Outsourced services for tribes

CASE STUDY

WinnaVegas Casino Resort

ARTICLE

5 ways tribal gaming leaders use outsourced accounting while implementing Sage Intacct

Tribal casino gaming leaders who want to strengthen organizational performance and streamline processes are increasingly turning to a valuable approach: outsourced accounting to help implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform like Sage Intacct. Using outsourced accounting services makes it simpler for your tribal gaming organization to replace outdated systems and adjust to change while easing the burden on your internal team so you can focus on your core business processes. Plus, the right outsourcing partner can not only assist you in implementing a financial ERP system but also offer you support around month-end close and in adopting industry best practices. As a result, tribal casino executives can gain access to real-time financial data to make informed, proactive business decisions, stay audit-ready and more. Let’s explore five essential ways in which outsourcing can support your casino’s financial ERP implementation and streamline your financial reporting. 1. Help ensure audit-ready financials Maintaining audit readiness for your tribal casino helps stakeholders at all levels of your organization stay informed with detailed drill-down capabilities into your financial data in your ERP. The key to doing this is getting help putting the right systems and people in place. But first, if you’re used to doing everything in-house, you may benefit from a mindset shift. Embracing a willingness to change is actually the first step in delivering modern-day solutions for your business process needs. As you do so, you’ll often benefit from working with subject matter specialists who can ease the burden of moving away from antiquated systems to a more robust modern-day solution. An accounting partner who both provides experience in the industry and knows how to implement tech platforms can help you move quickly and avoid mistakes. Regardless of the size of your organization, this helps you modernize your financials seamlessly and roll out best-in-class ERP solutions like Sage Intacct. Upgrading to a cloud-based system is particularly useful for audit readiness because it gives you more data at your fingertips to monitor day-to-day financials and prepare for the year-end audit. With detailed documentation attached for each step in the transaction workflow, a cloud-based system makes it easy to access requested audit information, print, email or even allow auditors read-only access to the data within your system. This kind of approach also speeds up your preparation time for the audit, allows for much of the fieldwork to be conducted remotely and can reduce audit expenses. And users will also gain better visibility throughout your entire organization. Everyone from department managers to your tribal council can be given access to data pertinent to them to look at in real time and at the level of detail desired based on their role in the organization. This helps you make smarter decisions and more quickly identify areas of improvement. 2. Using automation to help ensure proper segregation of duties, documentation and detection of anomalies One of the most valuable aspects of working with an accounting partner to transition to a cloud-based financial platform is that you can more easily automate processes within your business. An accounting partner who knows how to implement an ERP platform like Sage Intacct can help you assess which tasks can be automated and bring that work to fruition more quickly. This could look like automating and streamlining financial workflows, as well as automated approval processes that provide audit trails and alleviate the need to track approvers down for a signature on paper. Tasks you used to do by hand now happen at the click of a button or even automatically. Getting outsourced help in automating processes also allows you to adhere to proper segregation of duties for transactions within your ERP platform, streamline the flow of information, enhance business processes such as procurement approvals and payments, and build robust automated approval processes to detect coding errors before they are posted to the general ledger. 3. Supporting regulated processes The casino business is one of the most regulated in the country. This makes it especially important to find outsourcing partners and financial systems that support your specific needs as a regulated entity, respect tribal sovereignty and provide solutions flexible enough to adapt to your business needs. For example, if you go with an off-the-shelf software solution that you attempt to implement on your own, you may at first think you’ve found a good fit. But after months of trying to implement your ERP, you may come to realize a subject matter expert can help ensure the software meets the needs and regulatory requirements of the tribal casino industry. This is why working with a third-party that couples outsourced accounting along with implementation specialists in your industry can be so valuable. You will have the assistance in implementing a cloud-based financial ERP platform that’s tailored to meet the needs of your industry — as well as accountants who know how to use it. 4. Integrating front-of-house solutions for streamlined revenue audits Ideally, your financial platform should gather data on all your revenue streams in one place. In other words, you should be able to see not just your gaming income, but food and beverage sales, hotel earnings and other ancillary revenues. An ERP platform with a robust API to integrate with front-of-house sales platforms can be a game-changer. Sage Intacct, for example, allows you to pull daily revenue data from multiple sales platforms into your general ledger system automatically. You can also compare actual revenue to metered data or actuals from the same period last year. This allows for easy comparison reporting and anomaly detection. 5. Leveraging outsourced accounting services and assistance So far, we’ve talked about working with an outsourced accounting and tech team to implement a cloud-based ERP system to streamline, automate and oversee your financials. Once you have this system in place, you can continue to use outsourced accounting to create additional value on an ongoing basis . Consider some of what you can accomplish by using outsourced accounting work: Advanced budgeting based on real-time data to determine if you are in line with your budget Data integration work that ties together various sources of key financial data Ongoing financial analysis Perspective to make real-time business decisions Enhanced financial reporting for casino management and tribal leadership Support while you build or expand an in-house accounting team Read more How new policies could impact tribal entities Trump’s executive orders: Key impacts on tribal entities An effective compliance program for tribal entities