BTerrell Group Blog

Why your next financial system should be cloud-based? Financials face-off: On-premise vs. Cloud

The speed of business is faster today than ever before. Business is also more complex, often involving multiple entities, global operations, and complicated billing structures. To succeed, finance professionals need instant access to financial information to make smart, strategic decisions. Cloud-based financial management applications are uniquely capable of driving today’s business forward in today’s always-on, always-connected world, which is why your next financial system should be cloud-based.

Stodgy and inflexible versus modern and agile
Yesterday’s old-fashioned, on-premise financial management applications aren’t flexible or scalable enough to support modern businesses. Nearly all, including Quicken, Microsoft Dynamics GP/NAV, SAP, and Oracle have been around so long they predate the Internet! With older, on-premises applications, you can expect:

• Spiraling overhead costs
• Expensive upgrades
• Functional limitations
• Costly customizations to gain functionality
• Duplicate data entry from disparate applications
• Unnecessary security risks
• Requires IT staff to maintain
• Remote access not native

Cloud-based financial systems are agile, powerful, and designed to run at the speed of today’s business. Sage Intacct, for example, was designed from the ground up for online delivery. With cloud-based financial systems, you can expect:

• Deployment in weeks, not months
• Monthly or quarterly updates — delivered automatically
• Streamlined integration using APIs
• Minimal IT resources required
• Flexible configurations replace expensive customizations
• Anytime, anywhere access

The results are in
With speed as a guiding factor to winning business globally, businesses need more from their financial systems than ever before. Cloud-based financial applications can deliver the necessary speed and agility — as two of our clients can attest.

One of BTerrell Group’s clients, Certus Energy Systems is a real-life example of how switching to a cloud-based financial application can yield significant benefits. Since switching from QuickBooks to Sage Intacct, Certus shortened its financial close from 15 to 10 business days, slashed report preparation from a week to just minutes, and cut a day from the A/P process every week — even as its transaction volume nearly tripled.

Another BTerrell Group client, Vaquero Midstream shares that the software paid for itself in less than two months on business value alone. They’ve also gained visibility into their operations that help them make informed and strategic business decisions.

As you shop for the best financial management software for your organization, we urge you to consider a cloud-based application like Sage Intacct. Learn much more about the advantages waiting for you in the cloud in this white paper, Financials Face-Off: On-premises vs. Cloud. 

What is ABCs? 3 Reasons Healthcare Organizations Should Adopt Activity-Based Costing Now

As healthcare finance executives, do you truly understand the true costs of patient care? The costs of the care are not just the costs between healthcare organizations and patients, but it also includes the overhead such as maintenance fees and other operating costs. To achieve long-term success, healthcare providers must consider the actual cost of their services. Let’s introduce activity-based costing, also called ABCs, which allows you to compute the actual cost and understand the cost structures effectively.

Why should healthcare finance executives adopt activity-based costing now?

Three main reasons to utilize ABCs for healthcare organization:

1. The U.S. healthcare system is moving to ACOs and other value-based care

To manage well the financial risk from a hospital’s or an ACO’s value-based-care contracts, healthcare organizations will need to understand and forecast their costs to control the budget and avoid potential losses. Healthcare finance executives can calculate the actual cost of services, supplies, and other operational areas on a per-case basis under the model of activity-based costing.

2. COVID-19’s financial impact on healthcare organizations

Over half of U.S. healthcare providers are operating at a loss, and their financial predicament is expected to worsen as the pandemic continues. To address this pressure, healthcare finance executives will be forced to scrutinize their cost structures. By utilizing activity-based costing, healthcare organizations can get detailed cost analysis and improve their cost structures.

3. Consumerism and competition may lead to price war due to upcoming consumer price transparency

Since the U.S. government’s emphasis on increasing price transparency in healthcare, the patients will soon gain their buying power in the open healthcare market. The price war may start between the healthcare providers as consumers will have the ability to shop around and compare for lucrative procedures such as knee replacements. Healthcare providers should use ABCs to get an accurate picture of their underlying costs if this transparency forces them to cut charges to meet the competition.

It is time for healthcare organizations to embrace the model of activity-based costing due to the impacts of value-based care, price transparency, and pandemic. With the help from ABCs and the right financial system, even smaller hospitals, physician groups, and PAC providers should be able to make this transition without undue strain on their resources.

BTerrell Group works with healthcare companies to strengthen and simplify all aspects of their financial health. We helped Epiphany Dermatology seamlessly manage growth from seven locations to 50 clinics across 10 states with the cloud-based financial management solution - Sage Intacct. Check the case study and learn more: Epiphany Dermatology - Case Study.pdf.

Let’s make sure you have the right systems to best manage your organization. Contact us at 866-647-2611 and download the complete “Activity-Based Costing’s Time Has Come".

Four ways cloud financial management software keeps finances healthy

Integrating a healthcare organization’s multiple entities in a unified set of financials is challenging and complex. The traditional approach to consolidation combines old fashioned manual labor, semi-structured processes, and an unwise reliance on Microsoft Excel to bring together data and information. Unfortunately, even with the best efforts and communication, manual consolidations are time-consuming and error-prone — yet 58% of companies continue to use this method.

Healthcare organizations need a smarter way to consolidate their financial results, to support the industry’s fast pace and competitive climate. Cloud-based financial management software can be that better way, offering four areas of critical functionality that traditional, on-premises systems lack.

