Carebase and Sage Data & Analytics

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Background

Carebase is a care provider for elderly people, specializing in nursing, residential and dementia care that is provided in its 14 care homes. To manage its operations successfully the company needed a fully automated process for database maintenance as well as powerful report visualization options, all delivered by a single data hub solution.

Challenges

Carebase was reliant on analytical tools, Power BI and Tableau, for extracting insights from its Sage accounting system. But as finance director, Vasan Velayutham explains, “it wasn't a sustainable solution because someone needed to be constantly refreshing the database that connects the two systems so the numbers remained up-to-date.”

Other issues hampering effective reporting included a lack of visibility and live reporting as well as the need for manual processing that inevitably led to human errors. Ultimately, Carebase felt constricted by its solution and was concerned about how this might eventually impact its operations – and the people it cares for day in, day out.

Solutions

To combat these problems, Vasan and his team spent considerable time vetting compatible data hubs: “We were looking for a long time and tried quite a few – but none worked really well,” he recalls.

However, after trialing Sage Data & Analytics (SD&A) for a month, “everything simply clicked”, says Vasan. The reporting process is now fully automated with zero need for manual input, leading to improved report accuracy as well as auto-updating every hour if required.

The platform’s drilling options have also proven to be a boon, enabling Carebase’s stakeholders to deep dive into the detail behind any visual or number – such as those in P&Ls – by simply double-clicking to reveal further, fully categorized information. “That ability isn’t offered by Power BI or Tableau,” says Vasan. “Instead, you would be confronted with multiple visuals and then separate ones offering the details – it was just too much information.”

Vasan also cites SD&A’s user-friendliness and mobility as key advantages: “People don't have to be in front of their computers all the time,” says Vasan. “Instead, reporting is instantly and securely available via mobile.”

Combined, such powerful functionality means Carebase can now make business decisions faster than ever before because the information is made available so quickly. Crucially for Vasan’s department, SD&A also enables his team to focus solely on providing expert commentary to the board, instead of wasting valuable time and resources putting reports together.

So successful has the transition to SD&A been that Vasan now plans to bring Carebase’s entire operational system onto the platform to create a single source of truth for the company. Compared to Carebase’s previously disparate and manual processes, this represents a game-changer for the organization, one that will support Carebase’s expansion across the UK while ensuring its clients continue to receive the best possible care.

Benefits

• Manual processing is removed entirely with automation delivering error-free reporting
• The process of drilling down into data is massively simplified and easily accessible
• The finance department can now focus solely on providing expert commentary
• The opportunity to create a single source of truth for Carebase in the future