SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Intacct, a leading provider of cloud financial management and accounting software, today announced that Savory Sandwiches Inc., an owner of multiple Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwich Shop franchises, has graduated from QuickBooks® to Intacct. With rapid growth on top of eight existing locations plus corporate headquarters, Savory Sandwiches determined that it was stretching beyond the capabilities of QuickBooks. Moving to Intacct has allowed the franchisor to automate business processes, streamline accounting operations, and perform more sophisticated financial management tasks – all without increasing the size of its finance staff.
In 2010, Jimmy John's was the second fastest growing restaurant chain in the United States. Savory Sandwiches added multiple new franchise locations and with this expansion came greatly increased operating volume, complexity, and risk – which developed into significant challenges for the finance department. Before adopting Intacct, Savory Sandwiches was using multiple instances of QuickBooks, augmented by Microsoft Excel plus manual and paper processes, to operate the business.
"When we first started out, QuickBooks was perfect for us. But as we expanded the business, we got to a point where we had stretched beyond what QuickBooks was designed for," said Dave Stalker, co-owner of Savory Sandwiches. "As we grew, we found ourselves spending a tremendous amount of time and resources outside of QuickBooks – in Excel and in other manual processes – and we still had a hard time getting the information we needed, when we needed it. We knew we had to make a change to a system that would automate our business and provide real-time visibility across our operations."
With each franchise location requiring access to the financial system, having a cloud-based system was important to Savory Sandwiches. They evaluated the top systems on the market, and ultimately selected Intacct over NetSuite.
Intacct is ideally suited to the needs of multi-entity organizations like Savory Sandwiches. With Intacct, each franchise can operate independently, but at the same time franchises can interact with each other and with corporate headquarters. For example, one franchise can receive consumables for several peer locations, while payments come out of corporate. Each franchise also enjoys real-time visibility into its own performance, while corporate headquarters can both instantly consolidate the entire enterprise or can drill down into details for any part of the business.
"Moving to Intacct has been great for us when it comes to managing finances both at corporate and for each of our franchise locations," said Stalker. "When we evaluated the systems on the market, we liked that Intacct had a straight-forward user interface, was easy to get started with, supported our unique fiscal periods, and offered real-time consolidation. When I saw the ability to automate inter-entity consolidations and eliminations, that's when I was really blown away. The labor savings from automating financial consolidation, reporting, and inter-entity transactions saves me more annually than the cost of the entire Intacct system."
Another key benefit from the move to Intacct has been improved visibility into every part of the business through real-time, web-based dashboards, reporting and analytics. In addition to providing more than 150 pre-built reports, Intacct also makes it easy for Savory Sandwiches to create additional reports, dashboard, and analyses to meet their specific needs. They can now analyze data using a multi-dimensional approach – such as analyzing profitability by store or by menu item, and can evaluate both operational and financial information, for example to compare revenue per square foot across all of their locations.
"To be successful in a franchise business, it is important to closely manage cash flow and accurately forecast revenue," explained Stalker. "Intacct provides real-time visibility into our current inflows, outflows, and revenue streams. We can also easily drill down and analyze data to help franchise locations improve their performance. With Intacct, I have a better view of the overall business and can identify problem areas and growth opportunities faster. Best of all, my franchise operators and my management team can work with the system anytime and from anywhere – whether they are using their PCs, Macs, or iPads at work or at home."
"Savory Sandwiches is a multi-million dollar operation, with nine separate operating entities, and Intacct enables us to manage all of this using only about one and a half full time finance employees," continued Stalker. "Between streamlined financial processes, automated consolidation, enhanced real-time reporting, and improved decision-making from better management visibility, Intacct has been an outstanding investment for our business."
To learn more about the ways Intacct helps franchise organizations like Savory Sandwiches, please visit http://us.intacct.com/your-business/your-industry/franchises.
About Intacct
Intacct is the cloud financial management company. Bringing cloud computing to finance and accounting, Intacct's award-winning applications are the preferred financial applications for AICPA business solutions. Intacct applications, in use by more than 5,000 organizations from startups to public companies, are designed to improve company performance and make finance more productive. Hundreds of leading CPA firms and Value Added Resellers offer Intacct to their clients. The Intacct system includes accounting, contract management, revenue management, project and fund accounting, inventory management, purchasing, vendor management, financial consolidation and financial reporting applications, all delivered over the Internet via cloud computing.
Intacct is headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit www.intacct.com or call 877-437-7765. Connect with Intacct on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
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