1

QUICK CLOSE

St. Bernards Healthcare

Jonesboro, Arkansas

Arkansas Chapter HFMA –

Summer Quarterly Meeting,

August 29, 2019, Time Slot 2:00 –

3:15 PM

St. Bernards Healthcare

• 28 Companies to close and consolidate

• 4 Companies not consolidated

• $500 million net revenue

• 20 AR systems with multiple databases

• 300+ monthly manual Journal Entries

• 800+ monthly closing jobs & reports

• 2100+ monthly financial reports

• 1 General Ledger

• 1 Chart of accounts

• 1 AP/Materials management system

• 1 Asset Ledger

2

St. Bernards Healthcare

Company Structure

• 1 Lawson company

– 28 zones

– 4 zones closed but may still have activity

– 4 different consolidations that roll into

company consolidation

• 4 Lawson companies not SB Healthcare

• Numerous non-consolidated entities

St. Bernards Healthcare

Company Structure

3

Why Quick Close?

• Timely reporting of monthly financial results

to operations management

• Gives managers the opportunity to take

corrective action as soon as possible

• Accounting staff can return to normal day-to-

day activity sooner

• THE SOONER WE GET THE BOOKS

CLOSED, THE SOONER WE CAN DO

EVERYTHING ELSE!

Why Quick Close?

4

How Quick is Quick?

• 3 Business days for completion of enterprise

monthly financial statements

• Soft close – closing the books with an

abbreviated closing procedure

• Issue financial statements very quickly

5

How is it done?

• Modified Soft Close

• #1 buy-in of staff

• Identify what causes delays in closing

• Review journal entries and processes– Identify what can be done before the end of the

month

– Change cut-off dates to 1 to 5 days before end of month

• Look at systems and see what can be changed or improved or what can be stopped

• Ask “WHY ?” a lot!

6

SBHC A/R Systems

LAWSON GL

MULTIPLE OLD

SYSTEMS

CENTRICITY

AERIMA

OTHERS

QSRMed Host/HMS

OTHER /

MANUAL

CPA FIRMS

QUICKBOOKS

MEDITECH

MT Home Care

MEDDATA

ALLSCRIPTS

ALLSCRIPTS

Closed Entity

GREENWAY

NEXGEN

NBA

NEON

EXPERIOR

or

ZIRMED

MRI

TECHNOLOGIES

PEAK

CLUB

AUTOMATION

QUICKCHARGE

LIGHTSPEED

BOSTON POST

How is it done?

Accounts Receivable

• Do not hold AR systems open for late transactions

• Hard close AR systems at midnight on last day of month

• Schedule reports to run after midnight for systems that do not hard close

• Let system owners close by end of work day on last day of month

• Require system owners to send AR reports no later than day 1

• Book accrual for current month, book actual later in month

7

How is it done?

Accounts Receivable

• Run non-AR reports on last day of month

Don't wait on AR to close

• Close miscellaneous AR's before end of month

• Spread the workload between staff for parallel

processing

• Spread the running of large system reports

between staff for parallel processing

How is it done?

Accounts Receivable

• Replace intercompany billing with operating

transactions or intercompany journal entries

– Make the system do the work

• Bill recurring invoices before end of month

• Eliminate month-end statements for misc. A/R

• IF IT CAN BE DONE BEFORE DAY1, DO

IT!

8

How is it done?

Accounts Payable

• Do not hold open AP systems for late transactions

• Centralize the AP function

• Never issue a manual check

• Close all AP and Materials Mgmt. subsystems on last day of month (after 5pm)

• Post all entries then run and file all closing jobs and reports on last day of the month

• TIP: Jobs & Reports run faster at night on the last day of month

• Front end scan/file/sweep invoices– Get them into OnBase fast

How is it done?

Accounts Payable

• Use multiple document types to segregate invoices – PO invoices

– No PO invoices

• Use workflow – send all invoices >$5,000 to an Accountant Capital Review

Queue

• Use a month-end checklist for manual AP accruals

• Set dollar limit for accruals and use keywords to pull invoices not paid Example: pull if > $10,000

• Do not mix manual AP accruals with system AP accruals– Use different GL account numbers

– Data mine system reports and reconcile to GL by entity

– Look for large dollar accruals

9

How is it done? – Payroll

• Centralize the payroll function

• Do not hold payroll system open for late transactions– Close before month-end

• Automate payroll accrual– Map to one payable account number for easy

reconciliation

• Automate PTO accrual– Map to one payable account number for easy

reconciliation

How is it done?

General Finance Practices

• Consolidate and centralize as much as possible

• Cross-train critical activities

• Use month-end closing checklists with due dates and

assignments

• Use only one Chart of Accounts for all entities

• Consolidate/standardize folder/filing structure

• Get entities not using Lawson into Lawson GL

– Map their COA to Lawson COA and enter activity monthly

– Lookup tables are your friend

10

How is it done?

General Finance Practices

• Do not hold up closing for Journal Entry approval– Most journal entries are routine

• Standardize journal entry forms

• Smart number journal entries

• Use add-ins, data-mining (Monarch), lookup tables, and functions to get data into a journal entries faster

• Standardize forms/processes used for summarizing AR data– Speeds processes

– Makes cross training easier

• Add A/R reconciliations to the Journal Entry

How is it done?

Budgeting

• Use a centralized budget database (Lawson &

web budgets)

• Give managers access to budgets and actual

numbers daily – web budgets

• Give managers access to detail expense

distribution reports and invoices - OnBase

• Educate, Educate, Educate managers on the

use of systems and flow of information

11

How is it done?

Financial Reports and Filing

• Use system report writer – 1500+ system reports

• Write reports to do the work– use system reports that mirror the "pretty" excel reports that

CEOs like

• Standardize reports for each entity

• Data mine reports and use lookup tables– Don't key in numbers

• Put standard reports into Groups or Folders for easy processing– run two groups of reports; 35 minutes to run; 2-4 minutes

to FTP; 40 seconds to COLD file and burst into 2100+ reports

How is it done?

Financial Reports and Filing

• Roll the month in Web Budgets on day 2 or

day 3

• Use OnBase to COLD file reports

• Use Web Budget reporting

12

How is it done?

Review• Use standard reports for reviewing revenue

and expenses

– Pcompare Reports (like Flux Analysis)

– Trend Reports

– Data mine reports if needed

• NPR to Gross

• Cash collection to NPR

13

Year End

• Hard close at end of Fiscal Year

• Close as normal to get board statements and slides completed (3 to 4 days)

• Final review all balance sheet accounts, accrue late revenue, accrue late invoices >$10,000 and make year-end adjustments (10 days)

• Final close and issue updated financial statements and reports (up to 4 days)

• Use Year-end Audit Checklist for Interim audit, Audit, Cost Reports and Tax Returns

• Balance sheet reconciliations and some year-end work papers should be updated monthly

• Create one location for all year-end work– Create year-end work folders

Year-End Checklist Example

14

Future

• Close Cash Book in one day or less -- Improve

Cash Reconciliation process

• Square Footage and Parking Spaces in GL

• Reconciliation review workflow

• Find better faster ways to analyze day 2 data

using report writer

• Staff wants to close in one day

SURVEY

1. We are satisfied with the quality of our

financial close process (Agree) (Disagree)

2. We trust 100% in our reported numbers

(Agree) (Disagree)

3. How many days does it take you to close and

issue financial statements?

15