Horizon Eye Care is a leading full-service eye practice firm that serves the greater Charlotte area of North Carolina, with offices in six locations. Horizon Eye Care is different from typical eye care specialist facilities because physicians offer a realm of different eye care treatments within each location, from Lasik surgery, optical care, to a department just for contact lenses.
With multiple entities, departments, and locations, Horizon Eye Care needed a solution that would function with each of their entities and offices. Sandra Miller, Horizon Eye Care’s controller, worked with Dean Dorton to find an accounting solution that could handle multiple entities and deliver reporting to fit their specific needs.
THE CHALLENGE
Multiple departments within multiple locations can create chaos for financial management if a company’s accounting solution cannot handle these types of complexities. Before switching to Sage Intacct, Horizon Eye Care was using a legacy software product, Sage 500, as their financial management system.
One of the biggest challenges that the finance team at Horizon Eye Care faced with Sage 500 was that each legal entity required a separate database, which meant they each had a separate chart of accounts and the corporate office lacked full visibility for all locations. Horizon Eye Care needed a solution that offered one chart of accounts and real-time insight into all locations.
Another side-effect of the multiple, separate database requirement was the need for multiple login sessions to access the accounting system. This often led to confusion and frustration for team members as they moved back and forth between entities. Additionally, since Sage 500 was an antiquated system, there were no training manuals or support teams for Horizon Eye Care to turn to for any assistance.
The Solution
The decision to move to a different accounting system came when Horizon Eye Care discovered Sage 500 would be phased out by 2019. It was at this point that the business knew that their on-premise version would no longer be supported and that they were going to lose their software’s capabilities. Miller immediately began looking for a different solution. After looking at three different systems, an accounting firm recommended Sage Intacct. Horizon then decided to make the move to the cloud.
“The decision to move to a different accounting system came when Horizon Eye Care discovered Sage 500 would be phased out by 2019. It was at this point that the business knew that their on-premise version would no longer be supported and that they were going to lose their software’s capabilities. Miller immediately began looking for a different solution. After looking at three different systems, an accounting firm recommended Sage Intacct. Horizon then decided to make the move to the cloud.”
— SANDRA MILLER, CONTROLLER, HORIZON EYE CARE
As a multi-entity company, Horizon Eye Care had specific reporting needs. For example, since each of the six locations has multiple departments, physicians liked to have the ability to compare profit/loss statement by locations and department. Additionally, expenses were broken out by physicians, as some are labeled employed vs. shareholders. With Sage Intacct’s dimension modules, all of these relationships can be tracked smoothly.
With Sage Intacct, all of Horizon Eye Care’s data is stored offsite, eliminating the need for an in-house server that has to be monitored and backed up. The finance team can also access the accounting software offsite and do work from anywhere, any device, at any time.
Results with Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct has saved time for the Horizon Eye Care finance team. By automating the AP process, Miller’s team spends less time uploading files to the bank for processing checks, positive pay, and voiding and re-issuing checks.
With Sage Intacct, the business now has the ability to upload large volumes of data efficiently, edit journal entries, and reclassify AP invoices if the accounting period is still open.
Having one chart of accounts and one set of vendors has created efficiencies across all Horizon Eye Care companies. Sage Intacct ERP software gives the finance team the flexibility to create financial statements in a variety of formats and in different dimensions for all locations, departments, and physicians.
“The ‘duplicate’ option is one of the best features. Once you have a basic report created, you can use the duplicate feature, rename the report, and choose another set of dimensions to create the same report for a different location. We have not been disappointed.”
— SANDRA MILLER, CONTROLLER, HORIZON EYE CARE
“Working with Dean Dorton has been a wonderful experience. I don’t think I could have asked for better.”
— SANDRA MILLER, CONTROLLER, HORIZON EYE CARE