How to export all data from Sage Intacct before switching systems or retiring an entity

The short answer: three export routes and one contract check

Getting everything out of Sage Intacct takes three routes used together: Data Delivery Service for bulk CSV extracts object by object (a full extract first, then changed-records extracts), report and list exports for the formatted history auditors recognize, and the API for anything the first two miss. Files attached to transactions need their own plan.

The step most teams skip is reading the subscription agreement to learn what access, if any, survives the end of the term. Export as if the answer is none.

For a fractional CFO, the deliverable is an archive the company owns, can reopen without Intacct and can reconcile to the last trial balance. Built properly, it also shows whether the finance history deserves a data licensing review before an entity is retired.

What you need before you start

• An administrator login that sees every entity, working from the top level in a multi-entity company.
• The subscription agreement and current order form, with the renewal date, the notice deadline and the termination, data-return and deletion clauses marked.
• Company-owned storage, never your firm's account or a personal drive.
• A module and entity map: which of General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Cash Management, Purchasing, Order Entry, Projects, Time & Expenses, Contracts, Fixed Assets and Inventory Control each entity uses, with go-live dates.
• A configuration list: user-defined dimensions, custom fields and objects, smart rules, approval settings and integrations.
• Input from the auditor and tax adviser on which records must stay readable, and for how long.
• A named owner at the company, usually the controller, to hold the archive after your engagement.

How do you check what happens to your access after termination?

Your contract decides, and public help pages cannot answer it for your specific agreement. Read the termination, data-return and deletion clauses, then ask Sage or your reseller in writing.

Questions worth putting in that email:

1. On what date does login access end, and does it end at the same time for every entity?
2. Is read-only or archive access available after the term, and on what terms?
3. Does Sage offer an export or data-return service at termination, and in what format?
4. When is company data deleted, and will we receive written confirmation?

File the written answers with the archive. If a sister entity keeps its books in Xero and is closing too, the guide to keeping Xero records after a business ceases trading covers the same question for that ledger.

Then work backward from the notice deadline. A sensible sequence, adjusted to your own contract dates:

How do you export all data from Sage Intacct, step by step?

1. Map the scope as metadata. List each entity, module, object, date range and approximate row count, not contents; the data inventory builder is a convenient place to keep it.
2. Set control totals. Close and reconcile the last period you intend to keep, then run trial balances by entity for every year live.
3. Enable Data Delivery Service and point it at the company-owned storage destination. Menu names and setup screens change between releases, so follow the current Sage Intacct help for your edition.
4. Run full extracts for every object in scope: journal entries, vendors, bills, payments, customers, invoices, purchasing and order entry transactions, projects, expense reports, contracts, fixed assets, dimensions and custom objects. Note each extract date.
5. Run changed-records extracts after the final close to catch late adjustments, reversals and reclassifications posted after the first full pass.
6. Export the reports people actually use, such as financial statements, general ledger detail, AP and AR aging and consolidations by entity and period, to Excel and PDF. Save custom report definitions too; their logic disappears with the subscription.
7. Fill gaps through the API. Anything Data Delivery Service does not cover in your configuration can usually be pulled through Sage Intacct's web services, which need their own credentials and setup; bring in your Sage partner if nobody on staff has done it.
8. Retrieve attachments separately. Scanned bills, receipts and signed contracts are files, not rows. Plan their download and keep a map from each file to its transaction ID.
9. Validate and document. Reconcile row counts and totals against step 2, open a sample file from each object, and write a one-page readme: export dates, methods, objects, dimension definitions, known gaps and the archive's owner.

Only after step 9 should anyone sign the termination notice or retire the entity.

Which Intacct records carry workflow value worth a licensing review?

The valuable records capture decisions: who approved what, what was rejected or reversed, and how the close actually ran. Balances alone say little about how a finance team works.

Finance records become more useful when they connect to other systems; for AP run through an automation tool, see the Bill.com invoice and approval history brief. When sales tools are cut in the same year, the sales tech stack consolidation checkpoint applies the same thinking to CRM and call history.

Common mistakes when leaving Sage Intacct

Where a referral partner fits, and where the role stops

Two roles can sit with the same person, and they must stay separate. As finance lead you may run the export for the company's own reasons. As a SourceX partner you only make an introduction and share basic fit information: never extract files, sample rows or screenshots, and never a description of confidential records. If the company proceeds, it completes its own inventory, redaction rules are agreed with it before any work begins, and nothing is delivered without an executed agreement and its authorization.

Run this four-point fit screen before you raise it:

• History: several years of documented operations in Intacct or its predecessor ledger, with the archive still intact.
• Ownership: the company created these records and its contracts allow licensing. Books an accounting firm keeps for its clients belong to those clients, not the firm.
• Linked systems: finance records connect to CRM, ticketing, email or project tools; strong companies often run 10-15+ systems.
• Decision-maker: an owner, CEO, CFO or authorized representative at a US company with 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded) who would consider an exclusive license for an agreed term.

The who qualifies page sets out the full baseline. When the screen passes, one short paragraph in the scoping meeting is enough:

Partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 per referred company. Rewards become payable only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee, and no reward is guaranteed. The reward comes out of SourceX's fee, never out of what the company receives.

CPAs should check their rules first. The AICPA's commissions and referral fees rule (ET 1.520) bars a member in public practice from accepting a commission for recommending a product or service to a client when the member or firm also performs an audit, review, certain compilations or an examination of prospective financial information for that client, and requires permitted commissions and referral fees to be disclosed to the client; see the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. State boards can be stricter. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm with your own counsel, tax adviser or professional body before acting. The fractional CFO partner page covers the rest of the role.

Illustrative example: retiring one entity after a merger

Illustrative and fictional: a US engineering services firm with about 160 full-time employees combined two subsidiaries and planned to retire one of its three Intacct entities at renewal. While mapping scope well before the notice deadline, its fractional CFO noticed nine years of project-tagged expense reports and AP bills with three approval levels, plus a long-running ticketing system and CRM. The four-point screen passed and the company applied through the CFO's referral link. Whether a license follows depends on the inventory, the rights review and buyer interest.

When to leave licensing out of the conversation

• The Intacct instance is an accounting firm's console holding client books.
• The records are mainly consumer personal data, or medical records and claims, with no licensing basis.
• Archives were deleted, or the subscription lapsed before anyone exported.
• The data is already licensed for AI training, or the owner will not consider an exclusive license.

The export plan still matters in each case; only the licensing question drops away.

Next step

Finish the export plan first, because the archive protects the company whatever it decides. If the four-point screen passes, register as a partner to get your referral link, or have the CEO or CFO apply directly at sourcex.si/apply through that link so the introduction is credited to you.