Join us on this bonus episode where Matt talked to Jessie Gu, Business Development Manager for Sage Intacct Advisory, about how firms can package and price client advisory services, build the right tech stack to scale, and put AI to real use in CAS delivery. Matt draws on 20 years running Tyco to explain why verticalization and industry specialization (think nonprofit, healthcare, and financial services) separate firms that turn CAS into real recurring revenue from those still stuck doing transactional work. They also dig into Sage's AI close and financial agents and how firms can practically deploy AI without losing the human judgment behind it.

• (00:00) - Welcome and Agenda

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Donny Shimamoto, founder of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies and the Center for Accounting Transformation, joins Matt, Doug, and Emily to talk about why time, not technology, is the real bottleneck slowing down firms. He breaks down what firms actually ask for when they bring in a transformation consultant, why the profession needs to revive its apprenticeship roots as AI automates entry-level prep work, and what he's seeing on international standard-setting boards shaping AI guidance for audit quality.

• (00:00) - Podcast kickoff

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Ellen Choi, founder of Edgefield Group and former Awin chief product officer, breaks down what actually separates firms making real AI progress from those stuck experimenting. She walks through her firm maturity scorecard, why "return on investment" is harder to pin down than most partners assume, and why the biggest AI decisions have to start at the top. The conversation also covers token costs, on-prem alternatives, and why an outdated AI policy might be a bigger risk than no policy at all.

• (00:00) - Podcast intro

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Taylor Brown, CPA and director in CLA's digital practice, joins Matt and Doug to break down Sage Intacct's latest release: cash management and three-way matching, the new Financial Intelligent Agent, the MCP AI gateway, and fixed asset and audit trail updates. Drawing on her years as a Sage solutions consultant and her work teaching accounting at UT Austin, Taylor makes the case for why Sage is building AI into the product itself and why a foundational understanding still matters when AI gets accounting wrong 30 to 40 percent of the time.

• (00:00) - Meet Taylor Brown

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David Westbrook, CFO of Robertson Stevens, joins Emily and Matt live at Sage Future 2026 to share what eight years as a Sage Intacct customer actually looks like from the inside. A former Deloitte auditor who chose Intacct when building the firm from scratch in 2018, David reflects on scaling from $500M to $9.5B in assets, how he's using AI to cut a week of quarterly close work down to a single day, and what he still wishes the platform would tackle.

• (00:00) - Live Stage Kickoff

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Recorded live on the main stage at Sage Future in San Francisco, Emily and Matt sit down with Manav Thiara, SVP of Data & AI and Technical Fellow at Sage, to unpack the wave of AI announcements coming out of the conference. Manav breaks down the Sage AI Factory, the new AWS Agent Core partnership, and what the "black box to glass box" shift actually means for partners and customers navigating an increasingly noisy AI landscape. The conversation also tackles the bigger philosophical question head-on: will AI replace humans, and how close are we to mass adoption?

• (00:00) - Live at Sage Future

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Sage's nonprofit marketing lead Natalie Anderson joins alongside Julie Raskin, CFO of WMHT Public Media, to break down the findings of Sage's 2026 Nonprofit Outlook report — and what it actually felt like to live through the disruptions it documents. Julie shares how WMHT navigated a $1.5 million revenue hit, from hiring their first grants manager to accepting donations of cars, real estate, and parking spaces. The conversation covers why the smartest nonprofit finance leaders have stopped chasing certainty and started building for resilience instead.

• (00:00) - Welcome to the Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast

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Mark Hickman, Managing Director of North America at Sage, returns to break down what's driving Sage's fastest-growing region — from the company's AI strategy built around trust, transparency, and human control, to the upcoming Sage Future 2026 conference in San Francisco. The conversation covers what finance leaders are actually saying about AI adoption, what's coming in the keynotes and super sessions, and why Hickman argues that "70% right" might be fine for an essay but will never fly in accounting.

• (00:00) - Welcome to the Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast

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Doug, Matt, and Emily return from hiatus to unveil a revamped podcast with a new format and a broader focus — bringing in voices from across accounting, finance, and technology, including international perspectives and even some Sage competitors. If you've been wondering what's next for the most official unofficial Sage Intacct podcast in the world, this is your answer.

Connect with the Hosts:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilybmadere
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattlescault
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dlewis715

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Doug, Matt, and Emily look ahead to Sage's upcoming Partner Summit in Orlando and discuss what to expect as the company kicks off fiscal year 2026. The conversation covers everything from AI implementation reality versus marketing speak to potential shifts in go-to-market strategy, price sensitivity in uncertain economic times, and why Sage is flooding construction conferences. Matt and Emily each make bold predictions about what might get announced at the closed-door partner event—and they'll be back to see who was right.

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• (00:00) - Welcome to The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast

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