Whether a Federally Qualified Health Center or a nonprofit health clinic that’s self-sustaining, you work tirelessly to provide primary care services in your communities. As the tech leaders in your healthcare organization, you’re positioned to evaluate your center’s technologies and ensure they are contributing to your mission.
When it comes to building and evaluating your tech stack, think about choosing software that builds on the impressive outcomes your organization touts and that helps make achieving those outcomes even easier. Consider evaluating your technology and operational processes to ensure both elements are maximizing what your organization is already doing with its resources.
As nonprofits across the US do more with less, consider your current tech stack and evaluate whether it’s helping your organization realize cost savings, reducing administrative-related burnout and if it’s working as efficiently as possible. Hundreds of nonprofits have supercharged their healthcare centers’ tech stacks by using integrated nonprofit accounting software.
According to a recent survey of 400 nonprofit professionals, including nonprofit healthcare professionals, nearly half used six different digital tools, and 23% relied on eight digital tools to achieve their goals. These siloed systems resulted in professionals spending at least a quarter of their day managing information between multiple systems.
Using a multipurpose solution that lives in the cloud eliminates technology redundancies while improving employee efficiency. Additionally, the more siloed an organization’s systems are, the higher the chance for fraud and human error. Consolidating your tech stack into one system improves workflows because the interconnected nature allows your finance team to use automation to handle day-to-day reporting and other administrative procedures. These systems let your healthcare center build on efficiencies and realize a return on investment.
Optimizing Your Finance Team’s Technology
You’re working to provide to the community, but is your fund accounting solution efficiently providing for your nonprofit? Your center’s finance team needs a solution that’s easy to use, integrated into your other technological systems, and equipped with robust features that handle several different functions.
Whether your organization has multiple practices or you’re focused on addressing the health needs of one community, fund accounting software allows your finance team to consolidate all the financial data in one place. From budgeting and reporting to HR/payroll management, fund accounting solutions handle it all and ensure your finance team does everything to support your center’s mission.
With the right fund accounting software, your finance team can be supported with all the data to optimize workloads. Consider building your nonprofit’s data strategy around essential constituent and engagement data at various touchpoints of their respective journeys. Using data to influence your nonprofit’s operations helps nonprofit leaders and board members make decisions that will create the most impact based on historical evidence and trends. A Harvard Business Review report noted that 70% of organizations that used an analytics ecosystem reported increased financial performance and productivity, resulting in decreased operational risk and faster decision-making.
When your organization has the right software in place, it reduces waste. According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 25 percent of total healthcare spending was considered wasteful or unnecessary. Using a data-driven mindset means defining and understanding your mission and the steps needed to achieve it for nonprofits. When your healthcare center is using software that makes collecting that data easier, you’re cutting out inefficiencies in your operation.
The data your finance team is collecting should be easily digestible and helps your organization tell its story. Fund accounting software comes equipped with customizable dashboards that allow your team to control what data it presents. As a sector defined by transparency, your stakeholders expect sound financial performance and reports that convey that message. Your finance team’s software should support that.
Growing As You Grow
Annually, your healthcare organization may have KPIs or goals to reach a certain number of patients. Your organization may add operational and outreach efforts to achieve that goal to realize more significant growth. As you implement new processes and optimize workflows to reach more community members, your finance team can do the same when their technological solution grows to meet their needs.
Certain fund accounting solutions are modular and can introduce additional elements as you need them. Ultimately, these additional modules expand the benefits of a fund accounting solution from the finance team to the entire healthcare organization.
For example, accounting software modules exist around certain billing operations like accounts payable and accounts receivable. These modules help optimize workflows. The accounts payable module, for instance, centralizes all vendor information and automates the Form 1099 production process. To further optimize the workflow, all payable transactions are simultaneously entered into vendor accounts and the general ledger, which ultimately reduces the chance for human error and makes reporting easier because your organization can pay vendors from multiple cash accounts.
Consider evaluating your accounting process and see whether the proper accounting technology can help your organization succeed. Making improvements to your tech stack helps your finance teams work more effectively and allows them to have better data transparency. Be proactive and equip your accounting teams to make better decision-making processes and in turn help your organization do the most for your patients.
About Neil Taurins
Neil Taurins is the General Manager of Nonprofit Solutions at MIP Fund Accounting®. He has been with the company for more than 12 years and is passionate about working with nonprofits to provide them with solutions to improve efficiency and better help them accomplish their mission.
