How to Choose Between Oracle Netsuite and Sage Intacct

With so many technological solutions for companies to choose from, it can sometimes be a challenge to determine which ERP software (enterprise resource planning) is the best for your unique business. Many organizations today are considering both Oracle Netsuite and Sage Intacct when it comes to managing their accounting departments. This primer will help you understand the similarities and differences between these two popular solutions.

Target Users

While both Oracle Netsuite and Sage Intacct serve organizations seeking financial and accounting functions, they entered the market with different target audiences in mind.

Oracle Netsuite is designed as an all-encompassing, single solution that includes enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) functionality in addition to accounting capabilities. Offering generalized functionality in a consistent format and streamlined system can be an asset for companies looking to upgrade their overall technology platform. Oracle provides the core accounting functions needed while also managing organizational, administrative, and customer-centric data.

Sage Intacct took a different approach, positioning itself as a best-of-breed accounting system that can integrate with many other ERP and CRM solutions available on the market today. Sage’s solution offers deep accounting capabilities including managing consolidations, allocations, and fixed assets, and can be further customized for a particular organization. This solution works well for organizations that are already happy with their existing CRM and ERP solutions and is simply seeking a more robust accounting system.

Both solutions, however, are targeted at the mid-market segment, providing more advanced functionality than simple accounting systems like QuickBooks. Both also include critical features for companies with more complicated organizational, global needs, and a variety of reporting requirements.

Deployment and Implementation

This is one area where Sage Intacct and Oracle NetSuite are similar: both are cloud-based solutions that require no space in your internal data center or IT resources to implement. Cloud software allows all your employees to easily access the systems regardless of where they are located, which can be especially beneficial in today’s remote work environment and global workforce where team members, contractors, and customers can be spread far and wide. Both Sage and Oracle prioritize security, working to ensure their customers’ data is encrypted and stored securely in an age where cybercrime is increasingly a threat for organizations.

NetSuite hosts its software in 18 Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) data centers around the globe while Intacct runs on the Oracle databases in Sacramento and San Jose, Calif., as well as in a data center based in Dublin for UK customers.

Both NetSuite and Intacct have developer platforms based on industry-standard JavaScript for clients that want to customize functionality and applications. Integrated development environments (IDEs) and application programming interfaces (APIs) are available to make those connections. All customizations for both vendors are automatically available for subsequent upgrades.

Intacct has a partner program for value-added resellers, accountants, and a marketplace for 44 partners that have created complementary applications. NetSuite’s partner programs are for value-added resellers, solution providers, accountants, global system integrators, and business process outsourcing (BPO) organizations.

Overall Costs

Since the scope of both solutions differs, the price tags reflect these differences as well. Oracle NetSuite is more expensive as it will require a significant upfront investment for an all-in-one enterprise solution. It is more far-reaching and provides company-wide technology capabilities. Sage Intacct is less expensive as it provides niche functionality, which can be scaled as growth occurs. The costs will be more spread out over time vs. being concentrated in the initial set-up. Organizations will want to determine what makes the most sense in terms of their unique growth journeys as well as their budget availability in making their decision.

Both vendors use the typical per-user/per-month software-as-a-service structure, offer more functionality for additional monthly fees, and require one-year contracts to be renewed annually.

International Business Focus

If organizations are seeking acquisitions or mergers as a method of quick growth, Oracle Netsuite may be a better choice as it has merger and acquisition capabilities that may be more sophisticated than what Sage Intacct offers.

In addition, Sage Intacct is limited in terms of English-only support, although it can support countries such as South Africa, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and struggles with currency conversion capabilities. It does not have a significant presence outside of English-speaking countries.

NetSuite serves clients in more than 200 countries and territories, supporting 27 languages and more than 190 currencies. With multi-subsidiary management capabilities, it also has international tax and regulatory compliance capabilities that help keep global operations operating smoothly for more than 100 countries. Transactions can be completed in 90-plus bank formats and businesses can easily roll up data from subsidiaries to the parent company.

