LBMC Technology Solutions Blogs
The Shiny New Toy
AI has become the shiny new toy in the business world. It’s dominating the conversation, from boardrooms and industry conferences to the news and everyday life. Organizations are eager to get AI projects moving, and understandably, no one wants to miss the bandwagon.
I share that excitement. In fact, I’m steering my own career toward AI security and governance because AI has changed, and will continue to change, how we work, live and play. The rapid growth of AI, and more importantly the speed at which people are adopting it, will have a more profound impact on our daily lives than the PC or the internet did. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that nearly 40% of U.S. adults had used generative AI within two years of ChatGPT’s launch, roughly double the internet’s adoption rate at the same point. But as a CISSP, one question keeps coming back to me: in the race to become an “AI company,” how do we make sure security, privacy, intellectual property rights and governance keep pace?
It’s a question worth asking early, because it’s much easier to build these protections in from the start than to add them later.
NAV 2018 vs. Business Central
If you’re running Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2018, you’re likely asking one of two questions: “Do I need to upgrade to Business Central?” or “What actually changes if I do?” Here’s a direct answer to both, along with the details behind them.
What is the main difference between NAV 2018 and Business Central?
NAV 2018 is an on-premises-only ERP system with manual updates, no AI capabilities, and a retired Windows desktop interface. Business Central is Microsoft’s cloud-based (with on-prem/hybrid options) successor, built with automatic updates, native AI/Copilot features, extension-based customization, and deep Microsoft 365 integration. In short: NAV 2018 is a legacy platform in extended support; Business Central is the actively developed, modern replacement.
Dimensional Accounting: A New Way for Finance to Work
As organizations grow, so does the complexity of their financial reporting. New entities, departments, locations, programs, grants, or classes all demand visibility, but many finance teams try to manage that complexity by continuously adding accounts to their general ledger. The result is an overgrown chart of accounts, rigid reports, and far too much time spent manipulating spreadsheets.
This is exactly the problem dimensional accounting was designed to solve, and it’s one of the core reasons companies choose Sage Intacct.
In traditional accounting systems, reporting relies heavily on the chart of accounts. Want to track expenses by department? Add accounts. Need reporting by location or project? Add more accounts. Over time, this creates a bloated GL structure that is difficult to maintain and even harder to analyze.
Moving Document Attachments to External Storage in Business Central
Every scanned invoice, vendor packing slip, and signed sales order attachment in Business Central lives in the same place: your production database. That’s fine until it isn’t — until you’re staring at a capacity warning and realizing that years of PDFs are eating into the same storage limit as your actual transactional data. Business Central now has a built-in answer to that problem: external file storage. Here’s what it actually involves.
The files themselves move off your database and onto external storage; only the link back to the record stays in BC. Users don’t see a difference — they still open, add, and manage attachments from the same Attachments FactBox they always have. What changes is where the bytes actually live.
Critical Things to Check Before Importing Data into Sage Intacct
Data imports can be one of the most powerful features in Sage Intacct, allowing you to load large amounts of information quickly and efficiently. Whether you’re importing customers, vendors, GL accounts, journal entries, or transactional data, imports can save significant time — but only when the data is clean and formatted correctly.
A consistent pre import checklist helps you catch issues early and avoid the most common errors. Below are the top things to check before you hit “Upload,” along with the mistakes they typically prevent.
Purchasing and Cost-Management Approvals in Sage Intacct
Effective purchasing controls are essential for any organization that wants to manage spending responsibly and maintain clean audit results. Within Sage Intacct, purchasing and cost-management approvals are designed around a straightforward principle: no single person should be able to request, approve, record, and pay for the same expense.
This separation of duties is one of the most important safeguards auditors look for when evaluating internal financial controls. By structuring approvals carefully, organizations can reduce risk, maintain transparency, and create a reliable audit trail for every transaction.
Can Sage Intacct Employee Users Approve Transactions?
Organizations implementing Sage Intacct often ask a practical question when setting up workflows and internal controls: Can employee users approve transactions in the system?
The answer is yes—but with an important condition. Employee users can approve transactions in Sage Intacct only when the employee also exists as an active system user with the proper role permissions and is included in an approval workflow.
Understanding this distinction is essential for designing effective approval processes and maintaining strong financial controls.
Construction in Progress in Accounting
Construction in Progress (CIP) accounting represents one of the most complex areas in fixed asset management. The stakes are significant: miscategorized costs trigger audit adjustments, delayed capitalization decisions impact depreciation schedules and tax positions, and poor documentation creates compliance vulnerabilities that surface years later. Construction in Progress is used when a company is building something that takes time to complete—like a new facility, major equipment, or large infrastructure. Instead of recording these costs as expenses or completed assets right away, CIP keeps them in a temporary holding account until the project is ready for use.
This treatment matters because it ensures financial statements accurately reflect what a company owns and how much it invests in long-term assets.
From ERP Data to Strategic Intelligence
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems capture nearly every financial transaction across an organization. General ledger entries, accounts payable, accounts receivable, purchasing, inventory, payroll, and operational metrics all reside in one place. Yet many finance leaders still struggle to answer fundamental business questions quickly.
The problem is rarely a lack of data. The problem is transforming that data into meaningful insight.
As organizations face increasing pressure to improve profitability, manage cash flow, and respond to changing market conditions, finance teams are shifting their focus from producing reports to delivering strategic intelligence. The organizations that succeed are those that transform ERP data into actionable analytics.