The IT Nerd

Sage today introduced the Sage Intacct Finance Intelligence Agent. The Finance Intelligence Agent is part of Sage’s growing network of AI agents transforming the role of the CFO, from supporting the business to leading it.

This launch sets a new benchmark for high-performance finance and marks a pivotal step toward autonomous operations and insights. By supporting CFOs with AI-powered agents, Sage helps organisations get continuous accounting, trust, and insights, delivering speed, accuracy, and clarity, while reducing manual efforts and reporting.

Historically, finance teams often needed to hunt for reports, review dashboards, and sometimes export and manipulate data in spreadsheets to get answers and make recommendations – a process that could take minutes to hours depending on the complexity of the task. The Finance Intelligence Agent represents the next evolution of AI in finance, acting as an intelligence layer that routes natural language questions to the right AI Agents and financial data sources, coordinates their responses, and composes a final, actionable answer – in seconds. By eliminating the need to run reports or analyse data externally, it simplifies decision-making and accelerates outcomes.

A growing network of Sage AI Agents

The addition of the Finance Intelligence Agent builds on the existing suite of Sage Intacct AI Agents designed to support finance teams across workflows:

• Close Agent: Keeps close tasks on track, flags issues early and provides full visibility in one workspace.
• AP Agent: Automates bill processes, PO matching, and duplicate checks, allowing teams to review and approve with confidence.
• Assurance Agent: Catches errors at entry, stopping mistakes before they post and eliminating downstream rework.
• Time Agent: Automates project time capture, freeing staff from manual entry and maximising billing and estimating accuracy.

These agents are built on Sage’s unified platform – where applications, workflows, and data come together – and powered by Sage AI, which delivers purpose-built, domain-specific AI services. Acting as behind-the-scenes specialists, they operate within permission boundaries, whether surfaced through Sage Copilot or embedded into product workflows.

Sage AI Agents strengthen Sage Intacct as one of the industry’s leading and most trusted platforms for CFOs. Built by finance teams, Sage Intacct’s AI Agents deliver automation that is practical, transparent, and tailored to how they work, helping organisations meet today’s pressures head-on.

Empowering finance teams

Sage Intacct AI Agents relieve pressure on teams that spend too much time on manual processes and chasing data. By automating tasks like drafting bills, matching transactions, guiding close activities, and flagging errors before they escalate, these Agents help finance teams operate with greater speed, accuracy, and confidence.

They connect insights and actions across finance operations, enabling CFOs and their teams to focus on strategy and growth. Together, the Agents streamline core workflows and advance continuous accounting, delivering trusted insights while reducing manual effort and reporting overhead.

Meeting the pressure on finance

According to McKinsey, technologies can fully automate 42% of finance activities and mostly automate a further 19%. Sage data shows how this potential is being realised in practice, with AI processing 45 million bills, flagging 190 million anomalies, and processing 3.2 billion transactions annually. Customers are saving an estimated 50 million hours annually.

Availability and next steps

Unlike general-purpose AI tools that require extensive customization, Sage Intacct’s finance-first AI Agents work out of the box, delivering fast results with minimal setup.

Whether accessed through Sage Copilot or embedded into workflows, with the autonomy of agents, finance teams get faster results.

The Finance Intelligence Agent is available in December to Early Adopters on Sage Intacct across the US and the UK.

Sage today released new research revealing that small businesses could hold the key to closing Canada’s long-standing productivity gap—if supported by SME-first AI and digital policies.

The report, Canada’s Digital & AI Imperative: Closing the Productivity Gap and Driving SME Growth, shows that while digital adoption is now essential to business survival and growth, uneven access to technology and skills risks creating a two-speed economy that leaves smaller firms behind.

Research Overview

Conducted in collaboration with Strand Partners, the research surveyed over 2,000 SME leaders across Canada. It found that:

• Skills shortages are a growing concern: 41% of medium-sized firms cite a lack of internal expertise as a barrier to scaling digital adoption.
• Cost remains the top hurdle for small firms: 58% say affordability is the biggest barrier to digital transformation.
• Digitalization is mission-critical: 80% of SMEs say it’s essential for growth, and 82% say it’s vital for survival.
• AI adoption is accelerating: 51% of SMEs already use AI, with another 18% planning to adopt it within three years.
• Medium-sized firms are leading the charge: They’re investing nearly twice as much in AI as small firms and reporting significantly higher productivity gains.
• Digital investment pays off: SMEs adopting digital tools see an average 29% productivity boost in the first year, with every dollar invested returning up to $2.40 among digital leaders.

