When you think of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), you might picture championship swings on perfectly manicured fairways. But behind the glamour of the tour is a complex, multi-layered global business navigating the same intense financial pressures as any other international enterprise.

For Mary Salter, LPGA’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), steering this operation meant confronting a hazard that wasn’t on the course: a legacy finance system holding her team back. Navigating the risks of on-premise servers and cumbersome manual processes required a new kind of caddie—one powered by modern technology.

“Prior to Sage Intacct, we were on an older Sage product,” Salter explained during an interview with ERP Today at the Sage Future Conference in Atlanta. “Our data was on a local server, and we’d heard about some other organizations that were having these cybersecurity breaches, so we knew we needed to address security. Moreover, we found that just transacting in the old system had become cumbersome, and we were even doing bank recs in Excel, which was a bit antiquated.”

According to Salter, the move to Sage Intacct was, therefore, about mitigating risk and fundamentally changing the finance team’s role from scorekeepers to strategic players.

Giving Time Back to Drive the Business Forward

For Salter, the actual value of any technology is measured in the one resource you can’t buy: time. The goal was to automate the mundane to free up her team for more impactful work.

“Any right technology tool should give you time back, so you can use and repurpose it to do more strategic things or process improvements, or tasks that can drive the business forward,” Salter stated.

This philosophy extended beyond the finance department. By implementing a system with accessible dashboards and streamlined check requests, managers across the LPGA were empowered. The efficiency gains were not isolated in a single department but radiated throughout the organization, allowing everyone to focus on what truly matters.

Building Trust in a World of AI and Automation

However, implementing a new system is one thing; trusting it is another. This is especially true when introducing concepts like AI and automation. For Salter, trust was the linchpin for successful adoption. “Can I trust the outputs? Can I trust what the system is producing?” she asked, voicing a concern many finance leaders share when evaluating new technology.

The proof came from tangible results. A prime example was the month-end close, a notoriously painful process for any organization with multiple subsidiaries. Salter said that the LPGA has five, including three international entities.

“Consolidation took days before the new system,” Salter recalled. “Once we shifted to Sage Intacct, consolidation began to take minutes instead of days and was very reliable and trustworthy. We’ve now reduced the close time by 50%.”

Salter added that when presenting financials to the board or executive leadership, she could stand behind the numbers with absolute certainty, backed by a system that worked flawlessly under pressure.

A Flexible, Future-Forward Partnership

One of the most compelling aspects of the LPGA’s journey is its pragmatic, piece-by-piece approach to modernization. Rather than a disruptive big bang implementation, the LPGA adopted capabilities as its needs evolved—a strategy that Sage highlighted in its announcements this week.

Salter pointed to a specific example with their UK subsidiary. At the time of implementation, the subsidiary’s existing Sage 300 product was better suited for local VAT tax requirements. Instead of forcing a fit, they waited. “We pivoted and decided not to put our UK subsidiary on Sage Intacct until the product could be further developed,” she said.

This forward-looking, adaptable approach excites Salter the most, especially with the recent announcements about Sage Copilot and AI. “I love a partner that is not just meeting you where you are but providing something that you didn’t even know you needed,” she remarked.

For the LPGA, finance transformation is not the end goal. It’s a critical enabler of its core mission. As Salter concluded, “Our mission is simple: to empower women and change their lives through the game of golf. So, if anyone can come alongside us and help drive that mission home, we’re excited about that opportunity.”

What This Means for ERP Insiders

Embrace composable ERP as a practical reality. The monolithic, all-or-nothing ERP implementation is no longer the only path. The LPGA’s decision to temporarily keep its UK subsidiary on a different system demonstrates the power of a flexible, phased approach. For ERP professionals, this means focusing on incremental value and choosing partners that allow building a tech stack that fits the business’s unique, evolving needs rather than forcing the company to fit the software.

User trust is the gateway to AI adoption. Sage’s investment in AI and tools like Sage Copilot is exciting, but Salter’s perspective underscores a critical truth: adoption hinges on trust. Before finance teams embrace AI for complex forecasting, the system must prove its reliability on foundational tasks. By automating and perfecting processes like financial consolidation, Sage is building the credibility needed for users to trust its AI-driven insights eventually. The lesson is clear: build trust in the basics first, and the leap to advanced AI will feel like a natural next step, not a risk.

The true ROI of ERP is redeployed human intellect. A modern ERP’s most powerful business case is process efficiency and elevating the human workforce. Salter’s focus on giving time back so her team can drive the business forward is the ultimate goal for most finance organizations. For ERP professionals building an investment case, the narrative should shift from cost savings to value creation. A successful implementation unleashes an organization’s workforce from the drudgery of manual tasks to focus on strategic analysis, innovation, and direct impact on the organization’s mission.