Plumbing contractors struggling with job costing, WIP, project profitability, and reporting should look first at Sage Intacct Construction. Acumatica should come first when the business has a genuine manufacturing department, such as precast, fabrication, or a real production line. Carrying inventory by itself does not make Acumatica the better choice.
We sat down with Monica Delisle, who implemented Acumatica Construction before she joined us, and with Troy Guevara and Brady Curtis, to compare the two systems against the accounting and operational needs of plumbing contractors.
Carrying inventory does not by itself make Acumatica the better choice, because Sage Intacct Construction has a strong inventory system of its own. If you run several entities, Sage Intacct Construction has an advantage in close, consolidations, and reporting.
Plumbing stays on site for the whole job
Mechanical, electrical, HVAC, and plumbing are different trades, but Troy says their accounting and operations work in similar ways.
A plumbing contractor can begin work near the start of a project and remain involved until close to the end.
As soon as you put footings in the ground you've got underground plumbing going in, most likely underground electrical. But you don't put toilets and faucets in until the very end, you don't put wall outlets and switches in till the very end, you put light bulbs in at the very end.
Troy Guevara · Construction TechnologistThe longer you are on site, the more opportunities there are for the job to move away from the estimate. Labor is the biggest variable. Plumbers have less exposure to raw-material price changes than electricians because PVC prices are more stable than copper prices, but fixtures and their availability can still cause problems.
If those problems stay hidden, they can reduce the profit margin before the contractor has time to correct them.
A mason or a concrete guy comes in, boom, does their job, and they're out of there. A roofer, he's in and he's out. These guys are there the entire length of the job, and because of that they have a lot more exposure for bleeding profit margin. They're going to bleed it because they don't see it.
Troy Guevara · Construction TechnologistA plumbing firm needs to compare actual labor and cost with the budget while it still has time to correct the job.
They do their rough-in, and if they don't compare their numbers immediately they may not get that information until they're done with the rough-in, and then they're going 'oh crap, now we've got to catch up.'
Troy Guevara · Construction TechnologistThe accounting system has to show budget status and project profitability every day so the contractor can make adjustments that day. This is one reason plumbing businesses have more office staff and need more capable accounting software than trades that spend less time on the job. Many are larger than the general contractors they work for, and many run a service division alongside project work.
Job costing and dimensions
Sage Intacct Construction is a separate product from standard Sage Intacct. It includes construction workflows and cost structures. The standard product does not include job costing.
Construction accounting must organize job costs and WIP so they support both project reporting and the financial statements. A general ledger by itself cannot provide that structure. Coding a check to an expense account does not amount to job costing.
Sage Intacct Construction uses a work breakdown structure built around projects, cost codes, and cost types.
The work breakdown structure in Intacct is much more aligned with the way the construction industry operates, like in Sage 300 CRE and Sage 100 Contractor.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantWhen Monica implemented Acumatica, she found that its cost-code and cost-type structure did not seem fully integrated into the system.
Within the project, the cost code and the cost type structure feels like they just kind of tacked it on instead of making it fully embedded and part of the construct of the system.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantBrady also notes a difference in the chart of accounts.
Acumatica doesn't have a true dimensional Chart of Accounts and still relies on a segmented / hybrid dimensional COA.
Brady Curtis · ERP AdvisorThe chart-of-accounts structure affects how controllers can organize and change reports.
Reporting and dashboards
For plumbing contractors, a WIP or project profitability report is only useful if it shows the problem while the crew is still on the job. Producing a clear month-end package is usually easier.
Monica’s comparison is based on reports she built herself, starting with a WIP report in Sage 100 Contractor that took her more than 40 hours because the stock version was locked and had to be rebuilt from scratch.
She then moved to Acumatica and expected its modern design to make report building easier.
When I went to Acumatica, I was like, okay, great, this is a new modern, awesome tool. The reporting's got to be so much better. It wasn't. It was worse. Trying to modify or build a WIP report from scratch in Acumatica was, if anything, worse than what it was in my legacy software that had been around for 20 years. Their table structure is very confusing and very difficult to work with for reporting.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantShe found report building easier in Sage Intacct Construction.
I took that report writer class — the class was about eight hours. I was brand new to Intacct. I spent a few hours messing around with it, and I was able to build a WIP report as a brand new novice to Intacct in like three hours. I was like, okay, I'm sold. I'm all in right now.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantThree hours compared with forty is one person’s experience, not a benchmark. Controllers should ask whether their finance team can change a report themselves or whether every change must go to a consultant.
Wins on the Intacct side, I would say, are reporting and dashboarding. Those things are just much more complicated in Acumatica. Sage Intacct just provides a lot more avenues for people to build their own reports, custom reports, and dashboards to meet their own needs.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantWhere Acumatica is stronger
Acumatica has several strengths. One of the clearest is its project screen.
