QuickStart overview

A QuickStart template includes pre-defined infrastructure geared towards specific industries, including items such as account groups, dashboards, and financial reports. QuickStart templates are valuable and widely used for three main reasons:

  • Implementers can quickly and more accurately set up new companies from similar industries by providing some out-of-box, industry-standard configuration that most clients want.
  • Companies and organizations gain access to account categories, which makes it easy to pull new data into existing reports. These are available to you only if your company or organization uses a QuickStart template.
  • Sage Intacct adds new out-of-box reports, dashboards, account categories, and more to QuickStart templates on an ongoing basis. This helps you jump-start your dashboard and report creation and comply with new accounting standards that take effect. You get more industry-standard reports, graphs, and more, so that you can focus on your work instead of figuring out how Intacct works.

QuickStart template benefits

The most important benefits provided by QuickStart templates include the following:

  • Account categories
  • Predefined account groups based on account categories
  • Out-of-the-box financial reports, financial graphs, and dashboards

Account categories

With account categories, you can group accounts easily without worrying about restrictive account numbering. Out-of-the-box account groups and financial reports are built based on these account categories. They automatically pull in accounts tagged with the appropriate category, which means you do not have to reconfigure reports and account groups every time you add an account.

Instead, just assign the correct category to the account, and the account data is pulled in automatically when you run the report. Using categories is the quickest way to get data into a report.

Account

Account

Account

Account






Category

Category



Account Group




Financial Report
You can also use categories with custom reports and custom account groups.

A company has an AR account group containing GL accounts 1100 through 1199. As the company grows, more AR accounts are needed, exhausting the available numbers in the scheme.

Without categories:

  • Every account has to be manually included in an account group.
  • If another AR account is created, the numbering scheme must be adjusted. The new account number could make it difficult to remember as part of the AR accounts.

Using categories:

  • Accounts can be tagged with the appropriate category. The numbering scheme does not matter.
  • The new account is automatically included in the Accounts Receivable account group.
  • Every financial report using the Accounts Receivable account group automatically includes the new account.

Categories are used to create pre-defined, out-of-box reports and other elements in Intacct. To ensure that these reports work correctly, you cannot change existing categories or create new ones in Intacct.

However, you can create your own account groups however you like, and then use those account groups in reports.

For more on account groups, see Introduction to account groups.

Assign categories to accounts

Because categories are so powerful, selecting the best category for your account is important. When selecting a category, always consider how and where the account will be used. If you make a mistake or change your mind, you can always change the category later.

The Interest expense category is configured to Credit normal, even though sometimes it's assumed to be Debit normal. This is intentional. The interest expense account has a debit balance as the default, but in reporting it appears as a negative amount, offsetting the interest income.

To assign a category to an account:

  1. Go to Reports > Setup > Accounts.

  2. Find the account in the list.

  3. Select More actions > Edit at the end of the row.

  4. Select the Category for the account and save your changes.

  1. Go to Reports > Setup > Accounts.

  2. Select Edit beside the account that you want to modify.
  3. Select the Category for the account and save your changes.
To see which categories are included in a particular account group, edit or view the account group.
  1. Go to General Ledger > All > Reports > Account groups hierarchy.
  2. Filter and run the report. You can filter by account groups and categories.

Select the down arrow by Category to see a list of all available categories.

Account groups

QuickStart templates include pre-defined account groups used in the out-of-the-box reports, graphs, and dashboards. These account groups are also category-based, which makes categories that much more powerful. You can view a list of these out-of-the-box account groups in the Account groups library.

You can modify these account groups, but remember that they're used as the basis for the out-of-the-box reports, graphs, and dashboards included with the QuickStart template.

To view a list of out-of-the-box account groups:

  1. Go to Reports > Setup > Account groups.
  2. Select Create > Create from library to open a list of all account groups included with your QuickStart template.
  1. Go to Reports > Setup > Account groups.
  2. Select Account groups library to open a list of all account groups included with your QuickStart template.

Reports, graphs, and dashboards

QuickStart templates also include out-of-the-box reports, graphs, and dashboards that require minimal configuration. These items are all based on the categories and account groups also included with the template, which makes it easy to include new data.

To view out-of-the-box financial reports:

  1. Go to General Ledger > All > Financial reporting > Financial reports.
  2. From the Create dropdown button, select Create from library.
  1. Go to General Ledger > All> Financial reporting > Financial reports.
  2. Select QuickStart library to view all financial reports included with your QuickStart template.

To view out-of-the-box financial graphs:

  1. Go to General Ledger > All > Financial reporting > Financial graphs.
  2. From the Create dropdown button, select Create from library.
  1. Go to General Ledger > All > Financial reporting > Financial graphs.
  2. Select QuickStart library to view all financial graphs included with your QuickStart template.

To view out-of-the-box dashboards:

  1. Go to Dashboards > All > Dashboards.
  2. From the Create dropdown button, select Create from library.
  1. Go to Dashboards > All > Dashboards.
  2. Select Dashboards Library to view all dashboards included with your QuickStart template.

We highly recommend modifying these reports, graphs, and dashboards to suit your business needs and processes. They're meant to serve as a standard starting point for all organizations in a similar industry. Think of them as a head start toward making your own reports, graphs, and dashboards that better match the way your business works. So add a column to a report, change the way a graph displays, or include new components on your dashboard. These items are for you to use as you wish.

Types of QuickStart templates

Each QuickStart template has specific features—such as account group categories—related to their specific industry.

Type Resources
General
Services
Nonprofit

Find your QuickStart template

To find out if your company was created using a QuickStart template, go to the Accounting tab on the Company information page (Company > Setup > Configuration > Company).

If a template was used, the type appears in the QuickStart template field. If the field is blank, the company was not set up using a template.

In most cases, you cannot add or change a QuickStart template after your company has been implemented and records have been created. If you want to start using a QuickStart or switch to a different template, contact your account manager to discuss your options.