Sage Intacct Helps Assisted Living Community Bring its Financial Data Together in One Place

CHALLENGES

Finding Accounting Software To Work With A New Electronic Health Records (EHR) System

According to Sue Verdegem, Senior Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration at Tel Hai, “When our nursing and care operations decided to pursue changing the EHR system they used, we realized we needed to find a new accounting system, too.”

While the EHR system had accounts receivable software, the out-of-the-box accounting solution that came with it didn’t provide enough flexibility in other functions.

“It didn’t give us a way to manage fixed assets nor did it provide enough accounts payables capabilities,” explained Verdegem. “Also, the general ledger wouldn’t allow us to produce accounting statements or measure the performance of the various levels of care we provide.”

SOLUTIONS

HIPPA-Compliant Assisted Living Financial Software

Tel Hai turned to Cargas to help them evaluate viable accounting software options. Initially, they looked at a solution used by other retirement communities with the same EHR system. Then Cargas showed Tel Hai Sage Intacct assisted living financial software.

“With its multi-entity, fixed asset, and reporting capabilities, it was clear Intacct would be the better solution for us,” shared Verdegem.

Sharon Canull, Tel Hai’s Director of Finance, worked closely with Cargas during the implementation, which began in April 2016.

“We had a lot of major changes happening all at once. As soon as the new EHR system would be in place, we needed the new accounting system live as well.”

According to Canull, Tel Hai’s entire accounting structures needed to be overhauled for the EHR system, and they had to remap their payroll, too.

“Cargas helped us design our accounting codes so they would work for our EHR system, payroll system, and Intacct. We needed a lot of hand-holding at first. The Cargas team made sure we had the training and support we needed as we transitioned to Intacct.”

—Sharon Canull, Tel Hai’s Director of Finance

RESULTS

Greater Visibility Into Financial Performance And Time Savings

Data from both the EHR accounts receivable platform and the payroll system easily download into Sage Intacct so all financial data is located in one central place. With Sage Intacct and the help of Cargas, Tel Hai has been able to set up financial reports that the directors of each care department can run on their own, rather than needing to rely on the accounting department to do it for them. Besides the directors, the entire executive team also has access to the reports and can review the performance of Tel Hai’s various business segments.

“It has become our monthly process for directors to review their own expense and income reports and to drill down into the details to investigate any discrepancies or red flags,” explained Verdegem.

Empowering the directors with this information has also saved the company time.

“Because it’s cloud-based, they can go in anytime from anywhere and know where they are financially,” Canull said. “They have all the information they need at their fingertips and no longer need to ask the accounting department for it. It has given them more ownership of their financial performance.”

Other time-savers include: the ability to duplicate entries rather than manually re-enter similar transactions, bank reconciliation capabilities within the software, and simplified journal entry capabilities.

“Another nice improvement is that appropriate purchases are pulled from payables and automatically added into fixed assets. That has eliminated a manual step in our process,” explained Canull. “On the prior system, we had to re-enter all fixed assets into a fixed asset module. Now, with the information from payables transferred automatically, all we need to do is enter the age and the depreciation schedule.”

One major win for Tel Hai is that month-end close efforts take less time than before. “While how quickly we can complete it depends in part on the accounts receivables in the EHR system, Intacct has definitely made month-end closing faster for our staff accountant,” shared Verdegem.

While Sage Intacct’s multi-entity flexibility, fixed asset capabilities, and easy import of data from the accounts receivable and payroll systems have already shown the software’s value, the Tel Hai accounting team realizes there’s far more they can do with it.

Canull said, “We’re excited at what Intacct can do, and we look forward to exploring the potential as we finally settle into all the system changes we made.” For example, Canull intends to take advantage of the dashboard capabilities that will enable them to see real-time financial data at a glance.

Also, Tel Hai has started exploring the Dimensions functionality within Sage Intacct, which provides a flexible way to access insights that can speed business decision-making.

“We’re using ‘Department Dimensions’ and ‘Revenue Source Dimensions’ and learning to tap into what they can do for us,” shared Verdegem.

Both Canull and Verdegem appreciate having a local business software provider and consultant who was there every step of the way during implementation and continues to be there for support.

“It’s important to us that Cargas is local and that we have the opportunity to meet face to face,” said Canull. “It’s nice to know who you are talking to.”

Verdegem agreed on that point and added that Cargas supplied both expertise and encouragement through the implementation, “We’ve had a wonderful Cargas experience. They have a skilled team who worked very hard to understand our needs now and anticipate what we’ll need in the future.”

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