The Value of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System in Home Care

If you’re still running your home care business using paper-based systems or multiple, disconnected software packages, you’re likely limiting your ability to scale or grow – and costing yourself an unnecessary amount of time, money, and resources.

Of course, it can feel daunting to consider updating and replacing old systems and changing workflows. There will likely always be a list of reasons why now is not a good time to replace your outdated systems with something more modern, efficient, and secure, like – “It will be too expensive.” “It’ll take too long; we can’t afford the downtime.” “We’ll have to re-train staff to use a new system.” “We’re not really sure what we need.” “Our current system works ‘well enough.’” 

The better question to ask may be – “Can we really afford to wait while our competition advances ahead of us?” 

Leading home care providers serious about enhancing their business operations, improving efficiency across all areas, creating better client and caregiver experiences, reducing costs, accessing accurate business data and insights, and positioning themselves for growth, are finding that now is actually the perfect time to move forward with advanced technologies to improve operations.

The good news is that there is a single, unified system that can replace everything you currently use, that will work across your entire organization, is quick and easy to implement, can be customized to your specific needs, and will maximize your business’s efficiency and profitability from day one.

And that system is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System. 

In this article, you will learn:

• What is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system?
• Is Smartcare Software an ERP system?
• Isn’t ERP software only for larger businesses or specific industries?
• How much does an ERP system cost?
• What is the ROI potential of an ERP system?
• How can Smartcare’s ERP system improve my home care business performance – and bottom line?
• Want to learn more?

What is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system?

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a type of software that organizations can use to manage all their everyday business activities from the same centralized hub, including human resources, finances, CRM, risk management, marketing, compliance, and much more.

It is a fully integrated system that connects all these different aspects of a business together, rather than having separate, disparate or disconnected systems that don’t ‘speak’ to each other or share information.

Acting as a central hub for end-to-end workflow and data, an ERP system allows businesses to automate, streamline and standardize various functions and processes for maximum efficiency, and share accurate information across all departments – integrating people, processes, and technologies across the entire organization.

As well as supporting multiple functions across a business, a good ERP system is highly flexible and configurable. It will also include performance management software that helps to plan, budget, forecast, and report on financial results.

Data is the lifeblood of every modern business, and the shared database provided by an ERP system makes it easier to collect, organize, analyze, and distribute information to everyone that needs it to best perform their roles and responsibilities. It brings order to chaos and guarantees that the data available is always correct, up-to-date, complete, and secure. 

The many tools an ERP system provides serve to increase business efficiencies and reduce costs – through automating, streamlining, and standardizing tasks and processes – as well as collecting, storing, and sharing accurate information across an organization to drive better business decisions and unlock new growth opportunities.

Is Smartcare Software an ERP system?

Yes. Smartcare is a complete, all-in-one software platform designed specifically for home care providers, and offers two crucial elements:

1. An integrated electronic client record system – to manage medical information and non-medical personal care services.
2. An enterprise management solution – a modern ERP that provides all the tools needed to manage vital day-to-day business processes, share information through a central hub, and gain greater visibility into operations through insights and business intelligence (BI). 

Smartcare’s ERP solution brings everything you need to run your entire business efficiently and effectively into one system, connecting all areas of your business with one another to create a unified strategy for operational excellence and continuous improvement.

With tools for sales and marketing, hiring and onboarding, scheduling, client engagement and satisfaction tracking, caregiver management, billing and payroll, and much more – all embedded within one system – Smartcare replaces multiple systems with just one. This not only saves your business time and money but also places you in a strong position for success and sustainable growth.

Isn’t ERP software just for larger businesses or specific industries?

Not at all. All industries can benefit from ERP systems – regardless of size and specialty.

In the past, ERP systems were only accessible to larger firms due to the high implementation costs, software licensing, hardware, and maintenance. However, with the emergence of secure cloud-based ERP solutions, these costs have greatly reduced, enabling small- and medium-sized businesses to enjoy all the advantages that come with having an ERP system at a fraction of the cost. 

An ERP system is beneficial for businesses of all types and sizes, as it provides a wide range of tools and features to optimize the management of data and processes, with built-in flexibility that allows it to be customized and scaled to evolve with a business as it grows. 

Today’s ERP options can work for every business – and, more importantly, are now affordable for every business too.

How much does an ERP system cost?

Many factors can affect the cost of implementing, running, and maintaining an ERP system and will depend on each business’s unique needs. For example, the company’s size, the number of users, customization required, training, and the complexity of the business will all influence the final ERP system cost.

The most advanced systems today are cloud-based and use world-class, cloud-hosting platforms and security such as AWS to further reduce overall costs and scale with you as your business needs change.

A reasonable estimate for ERP implementation and maintenance costs would be 1–5% of a business’s annual revenue, including training.

Smartcare Software’s ERP solution – specifically designed for home care providers – comes in at the lower end of these industry averages, providing maximum value for minimum investment.

What is the ROI potential of an ERP system?