However, regional and sectoral divides persist:

•  AI adoption rates range from 56% in Québec to just 28% in Northern Canada.
• Sectors like finance and tech lead the way, while agriculture and construction lag.
• Cost, skills shortages, and unclear ROI remain major barriers.

SME-First AI Policy Recommendations

Sage is urging policymakers to place SME adoption at the heart of Canada’s AI strategy, backed by targeted skills investment and sustained support frameworks. To secure long-term prosperity and global competitiveness, Canada must close its productivity gap through inclusive AI adoption. This means empowering SMEs across all sectors and regions to lead confidently in the digital economy, while ensuring alignment with evolving global standards.

To address the most pressing barriers, Sage recommends the following policy actions:

• Embed SME adoption at the core of national AI strategy
• Equip SMEs with practical AI skills and confidence
• Unlock AI investment through targeted tax breaks and grants
• Deliver trusted, context-specific guidance for SMEs
• Foster a whole-of-ecosystem approach, uniting federal and provincial governments, industry, academia, and community partners
• Accelerate e-invoicing and structured data adoption

Closing Canada’s productivity gap demands inclusive action. Sage urges policymakers to adopt SME-first AI policies grounded in the lived experience of small business leaders. By investing in access, skills, and infrastructure—and aligning globally—Canada can unlock the full potential of its entrepreneurial economy. These priorities reflect the realities of Canadian entrepreneurs and chart a path to inclusive, innovation-led growth. As we mark Small Business Month, Sage calls on all stakeholders to champion a digital economy where small businesses lead.

You can download the report here.

A new study from IDC, commissioned by Sage, that examines how high-performing channel partners are leveraging AI to deliver powerful customer outcomes and shape the future of the channel.  

The study found that a new wave of high-performing partners is redefining the channel by scaling faster, adopting AI sooner, and delivering measurable customer outcomes. 

IDC surveyed 2,000 software resellers globally, including Canadian partners for the study. Key Canadian findings include:  

• 70% of Canadian channel partners say they have an AI practice. 
• Canadian partners face unique challenges
  • Almost half (49%) citing budget constraints are a top barrier to technology investment. 
  • 44% say lack of skilled resources is the top internal barrier to achieving high performance. 
• 76% of Canadian partners are embracing a more strategic role in the channel, positioning themselves as trusted advisors rather than transactional sellers. 

You can read the study here: https://www.sage.com/en-ca/news/press-releases/2025/09/idc-study-reveals-how-high-performing-partners-win-with-ai-and-specialisation/

 Sage today announced the launch of Workforce Intelligence, a new analytics engine for Sage People, designed to give HR leaders deeper visibility, anticipate challenges and drive strategic impact through data.

Despite growing pressure on HR teams to take a more strategic role, research from Gartner® found that although the labour market has undergone significant shifts, most organisations still rely on headcount-based planning, which limits their ability to anticipate future talent needs. In fact, only 15% of companies engage in strategic workforce planning, leaving a significant gap in HR’s ability to align talent with long-term business goals. Now available to Sage People customers, Workforce Intelligence addresses this gap by providing AI-powered insights, allowing HR to analyse, aggregate and visualise data to deeper insights into their business needs.

Designed for mid-sized, global businesses, Workforce Intelligence helps HR leaders see what’s really happening in their organisation so they can respond to change with confidence. By highlighting trends and uncovering blind spots, the latest enhancement to Sage People gives managers a clearer view of their teams and supports them to make faster, more informed decisions. Built on the Salesforce platform, it combines flexibility, security and ease of use in one intuitive experience.

Supporting modern HR teams with personalised learning and wellbeing support

With research from IDC finding that reskilling is now one of the top three pain points for HR leaders, and only 13% of employees saying they feel well supported in their professional development, there’s a clear need for more accessible, effective learning experiences. To help address this, Sage has partnered with Uptime, an award-winning platform that uses AI to deliver curated micro-learning and wellbeing content to HR teams.

