Schinkel Properties specializes in hotels, land development, and property management. The company operates seven hotels, five in Manitoba and two in Alberta, and develops approximately 80 acres of land per year. The property management division manages over 2,100 condominium units, 580 apartment units, and 260,000 square feet of commercial real estate.
Using Sage 50, the Schinkel Properties finance team had been struggling to reconciliate intercompany accounts at year-end and didn’t have the flexibility they needed for reporting to leadership. This needed to change.
With more than 30 different entities within Schinkel Properties, most of which have an intercompany relationship with one or more of the other entities, the finance team had to manually log in and out of Sage 50 for each entity. Intercompany account reconciliation was a manual process that required combing through hundreds of transactions across different sets of books to find any discrepancies. This resulted in year-end taking much longer than it needed to take. It was becoming a more serious issue as the company continued to grow, pushing the finance team’s year-end work back months after actual year-end.
Reporting was also a challenge. The finance team needed to create reports for themselves as well as for leadership. Sage 50 didn’t provide the customization options they needed, and they were forced to manually consolidate data and prepare their own reporting. As a result, data accuracy was a concern.
Other issues included the inability to customize user permissions or set up different roles in the system.
Realizing they needed an ERP solution that supported multiple entities, Schinkel Properties turned to MNP. The company had a strong existing relationship with MNP and trusted MNP Digital to find the right solution for them.
– Rebecca Derksen, Senior Accountant, Schinkel Properties
After gaining an in-depth understanding of Schinkel Properties’ requirements, MNP Digital walked the team through demonstrations of two ERP solutions that would work for them. MNP Digital recommended Sage Intacct as the right solution, as it offered the best multi-entity functionality.
Additionally, Sage Intacct could be configured to meet Schinkel Properties’ specific needs, including custom reports, advanced user permissions, and specifications around different roles. Although the company doesn’t currently deal in multiple currencies, the ERP solution offers the ability to handle currency exchange in the future.
MNP Digital also provided training during the implementation and support after go-live to ensure everyone understood how to use the solution.
With a lot of collaborative effort, both MNP Digital and Schinkel Properties worked hard to ensure Sage Intacct could go live during the busy holiday season, giving the finance team the best start to the year possible.
Year-ends are much smoother using Sage Intacct, freeing up an estimated entire month of time that the finance team can now use to focus on other priority areas. They’re also able to create custom reports and do quarterly consolidated reporting, making it easier for leadership to make decisions based on real-time data, leveraging a higher level of detail.
The finance team is now part of MNP Digital’s Customer Success Program and can reach out for help whenever they have questions, in addition to their regularly set touch base meetings with the MNP Digital team. For example, the team plans to customize dashboards in the future and MNP Digital will provide any support they require. With Sage Intacct and MNP Digital’s assistance, Schinkel Properties is ready to keep growing.
– Rebecca Derksen, Senior Accountant, Schinkel Properties
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