Investing in new financial management software requires careful financial analysis. While Sage Intacct for senior living delivers clear operational benefits, CFOs need to understand the financial return on investment. Let's examine the costs, benefits, and typical ROI timeline.
A complete ROI analysis begins with understanding all investment components.
Software Subscription Costs: Sage Intacct pricing is based on entity count and user licenses. A typical six-property senior living organization might invest $30,000-$60,000 annually in subscription costs, depending on configuration and module selection.
While this represents ongoing expense, it includes all software updates, infrastructure, security, and basic support.
Professional implementation services typically represent 1-2x annual subscription cost for the initial implementation. This includes system configuration, data migration, integration development, custom report creation, training, and post-go-live support.
For our example organization, implementation might cost $40,000-$80,000 as a one-time investment.
Organizations must invest internal staff time in requirements definition, data cleanup and validation, testing and user acceptance, training participation, and process documentation.
Budget approximately 160-240 hours of internal time for a six-property implementation.
After implementation of your senior living financial software, budget for annual subscription costs, any additional integration or customization, ongoing training for new staff, and potential expanded functionality.
For our example organization, total first-year investment might be annual subscription of $40,000, implementation services of $60,000, internal resource costs of $20,000, and initial training of $5,000, totaling approximately $125,000.
Now let's examine measurable financial benefits.
Automation and elimination of manual processes deliver the most immediate ROI. Consider time savings in accounts payable processing (50-70% reduction), month-end close process (40-60% reduction), financial reporting (60-80% reduction), and bank reconciliation (70-90% reduction).
For an accounting team spending 6,000 hours annually on these activities, a 50% reduction saves 3,000 hours.
At a loaded cost of $40 per hour, that's $120,000 in annual labor savings.
Organizations typically redeploy this time to higher-value activities rather than eliminating positions, but the value is real.
Manual processes create errors requiring correction time and sometimes resulting in direct costs through duplicate payments, missed discounts, late payment penalties, and compliance issues. Conservative estimates suggest error reduction saves $10,000-$20,000 annually.
Automated AP workflows enable consistent capture of early payment discounts. Organizations processing $3 million annually in vendor payments might capture an additional $20,000-$40,000 in 1-2% discounts.
Real-time cash visibility and forecasting enables better cash deployment, reduces the need for credit lines, optimizes investment of excess cash, and prevents overdraft fees. Conservative value: $15,000-$25,000 annually.
External auditors spend less time when organizations have modern, well-controlled ERP for senior living. Reduced audit hours might save $10,000-$15,000 annually.
Without scalable systems, adding properties requires proportional increases in accounting staff. Sage Intacct enables growth without proportional headcount increases.
For organizations planning growth, this represents significant future value.
Strong financial controls reduce fraud risk, compliance penalties, and operational disruptions. While difficult to quantify precisely, organizations should factor in fraud prevention value, compliance cost avoidance, and insurance and bonding cost reductions.
Conservative value: $20,000-$40,000 annually.
For our example organization, quantifiable annual benefits might include labor efficiency savings of $120,000, error reduction savings of $15,000, discount capture of $30,000, improved cash management of $20,000, audit cost reduction of $12,000, and risk mitigation of $30,000, totaling $227,000 in annual benefits.
First-year ROI: ($227,000 in benefits - $125,000 in costs) / $125,000 = 82% ROI in year one
Subsequent years: ($227,000 in benefits - $40,000 subscription) / $40,000 = 468% ROI
Payback period: Approximately 7 months
Beyond measurable financial returns, organizations gain significant value from better decision-making through current data, strategic capability from freed accounting capacity, competitive advantage from operational excellence, staff satisfaction from modern tools, and scalability for growth.
These benefits are real even if difficult to quantify precisely.
Your organization's specific ROI depends on several factors including current system limitations and manual process burden, organization size and complexity, implementation quality and change management, and commitment to process improvement.
Organizations with more manual processes and complexity typically achieve higher ROI.
ROI projections assume successful implementation and adoption. Risks include inadequate change management, insufficient training, poor data quality during migration, and scope creep during implementation.
Working with an experienced implementation partner like Blytheco significantly reduces these risks.
Few technology investments offer the combination of strong financial ROI, reduced operational risk, and strategic capability that modern financial management systems provide.
For growing senior living organizations, the question isn't whether to invest in proper financial systems, but when. Delaying the investment means continued inefficiency, risk, and opportunity cost.
Some organizations consider building custom solutions or continuing with inadequate systems. Custom development typically costs 3-5x commercial solutions and creates ongoing maintenance obligations.
Continuing with inadequate systems incurs hidden costs in inefficiency, errors, limited growth capability, and competitive disadvantage.
Sage Intacct offers the best balance of capability, cost, and implementation risk for most mid-sized senior living organizations.
Schedule a consultation with Blytheco to discuss your specific situation and explore whether Sage Intacct is the right solution or reach out to solutions@blytheco.com to learn more.
Sage Intacct Solutions Engineer
Todd has over two decades of experience in marketing, sales, presales, and professional services and held roles as Director of IT and CFO. Throughout his career, he successfully established and developed nine practices from the ground up. This experience equipped him with a proven track record of implementing and managing various accounting and ancillary software solutions, including Sage Intacct. He leverages his vast business and software background to lead companies to successful and efficient solutions.
