Success Story: MemberClicks dramatically accelerates cash-flow with automated subscription management

Challenge of multiple finance applications solved

MemberClicks provides software to more than 3,000 professional and trade associations, chambers of commerce, nonprofits, and other member-based groups across North America. Its easy-to-use SaaS solutions allow small to midsize organisations to handle member management, email and digital marketing, event registration, and learning management in a unified platform— typically replacing unintegrated tools that drive up administrative overhead for smaller organisations. Launched in 1998, MemberClicks found itself facing challenges similar to those that it solves. After acquiring two complementary companies, WebLink and ePly, MemberClicks was running six disparate systems for accounting and finance. The unwieldy hodgepodge included three QuickBooks instances, NetSuite for subscription billing, and two homegrown applications that host the MemberClicks solution and were used for sales and billing. It meant tedious, error-prone manual work for consolidations, revenue recognition, bank reconciliations, and currency conversions. The monthly close could drag on for 20 days, leaving virtually no time for reporting and analytics. “It was terrible,” said Brent Stringer, director of finance and accounting. “It was extremely time-intensive and very worrisome from a completion and accuracy standpoint. And it took away my ability to do analysis to give our stakeholders the knowledge and insights they needed to manage the organisation.”

“Sage Intacct has opened up a whole new world for us and we’re saving over $200,000 a year in overhead as a result. We’ve been able to reinvest that money, effort, and energy into revenue generation and growing our business.”

Brent Stringer Director of Finance and Accounting, MemberClicks

Close reduced 5x to just four days, DSO plummets

With implementation by rinehimerbaker, MemberClicks went live on Sage Intacct for its general ledger, and several months later rolled out Sage Intacct’s subscription billing module to replace NetSuite. Since then, MemberClicks has seen tremendous gains in efficiency and visibility.

The monthly close has been reduced five-fold, from as many as 20 days to just four. The company is saving more than $200,000 a year in time, effort, and resources that were previously required — even though it’s grown through the WebLink and ePly acquisitions. “It’s as if we had blinders on before, and Sage Intacct has opened up a whole new world for us and we’re saving over $200,000 a year in overhead as a result,” Stringer said. “We’ve been able to reinvest that money, effort, and energy into revenue generation and growing our business.” Utilising Sage Intacct’s open API, MemberClicks has streamlined its order-to-cash cycle by integrating Sage Intacct with its Salesforce CRM application. Salesforce data is fed seamlessly into Sage Intacct, which creates a contract, handles revenue recognition and financials, and bills customers through its subscription billing module. That’s helped dramatically cut days sales outstanding (DSO) to under 10 days, opening a significant stream of accelerated cash flow to invest in the business. “Order to cash is just a seamless process, and we don’t have to worry about manual errors or time-consuming manual data entry,” Stringer said. “Reducing our DSO has allowed us to reinvest that money into the business and serve more customers in the market.”

Better forecasting and insights for continued growth

In another integration, MemberClicks has eliminated many hours of manual check-writing by connecting Sage Intacct and Bill.com to automate accounts payable. “Aside from saving me from carpal tunnel, the integration between Sage Intacct and Bill.com has saved a ton of time in sorting through stacks of invoices, making sure they’re accurate, then writing and mailing checks,” Stringer said. Indirect integrations with customer-focused Akita and Zendesk software are saving additional time, as is the ability in Sage Intacct to allocate costs across multiple lines of business to better understand profitability. And with Sage Intacct’s built-in multi-currency conversions, Stringer no longer has to work manually in Excel to convert Canadian dollars to U.S. dollars. MemberClicks is generating new insights for continued growth with Sage Intacct Digital Board Book dashboards. Stringer’s team has on-demand access to real-time SaaS metrics such as annual and monthly recurring revenue, customer acquisition cost, and customer lifetime value. Previously, such metrics were calculated manually once a month in Excel. The Sage Intacct model supports a new 12- to 18-month rolling forecast that wasn’t possible with NetSuite subscription billing. “Sage Intacct has given us the ability to better forecast the business and focus on a go-forward strategy, rather than just the ‘here and now,’” Stringer said. “I couldn’t have done that with NetSuite.” In one case, MemberClicks decided against a potential acquisition by forecasting metrics on revenue, customer penetration, and other impacts through Sage Intacct. It’s just one example of breakthrough visibility for data-driven decisions that MemberClicks is realising since adopting its new financial management platform.

“Sage Intacct lets us manage our business better with real-information that we simply didn’t have before,” Stringer said. “It’s a game-changer that’s given us a 30,000-foot view so we can focus on the growing business instead of getting bogged down in details.”

About MemberClicks

MemberClicks provides software solutions for more than 3,000 small to mid-sized member-based organisations throughout North America.

Results with Sage Intacct

• Built a SaaS metrics dashboard with real-time insights

• Created an 18-month rolling forecast on billings, cash, and revenue

• Eliminated $200,000 a year in time, effort, and resources

• Monthly close accelerated to just 4 days, from as many as 20 DSO reduced to under 10 days, dramatically accelerating cash flow

Contact us at Akuna Solutions and explore with a Sage Intacct implementation specialist how to leverage the most modern accounting technology available today.

Find out how to transform reporting, decision-making, and fundraising with real-time SaaS metrics.

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash