Case Study: Health Services 

"Acumatica delivers transparency for organisations like ours."

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Background

 

Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA) is the peak national organisation for Australians affected by breast cancer, and consists of a network of more than 120,000 members and 288 Member Groups. Widely recognised for its innovative fundraising activities, the ever-increasing complexity of managing its revenue streams put serious pressure on its business systems. BCNA moved up to MYOB Acumatica.

 

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The Problem

System not geared for future changes

 

“I wasn’t unhappy with Exo; it just no longer suited the way our organisation was headed,” Allison Southwell, Head of Corporate Services recalls.

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“In recent years the size of our organisation has doubled. With donors becoming more savvy and wanting more information on what their donations are being used for, the level of detail that we need to provide in our reports has increased.”

 

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The Solution 

Integration and serious reporting

 

BCNA trusted the MYOB brand, and the MYOB Partner recommended a closer look at Acumatica. “It looked like a good package and its reporting and integration capabilities really impressed me,” says Allison. “The consultants we dealt with were more than accommodating. They helped us work through the issues and showed how we could design Acumatica to both help us now and into the future. They questioned how we did things and made us realise that we didn’t need to necessarily do it the same way in Acumatica, which made us think about our improving our processes.”

 

Allison wanted to implement a sub-accounts structure within Acumatica, to handle the issue of project management. It gave BCNA the capability to produce reports based on any dimension within a project, such as Event, Programme, Source and Funder.

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The Outcome 

Detailed project costing achieved

 

With Acumatica's project costing capabilities, Allison can now set up projects funded by federal government through Cancer Australia and break it down into various revenue streams, delivering detailed accounts for projects that can run for periods ranging from several months to three years.

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Salesforce captures about 80% of BCNA’s income, so integration with Acumatica reduces data entry and the risk of errors, while delivering a transparent audit trail. Acumatica also opens up a path to great autonomy for system users in accessing live information.

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Summary

 

Before 

• Lack of depth in reporting

• Slow data entry and recovery

• Difficulty handling diverse revenue streams

• Lack of capacity for future expansion

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After

• Drill-down capability for greater detail in reporting

• Integration with CRM speeds up data management

• Sub-accounts structure enables better revenue control

• Cloud structure saves costs, improves access

• Future-proofed for greater efficiency and better information delivery

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Uniting AgeWell

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“Before putting the new system in, we had no real visibility of that information – now we’re dealing in facts.”

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As project manager Andy Burns says, we all hope that when we age, we’ll be well looked after. For over 60 years, that’s exactly what not-for-profit aged-care organisation Uniting AgeWell has been doing for Australia’s older population.

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Since mid-last century, small aged-care facilities were established by individual congregations of the Uniting Church in response to the needs of older people in their local communities. In 2004, the Church brought these groups together to form Uniting AgeWell (then known as Uniting Aged Care).    

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Today, Uniting AgeWell is one of the largest not-for-profit providers of residential and community aged-care services in Tasmania and Victoria. Since the beginning, their mission has been to provide specialised services, enabling older people to maximise their independence and wellbeing and access care when required.

 

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Ageing population, greater strain on resources

 

Like many countries around the world, Australia’s population is growing older, with more people needing aged-care services than ever before.

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While the ageing population now has many more aged-care services and support options, the Australian Government’s most recent push has been to help keep people at home for as long as possible – with the support of additional in-home care services.

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Uniting AgeWell has over 2,500 residential care and independent living unit clients across Victoria and Tasmania. But it’s the demand for in-home and community care that has “gone through the roof” – not only reflecting the desire for people to remain living independently at home and government initiatives but also as a side-effect of COVID-19.

“We’ve probably got over 9,000 in-home and community-care clients, and that part of our business has seen tremendous growth in the last year,” Andy says.

 

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Changing business needed new and improved system

 

Andy has been with the ‘Uniting’ family for several years. After a long career in corporate finance and systems, he worked for the Uniting Church for a year before transferring to Uniting AgeWell two-and-a-half years ago as a project manager.

Like many long-standing organisations, there are parts of Uniting AgeWell that have stood the test of time – respect, partnership, wisdom, fairness and stewardship – but some of their systems needed an upgrade.

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Finding a new contracts management and purchase-order system had been on the cards for a while, Andy says, and it was one of the early projects he needed to get over the line.  

 

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An uncoordinated and temporary system

Too many things slipping through the cracks

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For some time, Uniting AgeWell used proprietary software for their purchase orders and their supplier management.

Even though only temporary, it was a clunky and disjointed system that made keeping tabs on contracts, compliance documentation and a huge volume of transactions extremely difficult.

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The old system was a double-edged sword – without access, operational staff lacked visibility. Giving too many people access meant the data became hard to manage.

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With almost 3,000 staff across 60 sites, the organisation had to find a new system that provided greater oversight, compliance over the many individual suppliers, ease of access and a tighter control on spending.

“We wanted one source of information across all Uniting AgeWell where staff could get access to read-only files and see what suppliers we are already working with in their area, to streamline the number of suppliers we use and negotiate bulk pricing, and see what contracts we had in place and when their compliance checks were due for renewal,” Andy explains.

 

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MYOB Acumatica meets all business criteria

System ticks three mandatory boxes

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Uniting AgeWell looked at various systems in detail, short-listing three options before making the final decision.

MYOB Acumatica won for three distinct reasons. It had the right functionality to meet the organisation’s non-negotiable requirements, it had the right price and it was a flexible system that could be customised.