Available in over 24 languages, Uptime brings together personal development, corporate training, compliance and wellbeing in bite-sized formats. Its unique five-minute knowledge hacks, distil key insights from books, courses, videos and podcasts, making it easier for employees to learn on the go, while integrated wellbeing content supports work-life balance and long-term resilience.

To find out more about the latest updates to Sage people visit: https://www.sage.com/en-gb/sage-business-cloud/people/

Sage today unveiled powerful new capabilities in Sage Intacct that help high-performing finance teams move faster, gain greater control, and lead with impact.

With new AI-powered automation, embedded payments, and built-in sustainability insights, the latest innovations are designed to simplify operations, accelerate the close, and give finance teams time back to focus on higher value work.

Today’s finance leaders are under increasing pressure to deliver speed, efficiency, and strategic value, yet many are still held back by manual processes, fragmented systems, and rising ESG demands. Recent Sage research found that 84% of finance leaders want to close the books faster, and 87% are looking for more advanced AP automation to support their goals.

From intelligent reconciliations and simplified payment to real-time emissions estimates, Sage Intacct is delivering the tools CFOs need to eliminate inefficiencies, boost resilience, and drive sustainable growth.

As Sage delivers on its High-Performance Finance vision, partners are seeing how these innovations translate into tangible improvements for customers.

What’s New in Sage Intacct R3 2025:

AI-Powered Close, Reconciliation, and Answers

• Close Automation – Subledger Reconciliation Assistant: Sage Copilot continuously monitors subledger and General Ledger balances, automatically flags discrepancies, and provides drill-down views to resolve issues before they delay the close. Saves time and improves accuracy.

Available for new and early access customers in the US and UK.

• Close Automation – Close Workspace: Standardises the month-end close with customisable task templates, checklists, ownership tracking. Sage Copilot delivers real-time notifications to keep the close moving and reduce last minute surprises.

Available to early access customers in US and UK.

• Copilot Search Help: Context-aware, natural language help that provides users with fast answers to product-related questions, increasing solution knowledge and productivity.

Available in English for customers in US, UK, Canada, South Africa, and Australia.

Smarter AP and Procurement Automation

• Sage Vendor Payments powered by MineralTree: Delivers embedded payments to streamline AP workflows with flexible payment methods via ACH, check, or virtual card directly in Sage Intacct. Gain better cash flow visibility, reduce fraud risk, and eliminate manual steps from your payment process.

Available to customers in the US.

• AI-powered Line-level Matching: Automatically matches invoice lines to purchase order lines, flags discrepancies, and accelerates approvals. Reduces manual AP reviews and errors.

Available to early access customers in all regions.

• Sage Intacct eProcurement: Now extended to all industries, with embedded vendor punchout for streamlined purchasing. Shop directly from vendor sites, automatically bring order data into Intacct, and apply negotiated pricing. Simplify procurement, improve accuracy, and strengthen spend control.

Available to customers in the US.

Sustainability by Default

• Sage Earth Carbon Accounting: UK customers now have access to fast, no-setup carbon footprint estimates based on industry and revenue data. Helps kickstart sustainability initiatives and prep for future reporting.

Available to customers in the UK.

Sage has today announced the launch of Tap to Pay in Sage Accounting. The new feature, powered by Stripe, is available to Canadian customers and enables small businesses and sole traders to take in-person payments using only their mobile phone, via the Sage Accounting app.

Tap to Pay removes friction from how businesses get paid. It forms part of a smarter, connected experience in Sage Accounting, where tasks like creating invoices, taking payments, reconciling accounts and tracking cashflow happen more seamlessly. Combined with Sage Copilot, it helps business owners stay on top of their cashflow with less effort and more confidence. Tap to Pay brings together Stripe’s trusted payments infrastructure with Sage’s deep understanding of how small businesses work to solve a real and everyday challenge: slow and inconsistent cashflow.

Research from Good Business Pays highlights that businesses in the last year are reporting a 20% increase in average payment times – now exceeding 80 days. The knock-on impact can be significant. With Tap to Pay, payment is automatically applied to the invoice and reconciled in the customer’s accounts, removing the need for manual input, hardware like card readers and chasing for invoices.

What Tap to Pay means for Sage Accounting customers

With support across the two main mobile operating systems, small businesses now have the flexibility to take payments in the moment, using the devices they already own.

