Selecting financial management software represents one of the most important technology decisions for senior living operators. The right choice streamlines operations and enables growth. The wrong choice creates years of frustration and hidden costs.
Many organizations begin by comparing feature lists. This approach often leads to poor decisions. Instead, start by documenting your organization's specific requirements based on number of properties, growth plans, operational complexity, reporting needs, integration requirements, and compliance concerns.
Create a prioritized list distinguishing must-have capabilities from nice-to-have features. The senior living financial software you choose needs to include your must-haves. Blytheco can walk through each one with you while you evaluate your needs.
For any organization operating or planning to operate multiple communities, multi-entity management is essential. Evaluate how the system handles separate entities within one database, consolidated financial reporting, inter-entity transactions, and property-level customization within standardized frameworks.
Systems designed for single-entity operations will cause increasing pain as you grow.
Financial software should provide answers, not just data. Assess real-time dashboard capabilities, ability to create custom reports without IT support, drill-down from summary to transaction detail, scheduled automatic report distribution, and self-service reporting for non-accounting users.
Ask vendors to demonstrate reporting with your specific requirements, not generic examples.
Your financial system must connect with resident management, HR and payroll, banks and payment processors, and business intelligence tools. Evaluate available pre-built integrations, API capabilities for custom integrations, vendor support for integration implementation, and ongoing integration maintenance requirements.
Systems with poor integration capabilities trap you in manual data entry forever.
Look for automation in accounts payable processing and approval routing, revenue recognition and billing, bank reconciliation, allocation and recurring journal entries, and consolidation and elimination entries.
Each automation reduces workload, accelerates processing, and minimizes errors.
Senior living communities handle sensitive financial and resident information. Evaluate role-based access controls and segregation of duties, comprehensive audit trails, data encryption and security certifications, and automatic backup and disaster recovery. Also, ensure the solution is HIPAA compliant and the software publisher is willing to sign a BAA.
Don't compromise on security to save costs.
While most modern systems are cloud-based, some vendors still offer on-premises options. Cloud systems provide advantages in accessibility, automatic updates, disaster recovery, and scalability. On-premises systems offer perceived control but require significant IT resources.
For most senior living organizations, cloud is the right choice.
The software is only part of the equation. Also evaluate the vendor's financial stability, experience in the senior living industry, quality of customer support, implementation methodology, and user community and resources.
A great product from a vendor with poor support creates problems.
Look beyond initial license fees to understand true costs including implementation and training, ongoing subscription or maintenance, integration development and maintenance, IT infrastructure for on-premises systems, and staff time for administration and manual processes.
Sometimes "inexpensive" software is actually very costly when you account for all factors.
Most organizations benefit from working with an experienced implementation partner. Partners like Blytheco bring industry expertise, proven implementation methodology, technical resources for integration, ongoing support beyond initial implementation, and best practice guidance.
Partner quality significantly impacts implementation success and time-to-value.
A thorough evaluation typically includes documenting requirements and priorities, creating a list of potential solutions, conducting vendor demonstrations with your requirements, checking references from similar organizations, performing total cost of ownership analysis, and conducting final demonstrations with the top 2-3 solutions.
Rushing this process leads to poor decisions with long-term consequences. Blytheco has a proven model that walks you through the 6 Crucial Stages of your ERP Journey.
Organizations often make preventable mistakes like choosing based solely on initial cost, selecting software without multi-entity capabilities before growing, underestimating integration importance, failing to involve key stakeholders in selection, and skipping reference checks with similar organizations.
Your final decision should balance functional fit with requirements, total cost of ownership, vendor and partner quality, implementation timeline and resource requirements, and organizational readiness for change.
No system will be perfect, but Sage Intacct was built for your industry and likely the best fit for your specific situation. As a Sage Diamond Business Partner with 45+ years in the industry, our experts at Blytheco will assist in your evaluation.
Check out the Journey to a New ERP, or reach out to solutions@blytheco.com to begin your journey with an ERP built for your industry.
Sage Intacct Solutions Engineer
Todd has over two decades of experience in marketing, sales, presales, and professional services and held roles as Director of IT and CFO. Throughout his career, he successfully established and developed nine practices from the ground up. This experience equipped him with a proven track record of implementing and managing various accounting and ancillary software solutions, including Sage Intacct. He leverages his vast business and software background to lead companies to successful and efficient solutions.
