Mountain West Wendy’s Group Closes the Books 123% Faster with Tablespoon and Sage Intacct

We really liked Sage Intacct. Other restaurant groups that were on the platform had wonderful things to say about it. Finding Tablespoon as our Sage Intacct partner was a perfect fit.

Mountain West Wendy’s Group is a proud franchisee of Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers, operating 37 restaurants in 8 states, with corporate offices located in Draper, Utah. The Wendy's brand was founded in 1969 by Dave Thomas in Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. Dave built his business on the premise, "Quality is our Recipe®," which remains the guidepost of the Wendy's system. Today, Wendy's and its franchisees employ hundreds of thousands of people across more than 6,800 restaurants worldwide with a vision of becoming the world's most thriving and beloved restaurant brand.

The Search for a New Accounting Platform

Mountain West Wendy’s Group started searching for a new accounting solution long before they implemented Sage Intacct. They needed a more robust system than QuickBooks and initially implemented RTI, which is a restaurant-specific software package. However, they quickly came to see that RTI lacked the reporting capabilities needed to run their business and struggled with working in the system during the pandemic. Mountain West Wendy’s Group could download reports from RTI to Excel; however, it was only in text format, and they couldn’t manipulate the data.

“We needed financial management software that was well-suited for a franchise business like ours. RTI did not fit the bill due to the limitations around reporting,” says Donna Strasrypka, Accounting/Office Manager at Mountain West Wendy’s Group. “In addition to lackluster reports, we had to access RTI through a remote desktop. It wasn’t an efficient way of doing the accounting and frequently we had to restart due to the system kicking us out several times a day.”

RTI Challenges for Mountain West Wendy’s Group:

• Remote Desktop Access
• Not Real-Time
• Lackluster Reporting
• Felt Outdated and Slow
• Support Issues

After experiencing a disappointing transition from QuickBooks to RTI, Donna and the accounting team at Mountain West Wendy’s Group didn’t want to end up in the same situation. They explored Sage Intacct, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, and QuickBooks Enterprise as possible solutions.

Tablespoon and Sage Intacct

Mountain West Wendy’s Group was introduced to Tablespoon during the Sage Intacct discovery process. They needed a partner that had restaurant industry experience, as well as experience transitioning from RTI to Sage Intacct. “We really liked Sage Intacct. Other restaurant groups that were on the platform had wonderful things to say about it. Finding Tablespoon as our Sage Intacct partner was a perfect fit. Not only did they have restaurant industry experience, but they had also just transitioned another restaurant group from RTI to Sage Intacct,” says Donna.

Sage Intacct equips restaurant and hospitality groups with a best-in-class dynamic multi-entity environment. The cloud-based solution helps restaurants of all types get the precise business insights they need, faster and more efficiently. In addition, Sage Intacct provides a sophisticated multi-dimensional general ledger, enables restaurants to streamline their chart of accounts, and get richer information. Implementing Sage Intacct gives restaurant operators visibility across and into multiple entities, locations, and brands at the push of a button.

“Transitioning from RTI to Sage Intacct was like transitioning from night-to-day. Instantaneously we had better reporting and statements. Tablespoon’s implementation of Sage Intacct seemed exceptionally fast and under budget. One day we were on RTI and the next we were up and running on Sage Intacct,” says Donna.

Measuring Outcomes

The pandemic was challenging for many restaurant groups – from staffing challenges and inflation to limited indoor dining options, many restaurants struggled. The pandemic also highlighted the need for a strong cloud-based financial platform that delivers real-time reporting. In this challenging environment, Operators need to access information that matters to them 24/7. “With Sage Intacct, we can do bank reconciliations faster than ever before. With RTI, we did a monthly lump sum entry of our sales. Now with Sage Intacct, we import sales daily. It has vastly improved our financial health accuracy, as well as provide more insight. District Managers can easily run a middle of the month report in Sage Intacct and see the information they need,” says Donna.

By providing the field with access to real-time dashboards, operators can better manage costs and evaluate store performance, all from the accounting system of record.

“It’s a lot easier running a business when you know where you stand. Implementing Sage Intacct with Tablespoon’s experience in the restaurant sector has been invaluable to the business,” says Jim Taggart, Managing Partner at Mountain West Wendy’s Group.

In addition to more robust reporting, Mountain West Wendy’s Group can easily adjust their reporting in Sage Intacct. “Managers move stores all the time. It isn’t uncommon to shift territories. Especially now as there is a nationwide hiring crisis. Tablespoon built reports that are easy to transfer as our managers move around. It is nice having an accounting system that is so user friendly,” says Donna.

One of the biggest impacts that Mountain West Wendy’s Group experienced was dramatically reducing the time to close the books each month. While on RTI it took up to three weeks due to all of the manual data entry and Excel spreadsheet required; now on Sage Intacct, they complete the close within 5 to 7 days. That’s 123% faster! “Closing the books faster is huge for us. Once accounting is done entering everything into Sage Intacct, it’s done. We are saving so much time every month.”

Additional Outcomes:

• Open API has led to time savings with technology integrations and less manual work
• Imports in Sage Intacct are significantly easier – just one click and it’s done
• Dashboards in Sage Intacct are easy to make and access – the Field can dig into Sage Intacct and get the information they need without relying on accounting for access

“Tablespoon is a great partner. We implemented Sage Intacct on-time and under budget.”

Dishing on Tablespoon: What three words would you describe Tablespoon?

Helpful, supportive, and efficient.

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