The manufacturing industry is transforming as technological advances redefine efficiency and productivity. This change involves integrating technologies that enable smoother processes, increased output and more sustainable practices across sectors. To stay competitive, manufacturers must leverage these technologies to boost productivity and reduce costs.
Leading this technological advancement is Sage Distribution and Manufacturing (SDMO), a cloud-native ERP solution designed for small to mid-sized manufacturers and distributors. It integrates seamlessly with Sage Intacct, Sage’s robust financial management platform, to unify financials and operations.
With SDMO’s end-to-end integration, organizations can connect accounting, inventory, procurement, production and order fulfillment processes. It also enables remote access, scalability and reduced IT overhead. Especially important for growing organizations, the module supports operations across multiple locations, currencies and languages.
SDMO Core Features
Built with a focus on the operational user and item-centric workflows, SDMO leverages automation and streamlined processes to elevate productivity — especially in areas such as work order management, change control, and inventory oversight. The following table outlines the key features that help drive operational excellence and clarity across manufacturing and distribution activities.
Key Features of SDMO for Sage Intacct
|
Feature |
Description |
|
Make & Assemble |
Plan and manage the most effective use of resources to optimize cost savings across all aspects of product making and assembly. SDMO enables the creation and management of hierarchical bills of materials (BOM), detailed routings and resource allocation (labor, machines, tools), ensuring efficient production scheduling, real-time tracking of material usage, and seamless work order management. |
|
Sell & Distribute |
Modernize best practices across the entire sales cycle — from order receipt to shipping and returns management. The SDMO Sales Dashboard provides a comprehensive, real-time overview of sales data, allowing teams to analyze trends, monitor performance and measure success. Integrated order management and distribution workflows streamline fulfillment and improve customer satisfaction. |
|
Buy & Put Away |
Simplify internal communication and coordination when ordering materials from suppliers with a guided, flexible process. SDMO’s Purchasing Dashboard centralizes procurement operations, providing real-time visibility into purchase orders, invoices and inventory. Automated workflows allow users to create purchase orders directly from Material Requirements Planning (MRP), with built-in approval processes to ensure compliance and accuracy. |
|
Move & Store |
Use real-time data and user-defined alerts to manage and maintain inventory across the full lifecycle. SDMO tracks the actual quantity of components issued from stock and consumed in production, supports mobile inventory updates, and provides alerts for low stock or compliance needs. This ensures inventory accuracy, reduces carrying costs and supports on-time delivery. |
|
Design Items |
Design with cost visibility and establish cost controls down to the BOM and routing level. SDMO supports detailed item setup, including status, lot/serial management and production lead times, enabling robust cost calculations and material requirements planning for new and existing products. |
|
Accounting & Financial Management |
Leverage deep multi-dimensional accounting and automation for efficient financial operations across entities. SDMO integrates seamlessly with Sage Intacct’s financial management platform, enabling real-time visibility into production costs, profitability analysis by product line or location, and automated bookkeeping, time tracking, and reconciliation tools. |
Sage Intacct SDMO Module Integration Benefits
The powerful combination of SDMO and Sage Intacct brings financial and operational workflows into a unified, cloud-native platform that’s purpose-built for modern manufacturers. Benefits of this integration include the following.
End-to-End Automation
SDMO connects Sage Intacct’s financial management capabilities with core manufacturing and distribution operations, such as inventory tracking, production scheduling, procurement and order management. This integration enables real-time visibility across departments, streamlined workflows, and reduced manual data entry and errors.
Advanced Reporting and Analytics
SDMO with Sage Intacct offers robust dimensional accounting and customizable dashboards that allow manufacturers to analyze performance across products, locations and teams. This enables faster data-driven decisions and enhanced visualization of operations.
AI-powered Financial Management
The SDMO platform includes AI-driven features for managing your general ledger, automated bookkeeping and time tracking, and smart cash flow and reconciliation tools.
Tailored Manufacturing Solutions
SDMO is optimized for make-to-stock environments, advanced kitting and discrete manufacturing.
