Objectives
The health network needed clear visibility on the key drivers of its cash-flows levers to manage them. A system which could cut through the vast and complex data sources and deliver actionable insights in a timely manner was the evident need. Outcomes
A comprehensive console was provided to the leadership team to make on-the-go decisions in Accounts Receivables. The solution successfully integrated data from multiple applications and furnished meaningful insights on the Cash Position and the trends of Credit Sales over Outstanding figures. This led the way for continuous monitoring of Cash reserves and a better control over debtors thereby effecting an overall improvement across all parameters.
A leading hospital chain was able to transform their Accounts Receivable position through clear insights
“ Cash is like Oxygen ” – You do not keep thinking about it, but you also cannot survive a moment without it. For any business to survive in the long run, it requires to carry healthy Cash reserves. However, with the leadership teams prioritizing day-to-day operations and overall profitability cash flows do not get their deserved attention. When faced with a cash flow crunch, the organization is forced to take an all-handson-deck approach to survive.
Instead of a reactive approach, leadership teams can make informed decisions on their finances if their Cash position information is available readily and consistently. It is important to diagnose cash problems at an early stage.
Large volumes of un-structured and manually prepared data rarely lead to meaningful and continuous analysis
In a typical health system, there are multiple components that work together to form an efficient Cash Management Engine. Key among them is Receivables (Payables & Inventory being the other key parameters). Receivable Invoices raised against the Sponsors/Debtors are consolidated and shared with them for payment. The payment processing team applies the received monies against specific invoices and their items.
Since the invoicing systems and payment processing systems are in large volumes and manual in nature, there were considerable delays, and the processes were error prone. Further, deriving any insights from these two disparate sets of data and making any real-time meaningful decisions was a near-impossible task with the existing tools.
At the same time, the Days of Accounts Receivable was erratic, and the health system could not pin-point the causes clearly when the situation worsened. While individual healthcare facilities were displaying varied collection results, a real-time centralized system helped in analyzing the situation from all perspectives.
One-stop shop for all Insights
The analytics deck deployed, pulled information from two different applications, and merged them to create a snapshot of the Accounts Receivables. By merging two vital data sets, realtime ageing of outstanding amounts for each Debtor and Hospital could be derived, which inturn provided insights into the cash reserve trends of the organization. By delivering real-time and highly configurable dashboards which provided a deep dive into each entity, hospital leadership teams could extract specific data points that they wanted to track.
To uncover the underlying quality of the health network’s Accounts Receivable situation, comprehensive dashboards that dynamically presented results were deployed. These dashboards created an opportunity to clearly visualize their Collections against the Credit Sales so that the Sales made every quarter from a specific debtor could be balanced against the received collections from that debtor.
Key decisions ranging from timely follow-ups with specific debtors to the managing the balance of outstanding and credit sales with each debtor were made using this newly designed console. Prior to the creation of this console, such decisions were near impossible.
With robust systems, tough decisions can be made with ease
As a direct result of the dashboard, all hospital units including the leadership team of the health network had the power to diligently track the Accounts Receivable metrics with trends, without much effort. Automated alerts were triggered whenever an instance of considerable delay in collecting payments against Credit Sales were noticed.
With such granular level detailing and tracking, the health network noticed a rapid fall in the outstanding amounts. Within a period of 4 months from when the dashboard was launched, the Days of Accounts Receivable dropped by over 32% and had stabilized at these new levels.
With this dashboard, comparing and benchmarking became possible. Hospitals that required support in improving their cash flows were identified. For debtors who were substantially delaying payments, the leadership team actively intervened. Interventions ranged from sending request letters to balancing credit sales. Effective measures were taken to ensure that the Outstanding dues were collected back in due time.
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