Seattle Indian Health Board Boosted Revenue by 80% with Sage Intacct

by Warren Duncan

When Ben Luety joined the Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB) as CFO, he knew they needed to implement a better, more scalable, and transparent nonprofit accounting software to effectively manage their complex financial information.

Founded in 1970, SIHB provides healthcare and social services to urban American Indians and Alaskan Natives in the greater Seattle area, reaching more than 10,000 people annually. SIHB relies heavily on grants from federal, state, county, and city government agencies to fund its growing operations. 
Managing these grants and other information, however, was hindered by an outdated legacy accounting application. Sage Intacct proved to be the ideal solution.

Challenges Before Implementing Sage Intacct

With the previous system, it could take Luety two days to gather information to answer a question from the CEO or another stakeholder. 
“It was difficult to get data in and get data out,” Luety said. “The system didn’t allow for any flexibility and didn’t have the ability to be transparent with the data.”

Difficulty in finding and interpreting data led to long monthly close times and overcomplicated quarterly reporting. Managing grants in the system was cumbersome and hindered SIHB’s ability to bring in more revenue.

Sage Intacct Brought Benefits for The Entire Team

Easy Access to Data for Everyone

Now, using Sage Intacct, Luety can deliver information in just a couple of minutes. The software’s robust financial dashboards empower other team members to review data and make decisions, as well. “Our CEO doesn’t ask me anything about finances now because she has her own dashboard,” Luety said. “She has all the information at her fingertips.”

Quarterly Reports Generated in 40 Minutes

One of Luety’s responsibilities is generating about a dozen quarterly reports to share with federal funding agencies. With the old accounting system, this took up to three days. With Sage Intacct, he’s completing those reports in about 40 minutes, saving more than 20 hours per quarter. Integration between Sage Intacct and Expensify has cut the time needed to tie credit card receipts to specific grants from two weeks to two days.

Monthly Close Cycle Efficiency — From Two Months to Three Weeks

Sage Intacct has improved SIHB’s monthly close cycle efficiency, reducing the timeline from two months to three weeks. The finance team now has more time to devote to dashboards and data analysis, thanks to the efficiencies gained through Sage Intacct.

Boosted Revenue by 80%

Sage Intacct’s scalability makes nonprofit grant management easier, as SIHB can attest. They innovatively rolled out the Sage Intacct Project Accounting module to treat each grant as a “project.” 

“Sage Intacct has really driven our ability to scale with 80% growth,” Luety said. “There’s no way we could have done that without Sage Intacct. It would have been insurmountable to track, manage, and report on all that data and in essence, 100+ grant ‘revenue centers.’”

Other benefits include:

• A 50% increase in finance team productivity, with an across-the-board efficiency gain of more than 25%
• An 80% revenue boost as SIHB increased its number of grants from 35 to 100+ per year
• A dramatic increase in employee satisfaction across the entire finance team

Looking Forward — A Better Supported Community with Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct’s scalability, real-time insights, and dynamic financial dashboards have supported SIHB’s growth — and will continue to do so in the future. SIHB’s next move will be rolling out Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning to improve the current manual budgeting process. 

“Our use of Sage Intacct helps us improve the welfare of the community we serve because we can make better decisions about deploying resources based on our access to data and the story it tells,” Luety said.

Experience the Difference With a Sage Intacct Demo

Learn how Sage Intacct enables growth and transparency for nonprofits of all kinds, from educational and trade organizations to senior living communities. Schedule a demo with our team to learn more.