When considering the costs involved in adopting an ERP system, it’s important to remember that a successfully implemented system will bring enormous benefits to your business. For example, it will give your business unparalleled insights into its performance and open up new opportunities to drive revenue while cutting costs and saving valuable time and resources. 

So, attention to the ROI (return on investment) potential shouldn’t be overlooked when weighing up the pros and cons of an ERP investment. 

As the right ERP system will touch so many different aspects of your business, quantifying its impact can be challenging. You’ll need to consider both hard and soft ROI measures to get a holistic understanding.

The “hard” ROI will be easier to assign a quantifiable value, such as cost reductions and revenue gains. For example, using Smartcare’s ENGAGE Hiring Hub will improve the efficiency of your hiring process, saving your business a significant amount of time and cost. Likewise, the payroll management and processing tools embedded within the system will improve accuracy, speed, and compliance, improve reporting and analytics, and save you up to 75% in payroll admin time. 

ROI = (total value of investment – total cost of investment) / total cost of investment x 100%

The indirect or “soft” ROI is not as easy to quantify or measure against financial goals but should be considered alongside hard ROI results. “Soft” ROI may not immediately affect your financial targets but will, nonetheless, have an immense impact on your business’s success and financial return down the line. 

For example, with Smartcare’s caregiver management and embedded reward tools you’ll see increased caregiver productivity, satisfaction and retention, and a boost to your employer brand, and employee referrals. Likewise, Smartcare’s client and family portal and embedded satisfaction tracking tools will improve your clients’ engagement and satisfaction and increase word-of-mouth referrals.

It’s important to note that ERP returns typically increase over the first 2–3 years after implementation, once staff is fully trained and new opportunities and efficiencies are unlocked, driving even better results.

How can Smartcare’s ERP system improve my home care business performance – and bottom line?

The best way to answer this question is to share some of the feedback we’ve received directly from our existing home care customers. Here are the top ten business gains they’ve enjoyed in their first few years of working with Smartcare Software’s ERP system:

1. Significant time saving for management and staff

The biggest win that all our customers report is the sheer amount of time the system saves them, with many thanking us for giving them back their weekends!

Not only does Smartcare Software save time by maximizing efficiencies in all your day-to-day business processes such as scheduling and billing, but it’s also highly accurate and fully compliant, significantly reducing the number of errors and/or complaints received.

2. Lower management and operational costs

As Smartcare is a complete, comprehensive system, it eliminates the need for separate software packages for different processes. This saves our customers money in terms of data re-entry, multiple licensing fees, software plug-ins, error reduction, and training staff on separate packages. 

In addition, by streamlining and automating many business processes – improving overall operational efficiency – our customers see a considerable reduction in management and operational costs, reporting higher profits over time.

3. Increased caregiver engagement and satisfaction = higher retention levels

Smartcare’s home care solution provides numerous tools to increase caregiver engagement and satisfaction, resulting in retention rates 3x higher than the industry average.

From tools that simplify care management, enhance caregiver/client relationships, and deliver secure communication via a mobile app, to flexible scheduling, an integrated training platform, and an embedded caregiver rewards system – it’s no wonder our customers report higher caregiver engagement and job satisfaction! And, as an added bonus, higher employee referrals, too.

“We’ve been using Smartcare for three years, and I love it! Our caregiver engagement is outstanding, and Smartcare’s integrated tools help us to hold on to our care team.”

Tim N.

”Retaining caregivers is such a challenge today. We are really pleased to have found Smartcare to help us achieve caregiver retention rates that are over twice as good as other agencies we compete against in our market. Smartcare engagement tools and secure chatting lets us maintain a connection with our remote teams. I don’t know what I would do without Smartcare.”

Adalynn T.

4. Improved client and family engagement, and satisfaction scores

Finding ways to interact with clients and families at every touchpoint while delivering the best care possible was challenging for many of our customers before they started using Smartcare. 

They understood that delivering a flawless patient/client experience was crucial to ensuring positive outcomes, generating referrals, and growing their home care business, but they needed to find the right technology to support their efforts.

This is where Smartcare’s client/caregiver matching tools, scheduling, caregiver workflow efficiencies, client and family portal, and satisfaction tracking come into their own, delivering a consistently outstanding patient/client experience. 

“Using Smartcare, we grew our business from 4 clients to 50 without adding any back-office staff. Smartcare was key to our success in maintaining higher engagement with our staff, caregivers, and clients, allowing us to provide better care and increased customer satisfaction.”

Mike V. 

5. Reduced time-to-hire and cost-to-hire

As well as seeing an increase in top-quality caregiver applicants, many of our customers have found Smartcare’s ENGAGE Hiring Hub to be a huge advantage in growing their talent pool.

This comprehensive applicant tracking system (ATS) is designed to address the unique challenges of attracting and hiring the best caregiver candidates – using automation and advanced communication tools – and significantly reduces time-to-hire and cost-to-hire, all without leaving the Smartcare platform.

“Without Smartcare, I wouldn’t have been able to grow from 5 caregivers to over 60 caregivers. I’ve eliminated paper applications and forms, so I no longer misplace applications and require applicants to re-fill them out. Smartcare has simplified my hiring process, all the way through to getting my new staff members in the system.”