The new feature supports mobile businesses and sole traders by making it easier to get paid at the point of service. From independent tradespeople and fitness instructors to market stallholders and consultants, customers can now take payment on the spot, without having to follow up later.

It means that customers can:

• Take payments anywhere using a mobile device
• Accept contactless cards and digital wallets
• Automatically reconcile payments in Sage Accounting
• No need for additional card readers or payment terminals
• Secure and compliant processing, powered by Stripe

Strengthening Sage’s partnership with Stripe

This marks the latest step in Sage’s partnership with Stripe, following last year’s announcement to embed payment capabilities across its small business solutions. With Tap to Pay, small businesses and sole traders can now accept contactless payments from cards or digital wallets directly via the Sage Accounting app.

To find out more about Sage Accounting and Tap to Pay visit here: https://www.sage.com/en-ca/sage-business-cloud/accounting/

Sage made several major announcements at its annual conference, Sage Future, in Atlanta today, which largely focuses on their vision and roadmap to empower professionals with new AI capabilities to drive efficiencies and greater value for their customers.

Today’s announcements Include:

Sage Copilot for Sage X3

Most notably, Sage announced the global availability of Sage Copilot for Sage X3, which marks the first time the company’s advanced generative AI productivity assistant, Sage Copilot which is designed to transform business management and operations is available to Canadian businesses.  Sage Copilot for Sage X3 will first focus on empowering sales managers and representatives to easily query customer orders, shipping timelines, and fulfilment issues.  Now with Sage Copilot, Sage X3 users will benefit from

• Conversational interaction
• Real-time operational alerts
• Sales intelligence that anticipates risk
• A unified 360° view

AI Trust Label

Sage also announced the development of its AI Trust Label – a first-of-its-kind initiative to bring greater clarity and accountability to how AI is developed and used in business software.  The AI Trust Label is designed to provide customers with clear, accessible information about the way AI functions across Sage products. 

The Trust Label focuses on key trust indicators such as compliance with privacy and data regulations, how customer data is used, the presence of safeguards to prevent bias and harm, and the systems in place to monitor accuracy and ethical performance. This initiative allows SMBs to understand how AI impacts them – without needing a technical background.

Agentic AI

Sage announced its vision for the next wave of artificial intelligence with the potential of agentic AI and autonomous agents helping SMBs in a third wave of innovation.  The company discussed its next phase of AI strategy and how Sage is building on its AI heritage and expanding into the emerging space of Agentic AI.

Sage Intacct Roadmap

The company also announced how Sage Intacct will leverage AI, automation and deep industry insights to propel finance teams into a new era of high performance by unveiling the Sage Intacct product roadmap, giving customers a clearer view of what’s coming next.  As part of the roadmap, organizations can expect more AI capabilities coming to Intacct, including:

• Close Workspace
• Enhanced AP Automation
• Continuous Assurance
• Cash Flow Prediction & Optimization
• Developer Tools for Sage Copilot

CPA AI Collaboration

Sage announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration with CPA.com, the business and technology subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), to license select AICPA resources to train Sage Copilot. The collaboration is about building trusted connections between the technology sector and the accounting profession, between innovation and governance, and between local leadership and global consistency. It signals Sage’s commitment to responsible, industry-aligned AI development and its ambition to help shape the future of finance with transparency and rigour.

High Performance Finance Software

Sage unveiled “High-Performance Finance Software”, a new brand mission to empower modern CFOs with the tools, skills, and community they need to lead in today’s economy. As part of the program, Sage will launch a CPE accredited training program for high-potential finance leaders, providing them the strategic tools and competencies to be the catalysts of growth.

Sage Supply Chain Intelligence

Sage announced Sage Supply Chain Intelligence to help operating teams reduce delays by 35%, protect margins, and scale faster without overhauling their existing systems. Since acquiring Anvyl in 2024, Sage has rebranded and expanded the solution to create Sage Supply Chain Intelligence, an offer that gives more SMBs greater control and collaboration across the first mile of their supply chain.

Sage today announced the global expansion of Sage Embedded Services. 

