Grow with control.

When the business outgrew the spreadsheet

Before 2022, RTL Equipment operated two locations in Iowa. That year, the company acquired two additional locations in Minnesota, added the Bobcat brand, expanded its employee count, and began managing a significantly larger and more complex operation.

The business also continued to expand its equipment portfolio, adding aggregate lines including Terex Powerscreen and Terex EvoQuip, as well as expanding its Kobelco excavator line. The result was a larger, more diverse dealership with more transactions, more inventory, more reporting needs, and more moving parts across the business.

Before that growth, some processes were simple enough to manage manually. Controller Katie Stephens described a time when the team could track inventory changes in a single spreadsheet and physically account for most machinery.

That was no longer possible.

“We can’t put our hands on every single piece of machinery anymore,” Katie says. “We need software to help us out with that.”

For a growing dealership, the question became bigger than accounting software preference. RTL needed financial infrastructure that could support more complexity, stronger controls, and better reporting. Katie summed it up clearly:

“If you want to go somewhere with your business and really understand what’s going on, you have to pay for it.”

Best-in-class operations, best-in-class accounting

RTL uses Flyntlok as its dealership management system and Sage Intacct as its accounting and financial management platform. For Katie, keeping operations and accounting separate is not a weakness. It is a control advantage.

With Flyntlok managing dealership operations and Sage Intacct managing financials, RTL has clearer separation between operational users and sensitive accounting data. Sales teams can work inside Flyntlok without needing access to the accounting system. Accounting permissions, payables, financial controls, and reporting stay in Sage Intacct.

Katie also appreciates the resilience of having two best-in-class systems. If one system is unavailable, the other still allows work to continue.

“If Flyntlok is down, I can still work in Intacct. If Intacct goes down, I can still work in Flyntlok.”

The separation also helps Katie maintain tighter financial controls. In QuickBooks, transactions could be deleted, reversed, or changed more easily. Sage Intacct’s control structure creates more confidence in the integrity of the data.

“Intacct has the controls that allow you to feel comfortable with the data that you’re getting.”

Catching problems before they hit the general ledger

One of the most important parts of RTL’s process is the way Katie reviews invoices before syncing them from Flyntlok into Sage Intacct. While invoice syncing can be automated, she intentionally keeps the process manual for now because she wants to review each transaction before it posts.

That review gives her the chance to catch issues early, including:

• Incorrect internal charges
• Transactions booked to the wrong bucket
• Customer payment issues
• Equipment costs that need review
• Sales orders that should be corrected before posting
• Potential customer service issues, such as duplicate credit card payments

For Katie, this is not just accounting control. It is operational control.

“It’s easier to question it one or two days after it’s been closed than a month later.”

She has also set a clear internal expectation: once something has been closed in Flyntlok, the team has 24 hours before it is synced into Sage Intacct. After that, it is posted. That 24-hour window gives RTL time to catch mistakes while still keeping the accounting process moving.

One invoice, not three transactions

One of the biggest improvements Katie noticed after moving to Sage Intacct was the way transactions flow from Flyntlok. In QuickBooks, revenue, cost, and payment activity could come through as separate journal entries. That increased transaction volume and made it harder to trace a full invoice picture.

With Sage Intacct, Katie can look up an invoice and see the related revenue, cost, inventory impact, and payment information together. That changed the way she reviews and trusts the data.

“I’m not searching for three different transactions. I’m searching for one.”

This cleaner structure reduces friction, improves traceability, and helps Katie confirm that revenue, cost, inventory, and payment activity are all flowing correctly.

Knowing where every machine stands

For RTL, inventory is one of the biggest financial drivers in the business. Katie described inventory management as one of the greatest areas of value RTL gets from Flyntlok. The inventory-per-machine page and balance sheet snippet give both finance and sales leaders a real-time view of where the business stands on each machine.

That visibility helps answer critical questions:

• What machine was sold?
• What cash is coming in?
• Which lender needs to be paid off?
• What costs are sitting against this unit?
• Where are we financially on this machine?
• Is this machine still profitable?

Katie and the sales managers use this information frequently to understand machine-level financial position.

“That real-time balance sheet is amazing.”

Flyntlok has also helped RTL strengthen inventory controls. Early in its Flyntlok journey, RTL discovered that a machine had been deleted from inventory and the issue was not caught for several months. In response, RTL worked with Flyntlok to create an alert whenever a machine is deleted.

Now Katie receives an email within minutes any time a machine is removed from inventory. She can immediately review the deletion, confirm whether it is valid, and move on. That control helps keep small operational changes from becoming large reconciliation problems later.

Reconciling every account, every month

Katie reconciles every balance sheet account every month. While some might see that as overkill, she sees it as necessary discipline. It prevents year-end surprises and gives her confidence in the numbers she sends to management.

She also reconciles equipment inventory every month, comparing what Flyntlok shows against what the accounting system shows. If the numbers do not tie to zero, she investigates until she finds the answer.

That level of rigor is easier when operational and accounting data are structured well, and when the team can trust how information moves between systems.

“Accounting always has an answer. There’s always an answer at the end.”

Sage Intacct has also improved RTL’s ability to report by location. While RTL is still learning the full power of dimensional reporting, location-based reporting is already easier than it was. For a business operating across multiple branches, equipment lines, and revenue streams, that means better questions of the business, and cleaner answers.

Doing the setup right

Katie’s biggest lesson for any dealership moving into a more sophisticated accounting environment: take the time to clean up your data before implementation.

Before moving to Sage Intacct, Katie invested significant time understanding how Flyntlok data would flow into the accounting system. She cleaned up accounts, reviewed how OEM lines were mapped, and made sure sales were posting to the correct accounts.

That work was not easy. Katie managed the implementation while continuing to run accounting, payroll, HR, cash management, and other responsibilities as a department of one. But the work paid off.

“I don’t want garbage to come in because I’m just going to get garbage out.”

Her advice to other dealerships is simple: slow down at the beginning so the system works better later.

A partnership built on responsiveness and trust

RTL has used Flyntlok since 2022, when both companies were at different stages of growth. Katie describes it as a relationship where both companies grew together.

In the early days, RTL worked closely with Flyntlok team members like Dylan and Tyler to answer questions, build reports, solve workflow challenges, and understand best practices. That partnership continued through the Sage Intacct transition. During the implementation, Katie recalls Tyler sitting with her on the phone as she synced transactions one at a time.

“The responsiveness that we get from Flyntlok is unheard of in a support role.”

When RTL submits a support ticket today, someone is often looking at it within minutes. If the first person does not know the answer, they reassign it to someone who does. That willingness to say “I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out” builds trust.

Because for a growing dealership, the goal is not just to move faster. The goal is to grow with control.