Durrand A.

“An applicant comes in, and we send them the link. The application is stored right in the Smartcare system. We can click a button to do the background check, and it’s stored right in Smartcare too. We can process whatever type of background check we want. 

It’s all compliant. Everything is maintained in the employee profile. They do their training – we record it in Smartcare. We’ve eliminated filing cabinets upon filing cabinets of paper.”

Katie O.

6. Speedy and accurate payroll processing

One of our customers’ most significant pain points was payroll processing, despite using reputable billing and payroll software. The critical issue was that none of the systems they were using ‘spoke’ to each other, resulting in a lot of data re-entry and additional time-consuming manual tasks.

Smartcare’s advanced payroll software, designed specifically to meet the challenges of home care’s multiple pay rates, is embedded within the platform (which tracks employee hours, overtime, etc., in the background). No more endless spreadsheets! With just a few clicks from the dashboard, payroll reports can be run, pay approved, and payments sent to the provider of choice – saving up to 75% in payroll admin time.

Our customers enjoy quicker, easier, more accurate, secure, and compliant payroll management and processing with a fully configurable system to fit their unique needs.

“Smartcare changed how I viewed payroll processing. Before Smartcare, I would dread the weekly task of processing my caregivers’ pay. Now I can quickly process payroll in a few clicks and send it directly to my payroll provider from Smartcare. This has saved me over 75% of my payroll processing time each week.”

Angie M

Smartcare reduced the time it takes to complete payroll from a day-and-a-half to 20 minutes.”

Durrand A.

7. Reduced risk through improved data integrity and security

Smartcare Software is dedicated to keeping its customers’ data safe and secure and has all the necessary safeguards in place to guarantee this, including HIPAA compliance. 

As a result, our customers are confident that all their information (including that of their staff and clients) is safely and correctly stored in one place, which is highly secure and compliant with all data regulations.

Many have acknowledged how much better this makes them feel, removing the worry of potential unauthorized access to confidential or sensitive files previously stored as paper copies. Not to mention the amount of extra storage space they now have available in their offices! 

8. Improved business insights 

Smartcare’s integrated business intelligence tools provide real-time insights from accurate and unified data that help our customers determine how their business is performing – including KPIs for financials, sales and marketing, human resources, business trends, and much more.

Our customers report multiple benefits from having all this information available in just one system. They can visualize trends via customizable KPI dashboards and easily access the metrics needed to analyze performance, monitor progress, improve operations, quickly mitigate issues, plan for growth, and ensure ongoing business success. 

9. Support you can count on

In addition to saving costs by having everything they need to run their business in one system, Smartcare users also report the advantages of having only one number to call if they ever need tech support or want to customize a particular feature. 

Unlike having multiple systems with multiple logins, where it can be difficult to pin down who is responsible for any given issue, using one unified system means Smartcare users always have access to one dedicated tech support team – all located in the US – whenever they need it.

“We’ve streamlined everything from hiring to retention to patient documentation … and it’s all just one platform. We don’t have to use ten different software programs. It’s all in one place, one login, which we can even access on the go from our phones and iPads.”

Katie O.

“Customer service was very important to me when selecting a vendor. When I started talking to Smartcare, I could tell right away their approach was different than the typical SaaS providers. The team there was very hands-on throughout the process. Smartcare didn’t disappoint, and the responsiveness from their entire team continues to this day. Smartcare demonstrates daily their commitment to ensuring our agency is successful.”

Durrand A.

“We moved from paper and decided to go with Smartcare because of their implementation process. We had a dedicated Smartcare resource holding our hands through the entire process. I was really impressed with how easy it was getting started.”

Mary O. 

10. Beating the competition in the race for new business 

The CRM, sales, and marketing automation solutions embedded within Smartcare’s ERP system give our home care providers a competitive edge. They typically grow their business 3x faster than the average industry standard – achieving first positions in their area. 

With the massive growth coming to home care, these tools place our customers in a prime position to capitalize on the expanding market – attracting more clients, tracking leads and responding to them more quickly, building stronger relationships with referral sources, and snapping up new business before their competitors.

“We signed up with Smartcare because of their easy-to-use scheduling solution and mobile app for EVV, but it was their marketing automation suite that really made a difference for us. It took our agency from the middle of our market to the clear leader in care for our area. We couldn’t have done that without their comprehensive CRM tools.”

Alina S.

Want to learn more?

Are you thinking about updating or replacing your current systems and adapting to an ERP system specifically designed for home care? 

Would you like to see your home care business operations run super efficiently, optimized for maximum profitability and sustainable growth?

Do you want accurate business information at your fingertips at all times, to help you make data-driven decisions and successfully move your home care business forward?

With a comprehensive suite of advanced tools encompassing every facet of home care service delivery, Smartcare delivers on all these points and provides everything you need to make your business a standout in the market.

If you’d like to see how easy it is to use Smartcare’s software tools to streamline operations and start growing your business successfully, please call our experienced team today or request a demo. We’re here and ready to help your home care business thrive.