Three Challenges for Financial Professionals at Healthcare Organizations in 2018

Finance leaders at nonprofit health and human services organizations are plagued with constant internal and external challenges. Whether in the form of managing cash flow, finding donors, or dealing with regulatory and other external challenges facing both nonprofits and healthcare organizations, these challenges can inhibit growth and put organizations at risk.

However, it’s not just these challenges that nonprofits face. Healthcare organizations are also plagued with challenges related to people, processes, and technologies. Some of these challenges are the biggest inhibitors to growth.

Manual Processes Slowing Growth

According to the Sage Intacct 2017 Nonprofit Healthcare Innovation Report, nearly two-thirds of organizations surveyed are spending 25 hours or more in Microsoft Excel each month. Roughly the same number of respondents reported that manual, time consuming processes were creating a meaningful drag on business growth.

Coincidence? Unlikely. Spreadsheets are notoriously manual, painfully short-sighted, and dangerously error-prone (88% of spreadsheets have some kind of error). Plus, 25 hours is not an insignificant amount of time—especially for a growing organization in a field as highly regulated as healthcare.

Lack of Visibility Hindering Decision Making

Even if there is hidden value in wasting time, this hidden value is in ‘spacing out,’ not ‘toiling away in a spreadsheet, straining your eyes and patience.’ While the former can help you think bigger and improve business, the latter actively hold you back and cause you to think smaller. Consider this: If your people are spending 300 or more hours per year manipulating data in a spreadsheet, they aren’t exactly ‘spacing out’ or informing business decisions. Fifty-seven percent of respondents report that their slower, error-prone operations have led to delayed decisions that resulted in missed opportunities to positively influence business.

Disconnects and Data Silos

If the hours spent manipulating financial data in a spreadsheet weren’t enough, it gets worse. Fifty-seven percent of respondents also noted their biggest cause of inefficiencies in financial operations was the hidden drain of multiple disconnected systems and data sources. Switching between applications wastes time, creates blind spots, and increases the risk of errors. Whether transposing by hand or copying and pasting, disconnects hold back health and human services organizations from operating efficiently or accurately.

Infographic: Don’t Let These Challenges Hold Your Health and Human Services Organization Back

Following the release of the Sage Intacct 2017 Nonprofit Healthcare Innovation Report, the company also released its latest infographic to put some of the results into perspective. This infographic from Sage Intacct discusses not only the pain points, but the possibilities that can be achieved through integration, automation, and cloud-based intelligence.

Learn More: Cloud Accounting for Healthcare Organizations in 2018

When you’re operating a community clinic, hospital, mental health center, children’s home, homeless shelter, senior living community, or other human service agency…every dollar counts. Intacct automates all of the important financial processes, giving you visibility and insight, improving staff efficiency, and carefully monitoring your budgets and performance. This is why our team at rinehimerbaker released the Guide to Modern Financial Management and Cloud Accounting for Healthcare Organizations, designed to introduce leaders to the facts about cloud accounting and benefits that organizations like yours can recognize when they make the shift. We welcome you to preview the guide below, and to download it here.