1. Scalable foundation enables automation
Healthcare firms often add virtual and physical entities to their corporate structures. However, on premises solutions struggle to add and manage new entities and across geographic jurisdictions. A cloud-based financial management system allows all business units to share the same system, same chart of accounts, same financial reports, and same master data tables, driving significant productivity gains. It also creates a shift in mindset and positions finance teams to add value to information, not simply report on information.

2. Agile processes help ramp up new entities quickly
A turnkey cloud financial management application gets systems and processes up and running quickly and can rapidly extend as new entities come on board. It also helps standardize workflows across entities, making it simpler to manage and monitor financial data.

3. Fully integrated consolidation processes
A cloud financial management system centralizes the setup and management of inter-entity relationships. When you rely on one single system to house organizational data, you can automate the elimination and consolidation entries, saving time and improving accuracy.

4. Clear insight
Cloud-based financials eliminate the gaps between the consolidation and the data. The result is real-time consolidated financial information — available at the push of a button.

The Vital Stats
The healthcare industry is in a constant state of flux. To succeed in a fluid marketplace, your organization must quickly scale to incorporate new entities, pivot to adapt to changing regulations, and swiftly adjust strategies and operations in response to performance trends.

BTerrell Group works with healthcare companies, ranging from small medical practice groups to more extensive combined healthcare operations, to strengthen and simplify all aspects of their financial health. Our recommendation for healthcare organizations is the cloud-based financial management solution Sage Intacct. Sage Intacct helps healthcare organizations save time, improve accuracy and grow their operations without increasing their administrative staff.

Together, BTerrell Group and Sage Intacct helped Epiphany Dermatology seamlessly manage growth from seven locations to 50 clinics across 10 states. And the organization was able to improve their overall efficiency in accounting and finance by five-fold, avoiding the cost of two to three employees. It’s this type of success that we strive for with every client.

We invite you to contact us at 866-647-2611 with your questions and download the complete Financial Consolidations for Multi-Entity Healthcare Organizations white paper.

The changes for healthcare in 2020 were significant and many. As a CFO, if you’re feeling a bit exhausted by change, you are not alone. As we enter the New Year, what challenges will healthcare organizations face?

2021 Predictions for the healthcare industry

The following three predictions three predictions were published recently by Brian Bogie, Director of Healthcare Industry Marketing at Sage Intacct.
1. Cost control will be paramount in 2021, and Activity-Based Cost Accounting will be business critical in a post-COVID world
2. Healthcare will adopt a Doordash model for delivery of their services: whether these “Hospital at Home” healthcare organizations will succeed depends on how they get paid – and from whom
3. HIPAA and security breaches will become a greater issue for healthcare organizations

Click here to read the entire article 

Familiar, perennial challenges still need to be addressed

The most common struggle for healthcare CFOs that we see is the challenge of consolidations for multi-entity, multi-location organizations. Healthcare CFOs must contend with:
• Expansion of facilities and service lines across regions and states
• The varying and changing nature of accounting rules as regulatory frameworks evolve
• Emphasis on growing the business through both organic new ventures or by acquiring others
• Increasing inter-relationships and inter-company activities between entities within the parent company

Download the complimentary white paper ‘Financial Consolidations for Multi-Entity Healthcare Organizations’ 

Addressing the challenges of consolidation using a single, cloud-based financial system tool can propel your healthcare organization forward.

And that’s where we can help – contact us to investigate how you could accelerate the integration of new entities; improve controls; and enjoy real-time consolidated results from across the enterprise at any time without waiting for period ends.

More than ever, CFOs find themselves data-rich, but time-poor. A truly integrated cloud-based financial system can automate the consolidation process, reintroducing quality and trust. Senior healthcare executives can view timely information with confidence which enhances finances credibility and opens the door to new opportunities to add value.

Yes, we’ve all been using spreadsheets for years (some of us, for decades now…) for simple what-if scenarios, for profit/loss statements, for reconciling bank statements, even for complex risk-analyses.

While some industry pundits are extolling the virtues of a “spreadsheet-free” business environment (low-carbon imprint, BTW), the ubiquitous spreadsheet has nonetheless become the de facto standard for creating just about any “solution” when our own software applications seem to fall short of accommodating our immediate and insatiable need  for analysis and insight. In short, spreadsheets have become our “spreadware”.   

That’s why a recent post “The Spreadware Epidemic” from Intacct Premier Partner, JMT Consulting, immediately peaked our interest.

In using the recently coined term “spreadware”, JMT highlights the morphing of spreadsheets to become our go-to tool for creating one-off custom software solutions. JMT highlights the danger that lies within.

Think about it: how many times have we used spreadsheets in an attempt to compensate for our accounting/finance systems lack of functionality or integration? 

Our president, Keith Karnes, also recently highlighted the same dilemma in his blog post, stating “creating workarounds (using spreadsheets to create spreadware) because your ERP application cannot do what you need is a prime reason to consider changing ERP and accounting/finance applications.”

With today’s apps, spreadware is old-school thinking in a modern day reality. With cloud-based financial and analysis applications and their open APIs, such as best-in-class applications like Adaptive Insights, there are infinitely better approaches than creating “spreadware.”    

It takes new thinking and new approaches to eliminate using spreadsheets to create spreadware. And, BTerrell Group has been successfully doing this for our clients – for years. Connect with us today.  You’ll be glad you did!