When Monica implemented it, this was the feature she liked most.
One thing I appreciate about Acumatica that frustrates me still in Intacct: when you've opened up a project, you could really work directly from that project. You could create any transactions you needed from that project without having to go navigate to other different modules.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantOperations staff are more likely to notice this than accounting staff.
Sage Intacct Construction has closed part of that gap, though it still does not let users edit or create every document from the project screen.
Intacct has kind of gotten halfway there. They've built out the project screen so we can get access to all the different pieces and parts of the project without having to run reports or open a dashboard or go to different modules. But it's like they're so close but not quite there, because they didn't pull in the edit button. I can open up and view all those documents, but if I actually need to change one or create one, I still got to go over to the module.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantAcumatica’s plan to include CRM and payroll within one product appeals to some buyers. Brady sees both benefits and drawbacks in that approach.
The product roadmap for Acumatica could be considered stronger if you are seeking an all in one solution where the system has CRM, Payroll for example. That also can be turned around into a weakness.
Brady Curtis · ERP AdvisorHow each product charges
The two products use different pricing models, and those differences continue after you sign the agreement.
Acumatica prices by consumption tier, with no per-user license. Some contractors like that because field and occasional users can access the system without requiring an additional license for each person.
Transaction volume can be difficult to forecast, and the tiers are hard limits. You need to know what counts toward the tier and how quickly normal usage can move you to the next one.
Some of Monica’s customers reached the limit before they went live.
When I was doing implementations we would create what they call a snapshot, because we were testing things and deploying things, and we would run into times when they would literally be out of space and it would not let me create the snapshot — and I was only in implementation. They hadn't even started using it.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantMonica finds the Sage Intacct Construction licensing model easier to explain.
The Sage Intacct licensing structure is much more straightforward and understandable. It's documented.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantAsk either vendor to show in the proposal what drives cost, what creates a limit, and how growth changes the agreement.
Construction payroll
Plumbing payroll becomes difficult when labor rules have to connect with job costing.
Union payroll and prevailing wage payroll are the two big things, and then of course job costing — very detailed job costing. So job costing, union, and prevailing wage.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantLocal taxes add another layer, and the applicable rule depends on the job site.
The tax situation gets a lot more complicated. A lot of places have local taxes. The City of Lansing in Michigan, for example: if anybody's working on a project in Lansing, whether your business is there or not and whether your employee lives there or not, they still have to pay income tax for all hours worked on that project within the city.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantAcumatica had embedded payroll before Sage Intacct Construction had a payroll option, and its handling of multiple local taxes was strong when Monica worked with it.
Embedded payroll also means your company runs payroll in-house. Your payroll department still handles the filings, tax reports, and W-2s that a payroll service would handle for you. When Monica left, workers’ compensation and certified payroll were still being worked out.
Most contractors prefer to use a payroll service provider for that work.
Here's the crux. Most companies these days want to have a payroll service provider. They don't want to have to file their own taxes, they don't want to do their own tax reports, they don't want to take any responsibility for that.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantSage Intacct Construction does not include its own payroll engine. It connects with specialist providers, and we bundle Hammr as our preferred provider. Hammr supports certified payroll, prevailing wage by county and trade, multi-union projects, labor cost synced at the timesheet level, and California compliance.
If you already run ADP, you can keep it, provided it is the ADP Workforce Now edition, you buy the connector, and ADP implements it. Monica has seen problems during that implementation step.
It'll work for construction as long as they have the Workforce Now version. But they are going to have to get the connector, and they're going to have to have someone at ADP implement that connector for them. That's where we had the problems — the implementation teams not really having the expertise they needed for construction payroll. Not always, but it's been kind of a mixed bag.
Monica Delisle · Solutions ConsultantMiter is another payroll service that handles construction work. Sage HCM is newer, and not yet fully tested for construction payroll.
Which system should a plumbing contractor see first?
The partner matters almost as much as the product. If you evaluate Sage Intacct Construction, make sure the implementer has experience implementing the construction product and works mostly with contractors.
Then ask both vendors to demonstrate your actual work. Show them how AP invoices arrive, how labor costs come in from the field, how AR is processed, and how compliance is handled.
I ask them how they're processing AP. How they're getting labor costs from the field. How they're doing AR, how they're handling compliance.
Troy Guevara · Construction TechnologistDo not accept sample data and a polished generic workflow. Confirm that the whole process, from the invoice arriving to the weekly rebudget, matches the way your company works.
Contractors with a genuine manufacturing department, such as precast, fabrication, or a real production line, should start with Acumatica. Contractors that need better job costing, WIP, and reporting should start with Sage Intacct Construction.
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