Business and accounting solutions provider
Sage Intaact upgrades
Sage Intaact added a variety of productivity and automation capacities. An AI-powered project and resource management feature aims to bring greater visibility into resource distribution challenges to optimize delivery across organizations. A new fixed assets management feature automates multi-book depreciation. It offers the ability to link separate data systems via a new data flows feature (along with a prebuilt connector for HubSpot). A forms and operational flows feature combines self-service portals and form builders to digitize various processes like approvals by sending data to other apps. A nonprofit forms and operational flows feature introduces prebuilt flows tailored to nonprofit organizations from grant application through approval to funding and payables. A construction industry-specific compliance feature can automate tracking of compliance requirements and supporting documents for construction commitments, validated during AP payment issuance. A feature for distribution and manufacturing operations automates workflows and processes via an AI support system. The company also announced the availability of Sage Intaact Financials in Germany.
Construction and real estate solutions
For those looking for a more specialized solution, Sage released solutions for the real estate and construction industries, as well as upgrades to existing ones.
Sage Estimating has been enhanced through the addition of cloud capacities with BidMatrix. This includes a virtual bid room built for collaboration, advanced analysis capabilities to identify optimal subcontractor bids, as well as "slice and dice" capabilities and integration with Power BI to gain insight from the data. The company also announced upgrades to Sage Intacct Construction, a vertical for Sage Intacct Financials, expanding it to a broader base of construction and real estate businesses that manage detailed job costing, revenue recognition, retainage billing and payroll.
Sage has also announced the new Sage Construction Management solution, a cloud-based project management solution for collaboration and mobility, allowing field, office and external teams to share real-time project information for managing all project operations from one platform.
Sage Copilot
A new generative AI solution called Sage Copilot offers a productivity assistant that can handle administrative and administrative tasks, as well as assess processes to suggest ways to save money and drive business improvements.
Sage Copilot will use natural language processing to interpret commands conversationally, with responses tailored for specific situations. This understanding of natural language allows it to help prepare and send messages with the right tone and timing, as well as send personalized customer invoices or employee reminders. It can also help with productivity by organizing tasks with personalized lists, prioritizing them based on urgency, and automating repetitive tasks.
It can also produce insights and custom reports to support decision-making, including quick cash flow analysis and recommendations for financial improvements. This capacity enables it to learn from user interactions and preferences to offer advice to help improve budgeting and financial planning and deliver better financial outcomes. The generative AI tool integrates with other apps and services, such as Microsoft Office, allowing users to send email invoices without having to leave the window they're in.
Sage Copilot will launch in April for Sage Accounting, initially as an early access release for a limited number of customers, according to a company spokesperson. General sign-up will be available in May for Sage Accounting. Sage Copilot will become available in our Sage for Accountants and Sage 50 product suites, in the U.K., launching in similar fashion, throughout 2024.
New partnerships and collaborations
Sage also announced two new partnerships: a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services, and a data analytics agreement with sports analysis platform Sportable.
On the agreement with Amazon, Sage will develop a domain-specific large language model for accounting and compliance using Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Lex. This specialized accounting and compliance-focused LLM will initially inform Sage Copilot and serve as a foundation for enabling small and medium businesses to navigate local accounting and compliance applications. Powered by AWS, the LLM will have the capability to process and analyze vast amounts of data.
Further, Sage Earth will now be available in AWS Marketplace through the agreement. The machine learning-powered solution will use AWS services that include Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (Amazon QLDB), Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). The solution leverages accounting and other data sources to calculate businesses' carbon footprints and suggests emission reduction strategies for small businesses and large enterprises' value chains. It currently integrates with several financial accounting platforms, including Sage 50 and Sage Business Cloud Accounting as well as other solution providers.
Regarding the Sportable agreement, Sage said the two companies will develop a global sports index, bringing together millions of AI-led insights generated across the sports world by Sportable technology. It will provide open access for anyone to identify trends and better understand key indicators of high performance and game strategy. The first index to be launched will be rugby focused, with future versions planned for soccer, American football and more. The strategic marketing partnership with Sportable follows Sage's role as an official partner with sports brands such as Major League Baseball.