Initially launched in the UK, Sage Embedded Services is now available across North America and Europe. enabling banks, fintechs, and software platforms to seamlessly build accounting capabilities directly into their products. This allows their small businesses and sole traders customers to save time, stay compliant, and make smarter business decisions. At the same time, it empowers platform partners to deliver branded accounting and related capabilities without the complexity or cost of developing their own solutions from scratch.

Sage Embedded Services aims to equip platform partners with capabilities that deepen customer engagement, drive loyalty, and unlock sustainable growth through enhanced user experiences.

The expansion responds to a growing demand from small businesses for simplified business management capabilities embedded directly into their ecosystem within the applications they already use in daily operations.  It enables access to key financial tools, like bookkeeping, reporting, and compliance, without switching platforms or disrupting existing workflows.

Why it matters for platform partners

Sage Embedded Services offers banks, fintechs, and software providers a powerful way to differentiate their offerings by embedding accounting and compliance tools directly into their own products. This enables partners to meet more of their customers’ day-to-day financial needs while delivering a unified, seamless experience.

For platform partners, this is a chance to:

• Accelerate time to market with Sage’s headless APIs, reducing development time and lowering technical barriers to build and maintain.
• Deliver tailored solutions with modular accounting capabilities, matching their specific customer needs.
• Boost customer engagement by making their apps more useful, sticky, and central to daily workflows 
• Unlock new revenue streams through monetizable, value-added features

Built for small businesses and the platform partner ecosystem

Sage Embedded Services is designed specifically for organisations that build digital products used by self-employed individuals and small businesses such as online banks, fintech providers, and industry specific software companies. The service is modular, allowing platform partners to directly embed:

• Multi-dimensional general ledger
• Real-time financial reporting
• Customisable insights and analytics

Depending on the region, additional functionality such as carbon accounting, collaboration with accountants and more may be available.  Platform partners have complete control over how these accounting capabilities appear and function within their products, ensuring a seamless, brand-aligned experience for their customers, powered by Sage’s deep experience in bookkeeping, accounting and tax compliance.

Sage today announced a new wave of AI-powered automation and industry innovations for Sage Intacct. With updates that improve accuracy, reduce reconciliation effort, and simplify contract, fundraising and project workflows, Sage Intacct is helping finance teams make smarter decisions with less manual effort.

As finance teams face growing pressure to do more with less, Sage Intacct continues to evolve to meet the needs of modern, high-performing finance functions. This release brings together innovations that accelerate the close, streamline processes, reduce manual work, and integrate key operational systems, while helping leaders drive better outcomes for their organisations.

Empowering High-Performance Finance Teams Under Pressure

According to Sage’s The Secrets of Successful CFOs report, 69% of CFOs say they are juggling too many responsibilities, 87% regularly feel stressed, while more than half (51%) are already leveraging AI-powered tools built for financial workflows. The path forward is clear, automation is key to reducing pressure, unlocking greater efficiency, and giving finance leaders the visibility and confidence to lead proactively and plan for the future. These latest enhancements deliver AI-powered automation that supports high-performing finance teams by reducing friction, streamlining the close process, and equipping leaders with the clarity and confidence to act decisively.

Delivering AI-powered automation and industry-specific innovations

This release brings a range of updates that show how Sage is continuing to invest in a smarter, more connected experience for modern finance teams. From strengthening fundraising capabilities for nonprofits to simplifying healthcare reporting and automating reconciliation for growing businesses, Sage Intacct’s latest updates are designed to empower finance teams with the time, clarity, and confidence needed to drive smarter financial decisions. These updates Include:

• Copilot Close Assistant: Simplifies the month-end close with proactive tracking and a centralized summary view of all critical tasks. This gives finance teams real-time visibility into close progress across subledgers and general ledgers, enabling faster issue resolution, smoother collaboration, and a more efficient, predictable close.

Availability: GA in the US and UK

• Copilot Subledger Reconciliation Assistant: Automates reconciliation reporting, highlights variances and provides drill-down insights for faster issue resolution. With improved transparency and reduced manual checks, teams can catch discrepancies earlier and close books with confidence.

Availability: Early Adopter in UK and US

• Sage Intacct Fundraising powered by DonorPerfect: Connects donor data and financials to optimize fundraising strategies and build donor relationships. Nonprofits using the solution have reported an average 25% increase in funds raised in their first year and double-digit growth for years thereafter, driven by unified reporting and real-time visibility into campaign performance.