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“We had some pretty specific needs that were showstoppers, and MYOB Acumatica was able to meet those,” Andy says.

Also, with staff working in the field and throughout the organisation’s various facilities, having a cloud-based solution was a critical part of the selection process.

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"No point having a system if it only meets 50 per cent of our business needs. It needs to meet close to 100 per cent – or at least 99 per cent – otherwise, it will not be suitable for the organisation nor meet our business needs."

 

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Better system opens doors to business improvements

Using purchase-order data to negotiate bulk pricing

 

What Uniting AgeWell originally scoped as a smaller part of the overall business requirements for their new system, has fundamentally changed the way the organisation manages its suppliers.

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Alongside a streamlined PO system, they’ve implemented new processes, item categories and a strict hierarchy of controls to help with manager approvals. Most importantly, the system is simple and easy to use.

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Once a purchase order has been raised, it follows an automated approval process hierarchy. When approved by the Manager, a PDF copy with the organisation’s standard terms and conditions is automatically emailed to the supplier. 

They’ve also added a search function so the finance team can use data mining to negotiate better deals like bulk pricing with suppliers.

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“If we’re using five suppliers to purchase one type of item, why not use one supplier and get a better price?” Andy says.

“Before putting the new system in, we had no real visibility of that information – now we’re dealing in facts,” he adds.

 

Significantly improved internal controls

 

With this system, the team has been able to close the gap between purchase orders being authorised and invoices getting paid.

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New suppliers cannot be set up unless a specific form is completed and automatically goes through to the contracts department with the visibility needed to properly manage the process.

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"It’s improved our internal control significantly, and there is a lot more information available at our fingertips."

 

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Quick win: compliance checklist

 

Finally, the organisation can now stay on top of all their many supplier compliance obligations – using a simple yet comprehensive set of required compliance attributes built into the system.

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“For us, compliance is not negotiable. If we haven’t made sure our suppliers have up-to-date compliance checks and insurance, then we suspend them and do not use them until they are compliant,” Andy says.

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Uniting AgeWell has also customised system alerts that pop up in advance when a supplier’s compliance checks are due for renewal. For the contracts department this is a big win – not only can they now work proactively, but it also helps the team maintain better relationships with suppliers.

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"It means senior management now has confidence that we’ve got a compliance system in place that won’t fail us."

Like any business, needs will change over time, but Andy has confidence in a system that can be changed and modified to grow and adapt to the ever-changing business environment.

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"Sometimes you can do all the specs in the world, but it’s when you start using a system that you start thinking about ways to do things better."

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Summary

 

60 years of Uniting AgeWell

• An incorporated entity, owned by the Uniting Church in Australia (Synod of Victoria and Tasmania) but operated and managed independently

• Started as small community-based aged-care groups run by individual congregations, brought together as Uniting AgeWell in 2004

• One of Australia’s largest not-for-profit providers of residential and community aged-care services in Tasmania and Victoria

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Doing better business with Acumatica

• Simplified purchase-order process with better approval controls

• Can use data to improve supplier contracts, pay suppliers quickly

• Cloud-based system: staff working remotely can place orders

• Supplier information in one system accessible across all departments and locations

• Compliance system that makes senior management happy

• Lots of room to grow – more modifications can be made later

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Medical Protection Society 

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"Acumatica’s flexibility meant it could be structured to meet our requirements."

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Professional services supported by MYOB ERP

 

The Medical Protection Society Limited (MPS) is the world’s leading protection organisation for doctors, dentists and healthcare professionals. As a long-time MYOB user, when the time came to update its financial management systems, it chose MYOB Acumatica.

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Background

 

MPS protects and supports the professional interests of more than 300,000 members around the world. It provides its members with a range of educational and risk management services to contribute to risk reduction. The courses run by its Australian branch’s education arm, Cognitive Institute, are attended by thousands of clinicians every year from across Australia and Southeast Asia.

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The Problem 

Integrated CRM, Finance required.

 

“While we’d been using MYOB Premier for a long time, its limitations were showing,” says Corporate Services Manager, Lynley Mangin.

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Extracting data for various reports was a time-consuming task, and a more flexible reporting tool was required. MPS also wanted a Cloud-based system that could link with the cloud system run by its UK parent, and to support an increasingly mobile workforce.

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Other systems assessed were either too big or too small, and the organisation’s history with MYOB meant that Advanced was on the radar from the outset when it went shopping.

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“Acumatica’s flexibility meant it could be structured to meet our requirements, rather than having to change our requirements to meet the system,” Lynley says.

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The Solution

A complex job well done

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Acumatica’s ease of integration with other systems has delivered major dividends for MPS. The MYOB Partner showed its experience in tackling what turned out to be a complex implementation.

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“They made a real effort to understand our business; what we want to achieve and why we want to achieve it,” Lynley says. “The installation process was complex, but we never got the sense that anything was unachievable.” 

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The Outcome

Better reporting and visibility

 

With Acumatica, MPS is now achieving the reporting standards it required. Data is extracted more quickly and easily, and the integration with Salesforce gives greater visibility of the revenue generated and costs incurred from the various events it stages.

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 “MYOB Acumatica is making a significant difference to our business, and we know that further adaptations are possible to improve our operating processes further as we move forward and provide even better service to our members,” Lynley concludes.

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Summary

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Before

• Lack of detailed reporting

• Reports slow and difficult to extract

• CRM integration required

• Too much double data entry

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After

• More comprehensive reports

• Data readily available

• CRM integration achieved

• Double entry reduced

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