Client Profile
Located in Voorhees, New Jersey, Lions Gate is a continuing care retirement community, providing quality and compassionate residential, health care and community based services, enriching the lives of those they serve. As a not-for-profit agency, they are committed to providing the benefits of quality housing and compassionate healthcare services to Senior Residents and their families.
Business Challenge
Lions Gate realized that in order to achieve their vision of being the premier resource and residence for seniors, they needed to address inefficiencies in their assisted living software. Accounting and billing/medical records had to be entered manually into their EMR and third party Payroll service. Entries from time clocks were also manual. Purchase Orders and approvals were cumbersome. The General Ledger software in use was not providing the right reports. When a new CEO was brought in, he gave instructions to explore better options.
An internal review with the accounting staff determined that any new solution for financials would need to feature a user friendly general ledger that would enable all users, both fiscal and operations, to gain the necessary information to manage operations. Monthly financial reporting and annual budgeting tools that can integrate across the organization were also deemed critical.
Meanwhile, the clinical side at Lions Gate conducted a review of EMR packages, and determined that PointClickCare® was the right solution for medical billing and records. The finance team, however, had concerns that the financial module may not be able to deliver all the functionality they needed. PointClickCare suggested Microsoft Dynamics GP as a possible bridge for GL, AP, Purchasing, and Budgeting.
Lions Gate contacted Microsoft to further investigate Dynamics GP as an assisted living software solution for their accounting and reporting needs. Microsoft directed Lions Gate to Intellitec Solutions, based on that firms experience in assisting Senior Living providers make the best use of Dynamics GP, as well as their experience integrating with clinical management packages like PointClickCare. The latter point was crucial if Lions Gate was going to reach their vision of a financial reporting package that could share information across the organization.
Technology Solution
As the clinical side of the house went about implementing PointClickCare, the accounting team selected to go with Dynamics GP and Intellitec Solutions. As part of the implementation of Dynamics GP, the clinical and finance teams coordinated to make sure that critical data that needed to come from PointClickCare to Dynamics GP would be made accessible to the right people. A thorough requirements gathering process was undertaken, to make sure that Dynamics GP was configured properly.
Reporting was the key. Their previous reporting package simply was not strong enough for them, and it was hurting their growth. Monthly reporting required two days to prepare, and was a drain on top resources. Budget to Actual reports were done manually, reports had to be printed and then distributed. They had no drill down capabilities for financial statements. If someone wanted more detail on a line item, they would have to pull up another report.
In payables, their old system was all done in batches. Once an update button was hit, no changes could be made. All inquiries in payables were manual. For example, in the GL transaction report, vendor names were not available. So if a department manager wanted to see full detail of vendor, invoice number, and invoice amount, they would have to generate two separate reports.
Intellitec’s Long Term Care expertise was able to not only address those concerns, but make sure Lions Gate staff learned the best practices they would need to be successful. Intellitec set up the GL account structure to make reporting easy, and the training went very smoothly. End users were given tasks to perform in the system to ensure they would be prepared once the assisted living software solution went live.
Intellitec Impact
By working with Intellitec, Lions Gate was able to have an intuitive and easy to understand GL and AP system that was specific to their industry needs. Intellitec configured and implemented Dynamics GP so that reporting is automated and department heads can self-service their own reports. In addition, they now export journal entry files from PointClickCare as a csv file, then copy and paste the account numbers, debit, and credit information into the Excel Integrator and submit that to GP. This allows them to use Census and Cash information entered into PointClickCare to get a full view of financial health.
Another key efficiency gained is the ability to share information across the organization with the click of a button. Dynamics GP is integrated with Management Reporter and SharePoint so that reports can be distributed instantly to various departments. This has allowed them to achieve their vision of fully utilizing IT as an asset to overall growth. “Dynamics GP is absolutely a selling point for our organization”, says Controller Joe Pomrenke, “and we never would have been able to do it without Intellitec.”