by Layla Doctor
Bay County Medical Care Facility (BCMCF) is a government-owned and -operated skilled nursing community with 200+ beds dually certified by Medicare and Medicaid. They provide 24-hour rehabilitation services, dementia care, and hospice care to their members. Their team consists of nursing, dietary, social work, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, restorative, and activity staff.
After experiencing challenges with outsourced accounting services, legacy back-office systems, and Excel spreadsheets, BCMCF needed a more efficient financial management solution. The organization tried a few options before deploying Sage Intacct as its nonprofit financial software.
“After 30 years working for Bay County and running its financial systems, I initially had misgivings about the way accounting had been structured [at BCMCF],” said Mike Regulski, BCMCF finance director. “But as we learned more about Sage Intacct’s capabilities … my whole outlook changed. Sage Intacct is very robust, and I’m pleased to see all of the efficiencies it brings to our finance team.”
In recent years, BCMCF has moved beyond the essential functions of Sage Intacct and leveraged the powerful cloud-based software to eliminate Excel-based processes and duplicate data entry — improving the finance team’s overall productivity by at least 50%.
Sage Intacct also provides more streamlined purchasing processes. The organization’s departments can enter their purchase requisitions directly into the system, automatically generating purchase orders. The accounts payable clerk can then execute electronic payments and wire transfers from the system.
“By streamlining purchasing, Sage Intacct has freed up my time, so I can learn more about how best to use the software and focus on training our supervisors,” said BCMCF in-house staff accountant Carrie Brozewski. “In fact, I’ve shifted 70% more of my effort into the financials themselves, as well as important projects like preparing our first-ever comprehensive facility-wide fixed asset inventory.”
Additionally, BCMCF has seen monthly close cycle improvements with Sage Intacct — the timeframe has been shortened from three weeks to one to two days. In fact, Brozewski said the end-of-month process is much more relaxed because of Sage Intacct’s simple payroll uploads and integration with MatrixCare for automated billing.
With all these process improvements in place, Regulski received approval to change the organization’s budgeting approach. Instead of relying on the administrator to dictate top-down budgets for each department, individual department supervisors became responsible for developing their detailed budgets. To support this new model, the finance team established budget hearings and reviews and created departmental dashboards that facilitate department managers’ spending management.
With Sage Intacct, BCMCF staff can view accurate payroll data by department. This helped managers reduce overtime by 35% and better allocate personnel, resulting in an overall 3% to 4% reduction in labor costs. The system also freed the finance team’s time to analyze general ledger balances and ensure that transactions are posted to the correct accounts and time periods, giving BCMCF more accurate and timely visibility and significantly increasing the administrator and board’s confidence in the financials.
“Sage Intacct’s dashboards make budgeting and planning much easier,” Regulski said, “which has made the organization as a whole more financially sound and accountable for the money we receive from taxpayers.”
Learn how Sage Intacct can enhance your organization’s financial operations. It’s the perfect solution for all types of nonprofits, from senior living communities to trade organizations. Schedule a demo with our team to learn more.