Availability: GA in US and Canada

• Automated WIP Relief: Automatically moves WIP balances upon project completion, improving alignment of costs and revenue. For service businesses, this reduces the risk of misstatements and speeds up the financial close with accurate, automated journal entries.

Availability: US, UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia

• Sage Intacct EMRConnect Dashboards: Offers operational and financial insights for healthcare providers. With real-time access to key metrics like clinician efficiency and occupancy rates, finance leaders can proactively manage costs and drive operational efficiencies with data-driven decisions.

Availability: US only

• Contract Summary Tab: Consolidates key contract data into a single view, giving teams clear insight into billing, purchasing, and project details. This reduces inefficiencies, mitigates risk, and empowers faster, more informed decision-making.

Availability: US, UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia

• Tessitura Ticketing Connector: Integrates ticketing and financial data for arts and culture organisations. With this connected solution, billing and payment data flow effortlessly between systems, eliminating manual entry, improving accuracy, and providing a 360-degree view of an organization’s financial health.

Availability: US only

• Goods and Services Tax support for New Zealand and Singapore: Delivers local tax setup and reporting capabilities. With automated GST configuration, businesses can maintain compliance with ease and scale confidently into new markets.

Availability: Early Adopter in New Zealand and Singapore

Sage today announced significant progress in its ongoing collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Building on its role as an AWS partner holding the SMB Software Competency, and recognised for its expertise in developing solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, Sage is working with AWS to develop innovative AI solutions ideally suited for the accounting and compliance needs of SMBs.

By leveraging AWS AI services like Amazon Bedrock and purpose-built AI chips like AWS Trainium and AWS Inferentia, Sage has been able to accelerate development, scale innovation, and deliver AI-powered solutions more efficiently. This collaboration ensures Sage can rapidly test, refine, and deploy AI models that are tailored to the complex needs of accounting and compliance, providing businesses with reliable, accurate, and intuitive financial tools.

Advancing AI in Accounting: Delivering Value to SMBs
With the support of AWS over the past year, Sage has successfully developed and deployed purpose-built Large Language Models (LLMs) and Small Language Models (SLMs) for accounting and compliance. These models improve the accuracy, reliability, and efficiency of Sage’s AI-powered financial solutions, enabling SMBs to operate with greater confidence and efficiency. This work also lays the foundations for advanced agentic capabilities within Sage Copilot – Sage’s AI powered assistant, supporting more intelligent automation and proactive financial assistance. Sage Copilot is currently available in the UK, US, France, Spain, and Germany, embedded within Sage Accounting, Sage for Accountants, Sage 50 and Sage Intacct.

Key advancements include:

• Enhancing trust with domain-specific AI – The Accounting Filtering Model ensures AI-generated responses remain strictly relevant to financial and compliance-related queries, preventing inaccurate or misleading information.
• Expanding AI-driven financial assistance – These models help enhance SageCopilot,  enabling it to provide real-time insights, automate workflows, and reduce the burden of manual financial tasks.
• Optimising efficiency through intelligent automation – New endpoint detection models improve AI’s ability to interpret user intent and dynamically retrieve relevant financial data, ensuring more precise responses and streamlining financial decision-making.

Unlocking Business Insights with AI-Powered Search

In addition to advancing AI-driven accounting models, Sage is also leveraging AWS technology to transform how SMBs access and interpret financial information. The new Semantic Search API, powered by Amazon Bedrock, enhances the way Sage products retrieve, rank, and generate responses from financial and compliance data, making insights more accessible, relevant, and actionable.

This innovation enables SMBs to:

• Find the right financial information faster – AI-powered search capabilities reduce the time spent navigating financial data, improving productivity and decision-making.
• Access up-to-date and relevant insights – A new self-service content hub enables Sage’s product teams to continuously refine and manage knowledge sources, ensuring AI-generated responses reflect the latest financial regulations and business trends.
• Support businesses globally – Semantic search is being expanded to support multiple languages, ensuring that SMBs worldwide benefit from intelligent, AI-driven assistance.

As Sage continues to expand its AI capabilities, it remains committed to responsible AI innovation, developing solutions that are transparent, secure, and designed to meet the specific needs of SMBs.