Key Project Results
- Replaced Excel and manual processes with custom automation
- Dramatic increase of efficiency for invoice processing and client statements
- Staff supported to focus on higher value tasks – saved the equivalent of 5 full-time staff salaries
- Fundamental shift in decision-making process
- Better customer service outcomes with client portal
- Error-prone manual data entry eliminated
The Client
Better Living Home Care were founded on the belief that as you get older, moving into residential aged care shouldn’t be your only option. That’s why they are dedicated to helping older Australians live on their own terms, in their own homes. Working with a large network of service providers, they offer in-home care services – care, clinical, transport and home maintenance – to ensure their clients get the support needed to remain independent and continue to live their best possible lives.
The Problem
As Better Living Home Care grew and took on more suppliers and clients, they encountered difficulties too diverse for their cumbersome, error-prone Excel and other manual processes to manage. Increasing invoice processing volumes was dominating the administrative team’s time and energy, pushing out critical timeframes. It wasn’t a problem that was going away anytime soon. One staff member’s sole responsibility was to process invoices. Another full-time staff member dedicated two weeks out of every month to create client statements. The company was predicting growth of ten times their existing size. This meant they would soon need to employ 5 full-time staff to keep on top of client statements alone. Add to this double-handling between the two jobs and it was abundantly clear, manual processes were no longer sustainable or scalable.
“Our payments team was almost our biggest team which was a necessity at the time but it wasn’t adding real value to the business. We needed a solution that would reduce the error-prone, labour intensive work and refocus those people in more high-value areas.”
– Michael Argent, CEO at Better Living Home Care, Australia
The Solution
Better Living Home Care engaged the Episub team to design a custom automation solution to take the pressure off the administrative team, eradicate data errors and support the businesses future growth goals. The solution would need to automate invoicing and the generation of client statements. This included receiving invoices from service providers and linking them to the customer, getting customer feedback/approval of work completed, exporting invoices for bulk paying service providers, and calculating the running balance of each account.
Episub created a Technology Road Map that lay the groundwork for the custom code build that would automate the processing of thousands of invoices, statements and requests per month.
“The admin team were a little sceptical at first, thinking their roles would be replaced. But they absolutely love it, in fact it’s been very beneficial to their roles. They no longer have this manual work, so they’re free to tackle more challenging tasks.”
– Michael Argent, CEO at Better Living Home Care, Australia
The Outcome
- A friendly timeframe
- Just 5 months after the initial discussion, Episub’s custom designed invoice processing automation was deployed and immediately started reducing Better Living Home Care’s accounting burden.
- Client statements on demand
- Automating the generation of client statements was a project highlight. Today, an invoice can be entered once with the client statements immediately automatically produced. No more double-handling or grinding manual entry required.
- Invoicing at scale
- The new invoicing solution automates thousands of invoices every month by associating each invoice with the correct customer, saving significant time for the administration team. With plans in the works to further optimise the application, the number of invoices automatically processed is expected to increase threefold.
- Financial visibility
- With real-time reporting – as opposed to the previous 6 week timeframe – and easy access to accurate financial dashboards, Better Living Home Care have greater insight into the state of their business. This has spurred a fundamental shift towards more data-driven decision-making too.
- Value added services
- The efficient automated invoicing process eased the workload of the admin staff and has supported them to deal with greater demand without breaking a sweat. With their workload eased, staff are now free to focus their attention on other areas of the business, including improving the client experience.
- Competitive client experiences
- Better Living Home Care have been able to ramp up transparency across client services. A dedicated portal delivers access to 24/7 real-time account information allowing clients to easily log in and see exactly where their money is spent. Feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive with clients reporting the addition to be helpful and informative.
- A bright future
- The company is currently weighing up CRM options, with an eye to adopting a system that will integrate with their existing custom automation. They also have plans afoot to further enhance their automation solution’s capabilities, working alongside Episub to derive further value from their solution.
“I’m extremely impressed with what Episub has delivered. It’s not just whatever you say is what you get. They always think things through and offer honest feedback and suggestions. They can also see further down the path and advise on the future implications of any changes we might be thinking of making.”
– Michael Argent, CEO at Better Living Home Care, Australia
