Case Study: Outlook Care streamlines financial processes with Access Finance software
How Access Finance software helped Outlook Care to allow their team to focus time on the work that matters: caring for their patients.
Challenge
- Needed to find integrated HR, Finance and Rota planning solutions
- Dispersed business with care homes in numerous locations and carers working in individual’s homes
- Many existing processes were manual and paper based
- No familiarity with software technology, putting buy-in for new software at risk
Approach
- Needed a software provider that offered a suite of solutions for both HR and Finance functions
- Software needed to cater to a dispersed business and streamline administrative and HR tasks for busy care workers
Results
- Streamlined their processes by using a single sign-on across their different products
- More accurate reporting thanks to integrated systems providing a single version of data
- Empower their remote workers to access all necessary parts within our cloud-based solution, Access Workspace
- Save workers time by removing admin, manual tasks and allow them to focus on providing great care to their patients
Outlook Care's success story using Access Finance software
Katie Lay, Assistant Director of ICT & Business Performance at Outlook Care, explains why they chose Access to centralise and streamline their systems.
Improving accuracy: A single version of the truth across a dispersed business
One of the key challenges Outlook Care faced before implementing the software was that the dispersed nature of their business meant that they had to gather and send information to and from workers in lots of locations.
Of their 500 employees, only 30 worked from a central office location. Before working with Access, all of Outlook Care’s HR and Rota functions were paper-based, which meant things like collecting timesheets, and sending out payslips were very manual, time-consuming, and at risk of errors.
When looking for a solution, Katie was mindful of the fact that as her employees are busy care workers, introducing multiple systems, usernames, and passwords for each function would disrupt the staff’s time, taking them away from their core roles and damaging buy-in for new software across the organisation.
I think for our staff it’s really difficult because they’d have to remember a whole heap of user IDs and passwords they have to think ‘Oh I want to book some annual leave, which system do I need to use?’… and for our staff, they don’t want to think like that because they’re used to running care homes and delivering care and support, they’re not IT savvy people.
By introducing Access Workspace, workers can now use a single log-in wherever they are to book their annual leave, look at payslips, confirm their hours, and more. This has enabled Outlook Care and their staff to utilise all of their solutions despite the dispersed nature of the business. This not only minimises the risk of errors and data loss, but it saves employees time and effort, enabling them to focus on what matters, providing quality care to their patients.
“For us, that’s really important. I think it’s what our staff have clearly been crying out for for some time.”
The secret ingredient: A good working relationship
Katie has benefitted from a great relationship with Access right from the beginning. Before choosing Access as their supplier, Katie researched the offerings available in the market that suited Outlook’s needs.Having done her research, Katie attended trade fairs, where she first made contact with Access.
Katie says that from the beginning she felt the relationship with Access was relaxed and open. During these events, Katie also appreciated the opportunity to drill down into the details that were pertinent to Outlook Care and the information she needed to make her decision.
Having selected Access as her supplier, this relationship has continued to strengthen:
We have a good working relationship with Access… They have worked with us to deliver solutions that enable our business.
This relationship continues to be key to the ongoing success of the software solutions implemented at Outlook Care. As the business grows, Katie maintains regular contact with her account manager to ensure the solutions in place are working as well as they can for them. Katie and her colleagues have also been able to attend Access-hosted events where they get insight into the future developments and opportunities Access software provides, as well as time with experts and gurus who are able to offer tailored advice on her solutions, which she finds invaluable.
“Access events are really important, certainly for me as a customer… We’re in healthcare so we don’t have lots of money. To find funding for IT has been traditionally very difficult so to have those events inspires people to move forward and think actually we do need to develop our products further.”
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