Summary:
Brit Tompkins, Sage Intacct Leader and Director, Technology Advisory at Aprio, discusses the strategic decision to become a Sage Intacct VAR and how it transforms the way Aprio serves its clients. The conversation explores the value of owning the full technology lifecycle, reducing vendor complexity, and aligning advisory with financial systems to help organizations scale with greater visibility and control.
Before we talk about the partnership itself, what first attracted you to the Sage ecosystem and its approach to supporting growing organizations?
When I first encountered Sage Intacct back in the late 2000s, it felt less like discovering a new software and more like looking directly into the future of financial technology.
At the time, the accounting software landscape was dominated by rigid, legacy desktop systems. Cloud technology was still a novel concept to many, and the daily realities for accounting teams involved manual workarounds, siloed data, and fractured reporting.
Then came Sage Intacct. It immediately stood out because it solved the exact pain points many legacy systems ignored—offering a glimpse of what modern financial management could and should look like.
A few key innovations felt entirely revolutionary at the time; elevated accounting controls and procedures, seamless third-party data importation, a truly usable custom report writer, and true “plug and play” integrations.
In the late 2000s, these features were virtually nonexistent anywhere else in the market. Seeing a platform that combined robust compliance with agile, open architecture made it clear where the industry was headed.
Deciding to dive into the Sage Intacct ecosystem wasn’t just a career choice. It was an investment in the future of digital transformation—a future that continues to redefine how companies grow and scale today.
The Road to Becoming a Sage VAR
What led Aprio to pursue Sage VAR status, and how does it support the vision we have for our clients?
At Aprio, our vision has always been to position our clients for sustained growth by equipping them with the best technology, insights, and advisory. Achieving Sage Value-Added Reseller (VAR) status is a massive milestone on that mission, and it fundamentally changes how we serve our clients.
We didn’t pursue VAR status just to add another badge to our name. We did it to completely rewrite what a technology partnership looks like.
Previously, traditional partnership models came with inherent limitations in how we could interact with the software provider and manage our clients’ ecosystems. By stepping into the Sage VAR space, Aprio is now in the best position to manage the entire technology lifecycle. This evolution directly supports our vision for our clients across five key pillars: Educate, Advocate, Sell, Deliver, and Support.
Ultimately, pursuing Sage VAR status was about ownership and alignment. It ensures that from the very first discovery call to long-term post-implementation support, Aprio can deliver a unified, world-class experience. We aren’t just a software vendor; we are an end-to-end transformation partner dedicated to helping our clients look ahead and scale with confidence.
From Advisor to Solutions Provider
How does becoming a Sage VAR strengthen the role we play in helping organizations navigate growth and operational change?
When an organization undergoes rapid growth or a significant operational pivot, their financial systems are put to the test. Processes break, data silos emerge, and manual workarounds multiply. In high-stakes moments, businesses need a steady, holistic partner who can guide them through the chaos.
Becoming a Sage Value-Added Reseller (VAR) changes the game for how Aprio guides organizations through these transformations.
The core strength of this new partnership comes down to one word: freedom. By achieving VAR status, we have gained the independence to service our clients completely from start to finish, owning the entire Sage customer lifecycle.
Here is how that end-to-end ownership directly translates into stronger, more resilient growth for the organizations we serve: by eliminating partner friction, providing a one-stop, high-touch service, and being agile in the face of change.
Ultimately, growth demands clarity and control. By owning the full Sage ecosystem lifecycle, we are able to provide a rock-solid operational foundation for our clients. We handle the complexities of technology management so that leadership teams can maintain 100% of their focus on executing their vision, navigating change, and scaling with absolute confidence.
Creating Better Client Outcomes
What challenges are organizations facing today that make a more integrated approach to technology and advisory services so important?
Today’s business environment moves at a staggering pace, and to keep up, many organizations have rapidly adopted specialized software for everything from CRM and payroll to expense management and inventory. But this rapid adoption has created a silent productivity killer: vendor sprawl.
Instead of a streamlined digital ecosystem, leadership teams often find themselves trapped in a complex web of disconnected systems and fragmented relationships.
When a critical data integration breaks, a reporting discrepancy arises, or an operational bottleneck stalls a project, the resulting experience is almost universally frustrating. Clients find themselves managing multiple vendors simultaneously, with each software provider, developer, and consultant pointing their finger at the other. Valuable time and internal resources are wasted playing as tech-support referees, while the actual problem remains unresolved.
This exact headache is why a deeply integrated approach to technology and advisory services is business-critical.
By bringing technology strategy, software licensing, implementation, and long-term business advisory under one roof, we eliminate the finger-pointing entirely. The benefits of this unified approach speak for themselves: a single source of truth, drastically reduced headaches, accelerating strategic initiatives.
Ultimately, organizations cannot scale effectively if their leadership team is bogged down by vendor politics and disconnected systems. Unifying technology and advisory services helps restore clarity, returns hours of lost productivity back to internal teams, and provides the stable operational foundation companies need to drive their true initiatives forward.
How does Sage fit into the broader conversations we are having with clients about growth, visibility, and decision-making?
When we sit down with business leaders to discuss their long-term goals, the conversation rarely starts with software. Instead, it starts with ambition and friction. Leaders talk about wanting to scale their operations, enter new markets, or restructure their organizations. But very quickly, those growth goals run into three fundamental hurdles: tracking that growth, gaining true operational visibility, and actually trusting their data enough to make high-stakes decisions.
