How technology is playing a pivotal role in helping care home providers streamline operations and make informed decisions.
It’s no secret that the care home sector continues to navigate increasing regulatory demands, staffing challenges, and a growing need for financial transparency. We spoke with Philippa Leonard, our Sage Intacct Team Leader here at PKF Smith Cooper Systems, to explore how cloud-based finance solutions are specifically tailored to the needs of care homes, and how we can help.
Could you provide an overview of the software solutions PKF Smith Cooper Systems offers specifically for the care home sector?
Sage Intacct is a cloud-based finance system which offers multi-entity consolidations, best of class interactive reporting tools, multi-dimensional analysis of data, automatic quarterly updates, integrated budgeting and planning tools, plus collaborative working with its live update functionality.
How does Sage Intacct cater to the unique financial management needs of care homes?
Sage Intacct is a multi-entity platform. Its use of dimensions allows you to have multiple locations (i.e. homes) and filter out reporting in seconds on a care home by care home basis. As well as instant consolidations, Sage Intacct has built in approval policies. This allows care home managers to put in spend requests for approval, giving the finance team complete oversight and control of the purchasing process.
Permissions are managed on a user basis so you can control which elements of the system users can see and which tasks they perform. Furthermore, invoice layouts can be tailored on a customer basis so each customer can have bespoke invoices with the logo and details they are familiar with rather than a ‘one size fits all’. Bank reconciliations are collaborative, so no more waiting for team members to complete before you can log in. You get live updates and data from the bank feed and can work in the system alongside various users to complete the bank reconciliation efficiently. Your budgets can be added on a location basis or combined to a whole group, resulting in better reporting and allocation of funds. Lastly, tailored reporting dashboards can be instantly filtered and shared (or not shared) with user groups.
What are the key benefits of automating back-office operations in care homes using Sage Intacct?
Full visibility and control across care homes allows more live insight for your head office. Increased automation of office tasks for your care home staff frees up their time, allowing them to spend it with staff and clients on the day-to-day goings on of the homes or strategic work and not tied up in back-office paperwork.
How does Sage Intacct integrate with other systems commonly used in care homes, such as patient management or payroll systems?
Sage Intacct has a suite of Marketplace Partners – this is growing and constantly updating – across a broad range of areas such as payroll, patient management, AP automation, expenses etc. Also, Sage Intacct uses an open API, so if there is not a native integration with your other systems, we can look to build a bespoke one.
Can your solutions be tailored to fit the specific needs of individual care homes, and how do they scale with the growth of an organisation?
Yes, the system is completely customisable with built-in features such as smart rules, smart events, triggers, custom reports, individual entity settings, user restrictions, report restrictions, customer/supplier layouts. As mentioned previously, Sage Intacct’s open API allows us to tailor your system in-house as well as connect it with 3rd-parties. In terms of growth, in Sage Intacct you can easily add entities, dimensions and users independently, without the help of your provider. If global expansion is your aim, Sage Intacct seamlessly crosses over into different countries and currencies. Lastly, Sage Intacct is designed to scale with you. You can add additional modules and integrate with new software as and when the time comes.
Are there any upcoming features or developments in Sage Intacct that will further enhance back-office automation for care homes?
Being in the cloud means that tedious and expensive software upgrades are a distant memory. Sage Intacct has automatic, quarterly, system updates that occur overnight; meaning you are never on an old version. The enhancements include additional features or improved processes and are often based on what Sage Intacct users are directly requesting as new functionality or features. User feedback is being listened to, and suggested improvements can be taken into account on future releases. The PKF Smith Cooper Systems Account Managers get full oversight of Sage’s roadmap and are able to share this with you also.
Interested in how Sage Intacct can help you? Complete the enquiry form to discuss your needs with our experts.
