Stonehaven Care Group Process Invoices 6 Times Faster
Care provider Stonehaven Care Group was experiencing difficulty trying to manage a paper-heavy invoicing process. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the group re-evaluated its operational needs and upgraded it’s accountancy function to include an AP automation solution. Showcasing a host of efficiency-boosting features, Lightyear helped the business reinforce its approval process and reduce the finance team’s weekly invoice processing from 30 hours to 5, allowing them to prioritise more valuable tasks.
About Stonehaven Care Group
As a specialist care provider, Stonehaven Care Group provides residential and nursing care facilities to families and individuals across the South West of England. The group, established for over 25 years and employing 324 staff, prides itself on being family run, offering reassurance of consistently high standards, delivered by caring, professional and dedicated care teams.
With 11 care homes throughout Devon and Cornwall, residents can choose from various locations to make them feel at home. And this is set to grow further, with planning permission being granted to expand the group with another 41 bed care home.
The challenge
As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, care facilities were heavily affected. “It pushed us to look at digitisation much earlier”, highlights Nick Connors, Managing Director for Stonehaven Care Group. Pre-Covid, the organisation worked from a legacy desktop accountancy package and found it difficult to process data when working remotely once the pandemic hit. “We were using an accountancy platform that wasn’t cloud-based. It made remote working really tricky as we were limited to the number of users we could have on the system at any one time. We found that it was taking a long time to process information.”
The group processes, on average, 1,000 documents per month. “Instead of staff manually entering invoice information, we would ask our suppliers to send over statements rather than invoices and we would enter that data instead,” explains Naomi Cronk, Finance Controller for Stonehaven Care Group. “There were just too many documents to enter all of that individually.”
While trying to navigate one of the most challenging times for businesses, the group lost a member of its already stretch finance team. It forced them to rethink their current processes and find a solution to manage their growing operational needs better.
Why Lightyear for AP Automation Software
Deciding to upgrade its outdated accountancy platform, Stonehaven Care Group moved to a cloud-based package. Xero, a market-leading solution, gave the organisation more freedom with an online, centralised platform that users could access anywhere and anytime.
After implementing Xero, the team were introduced to the abundance of add-ons that integrate with the Xero software to enhance operational efficiencies. “We were working with an accountant who advised us to look into Lightyear as a solution for our invoice processing”, says Naomi. “We spent a good few months researching AP solutions, but what Lightyear does is brilliant. It has completely transformed our invoice processing. We have a member of the finance team who has worked with other AP solutions, and confirmed that Lightyear is more intuitive and more efficient than anything she has used previously.”
Automation made Invoice Processing 6 Times Faster
Before introducing Lightyear as its AP automation software, Stonehaven Care Group was heavily burdened with paperwork. Operating 11 sites with a paper-heavy system meant physically posting invoices between individual care homes and the admin office. “Managers were signing invoices off by hand, saving them up and then posting them back to our admin team. It meant there was a major delay in processing the data, which had to be manually keyed in,” explains Naomi.
“Now with Lightyear we can approve everything in real time."
Since the introduction of Lightyear, staff at Stonehaven Care Group are able to approve invoices on the go, upload receipts and create POs through the mobile app. With Lightyear’s intelligent multi-tiered approval automation, the business is able to assign invoices automatically to managers based on the approval value. “We give managers a certain level of autonomy within their role to approve invoices,” explains Nick. “They’re able to confirm if the goods have been received or the work has been done in the homes and sign it off, so that process has definitely helped.”
“Our finance team also incorporates payroll,” says Nick, “It’s absolutely critical that our 300+ staff get paid when they’re expected to. Remote working meant our team were further stretched trying to process employee timesheets and invoicing. Lightyear certainly saved us so much time to help us manage everything.”
A key benefit to Lightyear is its automatic supplier statement reconciliation feature. Naomi highlights, “Lightyear does it all for you. It allows you to follow up with your suppliers and chase missing invoices. After month end, I have a member of my team check the statements and follow up with suppliers which is made really simple through the in-app message supplier button.” With this process, the business no longer receives invoices months later than expected.
Throughout their implementation journey, the Stonehaven finance team received dedicated support through online training sessions with the Lightyear onboarding team. “We found that the whole customer service side of things was exceptional compared to other experiences we've had,” says Nick. “We’re often doing stuff outside of normal working hours, and the fact that you can go on at any time of day and someone will be able to help you is really useful.”
Reinforcing the Processes
Since introducing automated invoice processing through Lightyear, Stonehaven has reduced manual data inputting from 30 hours per week to 5 hours. With an 83% increase in efficiency, finance staff are able to carry out more valuable tasks.
“It has helped reinforce the approval process,” says Nick. “It’s now ingrained within the business. With faster approvals and automatic data extraction of invoices, the finance team are now able to oversee more accurate information on money leaving the business."
There is an absolute desire to understand our business and make sure that what Lightyear offered worked for us, but also in the knowledge that others in our sector would need it as well.
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