Inventory and Procurement Precision
With SDMO, manufacturers can improve inventory accuracy with real-time tracking, streamline procurement and supplier coordination, and ensure on-time delivery through better resource scheduling.
Example: Overcoming Manufacturing Challenges With Sage Intacct and SDMO
Consider the following scenario that illustrates how SDMO can help a manufacturing company streamline operations and improve performance.
Let’s say you’re a mid-sized manufacturer of custom electronic components for the automotive industry. Your organization operates across three facilities and manages hundreds of SKUs, suppliers and customer orders monthly.
Manufacturing Challenges
You face multiple challenges, including:
- Fragmented Systems: Finance, inventory and production are being managed in separate systems, causing delays and data inconsistencies.
- Manual Processes: Procurement and order fulfillment rely heavily on spreadsheets and email approvals.
- Limited Visibility: Leadership lacks real-time insights into production costs, inventory levels and supplier performance.
How SDMO and Sage Intacct Help
To address these challenges, you decide to combine the power of SDMO and Sage Intacct, resulting in:
- A Unified Platform: SDMO integrated with Sage Intacct to unify financials, inventory, procurement and production into one cloud-based system. This eliminated data silos and improved cross-departmental collaboration.
- Automated Procurement: Using SDMO’s automated workflows, purchase orders were generated based on real-time inventory thresholds. Approval routing was digitized, reducing turnaround time from days to hours.
- Real-time Inventory Tracking: Warehouse managers used SDMO’s mobile interface to update stock levels instantly. The system provided alerts for low stock and tracked lot numbers for compliance.
- Production Planning Optimization: SDMO’s scheduling tools helped the operations team allocate resources more efficiently. They could now forecast demand and adjust production runs accordingly, reducing waste and overtime.
- Improved Financial Insights: With Sage Intacct’s dimensional reporting, the chief financial officer (CFO) could analyze profitability by product line, location and customer segment. This led to smarter pricing strategies and better margin control.
Six months later, your organization experiences a reduction in inventory carrying costs, faster order fulfillment, real-time visibility into production KPIs, improved supplier performance through automated scorecards and a streamlined month-end close process.
How Sage Intacct SDMO Integration Supports Long-term Agility
Manufacturing’s growing complexity — driven by global supply chains, customization demands and real-time decision-making needs — often exceeds the capabilities of traditional ERP systems. Sage Intacct with SDMO fills this gap, offering a unified platform that connects financials with operations, enabling manufacturers to run more agile businesses.
Connecting SDMO to Sage Intacct offers a modern, cloud-native approach to meet the evolving needs of manufacturing operations management. This integration empowers manufacturers to do the following.
Operate Leaner and Smarter
This is essential for manufacturers today because it directly impacts their ability to stay competitive, profitable and resilient in a rapidly changing global market.
Respond Faster to Market Changes
Manufacturers that can quickly adapt to rapidly shifting customer preferences, frequent supply chain disruptions and new technologies are better positioned to seize opportunities.
Scale Without Complexity
As companies expand into new markets, add product lines or open additional facilities, their systems must be flexible, intuitive and efficient. When scaling introduces layers of manual processes, disconnected systems or data silos, it can cause delays, errors and rising costs that stall growth.
Make Data-driven Decisions With Confidence
It’s critical for manufacturers to make confident, data-driven decisions, as the stakes in production, supply chain and customer satisfaction are high, and the margin for error is small. Data-driven decision-making ensures that choices are backed by real-time insights, historical trends and predictive analytics, allowing manufacturers to act with clarity and precision.
Your Guide Through Seamless SDMO Integration
As a top five Sage Partner, Cherry Bekaert is dedicated to guiding you through this change, enabling you to unlock the full potential of these innovative technologies for lasting success in manufacturing. The Firm serves as a trusted advisor in this process, applying extensive experience in manufacturing and technology integration.
At Cherry Bekaert, our Digital Advisory professionals can guide you in selecting the right Sage product tailored to your organization’s needs, delivering a seamless implementation across your enterprise. Our goal is to make your SDMO integration with Sage Intacct seamless, strategic and highly effective.