Vertical Industry Specialties

Companies may want to consider which industries each solution specializes in serving. Sage Intacct frequently supports financial services, construction, real estate, healthcare, hospitality, nonprofits, professional services, wholesale distribution, and software.

On the other hand, Oracle NetSuite tends to work with retail and e-commerce, manufacturing, restaurants, hospitality, advertising, and media in addition to most of the industries that Sage serves as well. NetSuite has created micro-vertical editions for footwear, accessories, food, and beverage, and health and beauty.

Customer Service Hours

If you’re a mid-sized company operating mainly in the United States, Sage Intacct’s customer service hours are between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Pacific time may be adequate. The organization is working on ways to expand those hours in the future and also hosts a user community that helps one another with issues.

Global organizations may appreciate Oracle’s NetSuite’s 24-hour support, seven days a week, which provides more flexibility for international time zones. Customers can choose whether they want basic, premium, or advanced service in addition to a self-serve knowledge base, dedicated customer service manager, and user community.

Product Features

Both Oracle NetSuite and Sage Intacct offer financial management capabilities. Since NetSuite is a more comprehensive platform, it’s understandable that it offers its own enterprise features while Intacct works with other best-of-breed standalone products.

For example, NetSuite offers its own CRM while Intacct can be easily integrated with Salesforce. Both products provide some human resources capabilities. Employee recognition, compensation, performance, attendance, leave management, and payroll are included in NetSuite. Intacct works with a Sage People application to provide these human resources services.

Both offer business analytics and reporting with easy-to-use dashboards and self-service reporting. Intacct offers 69 prebuilt reports for core financials out of the box as well as a report writer that allows users to combine operational and financial data. NetSuite provides 200 pre-built reports.

NetSuite and Intacct have professional service automation applications for serviced-focused businesses. NetSuite manages billing, project and resource management, project accounting, and timesheet and expense management. offers Gantt charts for project management and a projects module that provides billing along with resource, expense, and timesheet management functionality.

Paystand Integration

Both Oracle NetSuite and Sage Intacct can integrate with Paystand, a blockchain-enabled B2B payment solution that offers a Venmo-for-business service.

Sage Intacct

Recently, Paystand and Sage established a partnership that provides Paystand with a direct plugin into Sage Intacct. Here’s a step-by-step explanation of how the Paystand Sage solution works:

1. Provide an invoice to your customer from the Sage Intacct system, which has an embedded Paystand “pay now” button to facilitate quick and easy payments.
2. When payers choose this option, they are directed to your privately labeled portal. Here, they are asked to choose a payment method. If they opt to pay with a credit card, they will be charged a 3% convenience fee. However, they will be encouraged to pay through Paystand’s zero-fee bank-to-bank network. ACH and other payment methods are available as well.
3. Through this system, customers are highly incentivized to use Paystand’s direct bank-to-bank network, which eliminates credit card fees, postal time, lockboxes, and manual entries. The payment portal is integrated into the Sage Intacct system, which means making, posting, and reconciling deposits occur automatically.
4. All payment information is now available in all relevant reports and dashboards for further analysis and consideration.

In addition, the Paystand Sage solution offers multi-currency billing and allows scheduled payments, automatic alerts, and autopay and recurring billing options.

Oracle NetSuite

More than 160,000 businesses use the Paystand payment network on Oracle NetSuite. Customers can easily accept payments, streamline collections, and automate many manual accounts receivable tasks. By using the Paystand SuiteApp, customers can enable no-fee payments and simplify complex accounting processes and operations. Collections, payment reconciliation, and the communication workflow are simplified with customers.

The Paystand SuiteApp offers robust support for NetSuite functionality, making the payment experience and productivity better while reducing costs. Paystand offers flat monthly pricing and zero-fee bank to bank payments via the Paystand network.

Regardless of whether you choose Oracle NetSuite or Sage Intacct for your organization, both give you options to simplify your payment processes through Paystand. Click here to get your free demo today.