First Atlantic Healthcare was struggling with paper-based, manual accounting processes which resulted in errors, lost invoices, and delayed payments.
First Atlantic Healthcare is a long-term care and health services provider with 19 locations throughout Maine. Their mission is to provide health services that improve clients’ lives through nursing, rehabilitation, long-term care and assisted living centers. Their work is vital to the wellbeing of the communities they serve. They strive to continue serving the need for individualized, high-quality, cost-effective healthcare and other services.
First Atlantic Healthcare managed to get by with manual, paper-based AP, but as operations grew and mistakes began to mount up, this became unsustainable. Frustration with forgotten invoices, lost invoices and delays was becoming common. They knew their processes were no longer sustainable and that the accounts team needed to go paperless. Still, they postponed the shift.
Then, COVID-19 hit. The necessity for financial transformation intensified.
“Paperless AP had been on our to-do list for a while. Between multiple locations and hundreds of vendors, our AP department was overwhelmed with inquiries around the status of invoices and, oftentimes, ‘lost invoices.’ In many cases, the locations had invoices sitting on desks and hadn’t sent invoices to the corporate office for processing. Having to mail them in would then create a delay in processing.”
— Kim Bernard, Director of Accounting at First Atlantic Healthcare
The accounts team frequently travelled to the office to process invoices and handle status questions. With no option to go fully remote, they knew they needed to streamline their processes as much as possible without compromising their core business, all while taking the highest precaution to ensure the health and safety of their staff.
Struggling with the sheer volume of invoices to process, the team desperately needed streamlined processes that could automate much of this burdensome workload. This feature would free them up to handle queries, follow up on discrepancies and better handle client requests.
Most lost invoices were due to the inefficiency of using paper and needing to check physical locations to find the missing paperwork. They wanted to solve this challenge by transforming their financial processes and going fully digital.
Checking the filing cabinet was becoming a burden, and the team wanted easy access to all data without double-checking the files. They also wanted to ensure management had direct access to look up relevant records for their respective entities.
They wanted to find the perfect AP automation solution for Dynamics GP. In addition to solving problems caused by a clunky manual process, they were already using Binary Stream’s Multi-Entity Management (MEM) to handle multiple locations, so compatibility with MEM was key.
First Atlantic began researching several automation software packages. Fidesic was not the first solution they investigated, but it was the only solution that met all core requirements. Without entity controls, location-enabled data capture and routing, and an integration that works with MEM, any solution would add complexity without additional benefits. After testing the solution, it was evident that Fidesic AP met all requirements and solved their challenges.
“We’ve been able to place more ownership on the multiple entities to research their own invoices when they or their vendors have questions. We’re all primarily working remotely now. There’s no filing or going into the office to find invoices. All users who need access to invoices now have the ability to access them in the system.”
— Kim Bernard, Director of Accounting at First Atlantic Healthcare
