Handsale Care Homes Adopt PLANERGY to Streamline Procurement & Strengthen Budget Control
- Company Overview
Handsale Care Homes operates five care facilities across England, Scotland, and Wales, offering the highest-quality care and support.
- Why PLANERGY
Handsale Care Homes adopted PLANERGY to eliminate inefficiencies caused by outdated, manual systems. They needed a user-friendly platform that could streamline procurement, automate invoice processing, and provide real-time budget control to scale across multiple care home locations.
Key Challenges
- Purchase orders (POs) were raised on-site, and invoices scanned weekly before being printed and manually entered into Sage accounting software.
- The head office lacked storage space for all the paper produced. This meant off-site storage for files was required.
- Finding historical invoices was time-consuming, slowing decision-making and audits.
- The existing system lacked proper budgetary control, making it difficult to track departmental spending.
Key Benefits
- All purchase orders and invoices were digitized, ending manual entry into Sage and eliminating physical filing.
- Removal of off-site storage needs, reducing costs and streamlining document management.
- Historical invoices can be retrieved instantly within PLANERGY, speeding up decision-making and audits.
- Real-time budget tracking ensures departmental spend stays within limits, improving financial control and visibility.
The Story
Customer
Handsale Care Homes
Key client
Finance Manager
Industry
Assisted Living & Care Homes
Company Size
30+ employees
Before PLANERGY
Handsale’s software lacked the automation, visibility, and budget management feautres needed for a modern care home environment. Purchase orders were raised manually, and invoices had to be scanned, then printed and entered by hand.
Paper records had to be archived off-site, incurring additional costs. Retrieving historical invoices for audits was time-consuming, slowing down operations and reducing financial transparency
Without real-time access to data, managers were dependent on the finance team for information. This delayed budgeting decisions. Moreover, the lack of integrated budget controls made it difficult to track departmental spending accurately.
Handsale’s Finance Manager recognized the urgent need for digital transformation. After evaluating many procurement platforms, he found that PLANERGY stood out for its ease of use, scalability, and seamless integration with Sage.
After PLANERGY
As Rakesh noted, “Before PLANERGY, area managers had to request information from the finance team. Now, they can retrieve what they need themselves, speeding up decision-making.”
PLANERGY’s real-time budget monitoring ensures that care home managers stay within allocated budgets for key categories such as food, maintenance, and activities. The system’s ability to handle high-volume, low-value transactions streamlines invoice processing without overwhelming staff, a key requirement in the care home industry’s fast-paced environment.
The impact of PLANERGY has been easy to measure. Invoice processing time has dropped from five to three days per week, allowing for 40% time savings and staff reallocation. Month-end reporting, which previously took 45 days, now takes only 30.
Off-site storage costs have been eliminated entirely, and duplicate invoices, once frequent, are no longer an issue. These changes have improved compliance, boosted accuracy, and delivered significant cost savings.
PLANERGY also enhances petty cash management by digitizing transactions and generating consolidated reports for easy retrieval. This has streamlined a traditionally cumbersome process and improved financial transparency.
Handsale benefits from its membership in Spectrum, a UK-based Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) that secures supplier discounts. PLANERGY complements this by tracking pricing trends and vendor performance, ensuring maximum savings and quality. Its Price Watch feature alerts staff to changes in supplier costs, enabling them to act quickly and negotiate better deals.
Looking ahead, Handsale plans to expand PLANERGY’s role by adopting its Expense Management Module. This will enable care home staff to capture and upload receipts via mobile devices, further simplifying the management of high-volume, low-value expenses—especially those related to petty cash.
PLANERGY has revolutionized operations at Handsale Care Homes. With its robust automation, budget control, and scalability, PLANERGY stands out as a game-changer for care homes striving for efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness.
Testimonials
“PLANERGY’s flexibility, ease of use, and comprehensive features make it the perfect fit for any care home operator managing high volumes of transaction.”
Rakesh Patel
Finance Manager
Read More Assisted Living & Care Home Case Studies
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