This is exactly where Sage Intacct moves from being “just an accounting tool” to a core pillar of a company’s growth strategy. It serves as the engine that turns raw financial data into actionable, strategic intelligence.
Here is how Sage Intacct directly unlocks the three capabilities today’s leaders need most:
- Tracking sustainable growth
- Achieving true operational visibility
- Cultivating absolute trust in decision-making
Ultimately, technology should never be a bystander in strategic conversations. By implementing Sage Intacct as the financial foundation, we aren’t just giving clients a new general ledger, we are giving them the clarity to see where they are, the confidence to make the right call, and the framework to scale without limits.
What should clients expect from us as a Sage VAR partner?
Moving to a Value-Added Reseller (VAR) model isn’t just a behind-the-scenes licensing change, it fundamentally elevates the daily experience for our clients. When you partner with Aprio as a Sage VAR, you’re gaining a dedicated, long-term operational advocate.
Clients should expect a relationship built on seamless execution, direct advocacy, and proactive advisory.
Here is exactly what that looks like in practice:
- A frictionless, one-stop experience
- Proactive advisory, not reactive support
- A powerful advocate in your corner
- Deep industry expertise applied to technology
Clients should expect peace of mind. By trusting Aprio to own and manage the full Sage customer lifecycle, you gain a rock-solid financial foundation, and the freedom to stop managing software vendors and start focusing 100% on scaling your business.
Looking Ahead
What opportunities does this partnership create for our clients in the years ahead?
In the technology space, looking ahead isn’t just about anticipating next quarter’s goals, it’s about ensuring your business foundation is built to withstand the rapid shifts of the next decade. Technology moves fast, and the way businesses operate is fundamentally changing.
By achieving Sage VAR status, Aprio hasn’t just enhanced what we can do for clients today; we have unlocked a massive roadmap of opportunities for them in the years to come.
Looking to the future, this partnership creates several distinct competitive advantages for the organizations we serve:
- Early access to the future of ai and automation
- The freedom to build a future-proof tech stack
- Scalability without technology roadblocks
- Continuous, compounded ROI
Ultimately, this partnership creates the opportunity for absolute operational confidence. In the years ahead, our clients won’t have to worry about whether their systems can keep up with their vision or whether they are missing out on the latest technological innovations. Aprio is handling the horizon, keeping their financial engine sharp, modern, and perfectly aligned so they can confidently build for what’s next.
When you look at the journey to becoming a Sage VAR, what makes you most proud of this milestone?
Milestones like this don’t happen overnight. Achieving Sage Value-Added Reseller (VAR) status requires a rigorous process of certification, proven delivery excellence, and a deep, sustained commitment to the ecosystem.
When I look back at the journey that brought us to this moment, what makes me most proud is the relentless dedication from our team and the alignment to our vision.
Every single person on our delivery and advisory teams pulled in the same direction to make this happen; our team members continuously pushed the envelope on how we architect solutions, automate workflows, and solve complex financial puzzles for our clients. Seeing that collective passion and hard work recognized by Sage is incredibly rewarding.
But beyond the technical achievement, I am immensely proud of why we did it.
We didn’t pursue VAR status for the accolade. We did it because we listened to our clients. We saw the frustrations they faced with vendor sprawl, communication friction, and fragmented software support, and we decided to build a better way.
This milestone is the ultimate proof that Aprio is entirely invested in our clients’ long-term success. We chose to take full ownership of the Sage customer lifecycle so we could provide the seamless, top-notch experience our clients deserve. Knowing that we have built a practice capable of delivering true, end-to-end digital transformation—from the initial discovery call through decades of future growth—is what makes this achievement so meaningful.
We’ve officially built the foundation. Now, I’m just incredibly excited to see how far we can help our clients go with it.
If there was one thing you would tell business leaders who are evaluating how technology can better support their organization’s growth, what would it be?
If I could share just one piece of advice with business leaders staring down a technology transformation, it would be this: stop looking at software as an administrative expense and start evaluating it as a strategic growth engine.
Too often, organizations approach technology evaluations defensively. They treat a system upgrade like a plumbing project, something you only do when the current pipes are leaking, focusing entirely on cost, basic features, and fixing today’s bottlenecks.
But true growth isn’t about just surviving today but about positioning yourself for tomorrow.
When you evaluate technology through a purely administrative lens, you often end up buying isolated software patches that lead to vendor sprawl, disconnected data, and endless manual workarounds down the road.
Instead, ask yourself a different set of questions:
- Will this platform give me real-time visibility to pivot when the market shifts?
- Can I trust this data completely when making a high-stakes, multi-million-dollar decision?
- Will this infrastructure seamlessly support us when we double our entity count, enter a new market, or restructure our operations three years from now?
Technology should never be a bystander in your business strategy. A modern financial foundation, like Sage Intacct, doesn’t just automate your accounting; it unlocks the clarity, speed, and confidence your leadership team needs to scale.
And remember: the software itself is only half the equation. The firm you choose to implement and support it matters just as much. You need a partner who doesn’t just understand the software’s code, but also understands your vision; a single partner who can guide you from start to finish, eliminate vendor friction, and ensure your tech stack is always aligned with your growth trajectory.
Don’t just buy a tool to manage where your business is today. Invest in the foundation that has the capacity to take you where you want to go tomorrow.