tasks and attachments flow through to line items on the invoice. Task level control allows you to receive insights you can act on and provides greater control over your project profitability.

Save Hours Complying with ASC 606 Revenue Timing Rules for Projects

Sage Intacct has been constantly improving the ability to manage contracts that also have projects. Organizations can leverage the contracts and projects modules to estimate projects, defer revenue, bill, and recognize revenue as the project progresses.

It is possible to include estimated and deferred revenue for timesheet billings. Instead of manually re-calculating revenue when a project is re-estimated, the automatic re-calculation feature eliminates complex spreadsheet work and re-entry of the results potentially saving hours of time.

Access Budget Planning Assumptions from Financials in a Couple Clicks

Understanding the assumptions your project budget is based on is crucial when you review your budget versus actual performance. With Sage Intacct, that insight is just a couple of clicks away. Sage Intacct provides easy drill-down menus for project budget preparation details and allows you to quickly understand performance and make those important course corrections where needed.

Synchronize your Budget to your Financials in a Couple of Minutes

Accurate budget data is crucial for forecasts and other processes. Budgets change frequently so it is important to keep your budget data up to date. Many budgeting solutions require you to export your data to a CSV file and re-import it into your financials. Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning connects directly to Sage Intacct and enables you to push your budget data into your financials in minutes. Some of the things you can do include:

• Adding to or replacing an existing budget
• Synchronizing your budget to financials at the top-level, specific entity, or consolidated budget for multi-entity, multi-currency companies
• Including budget comments to create more context within your financials

These functionalities provide flexibility for analysis, forecasting and reporting that will improve overall visibility into your financials and streamline your project management.