Simplified scenario planning with streamlined data entry saves time, adds value

Mountain View Hospital in Idaho Falls was founded in 2002. In addition to its 43-inpatient-bed hospital, the organization has grown to encompass a wide array of specialty practices and services. The variety of departments in the hospital system hits several healthcare needs in the region, including an on-site urgent care service, speech and language therapy, advanced wound care, an infusion center, and a health and fitness academy. Mountain View is also generous with its community involvement and sponsors dozens of charities each year, with events ranging from summer concerts to toy drives.

The hospital recently surpassed 1,000 employees, and currently budgets for just over 60 different departments and cost centers.

Their steady growth trajectory led their Controller, Russel Taylor, to seek a new budgeting and forecast solution. Using their previous Excel-based system, relatively simple modifications posed significant risk of errors because of the formula and format changes needed.

40-tab budget spreadsheets broke their old FP&A process

“Excel had become extremely painful whenever I needed to layer on another acquisition or modify my projections.”

Mountain View Hospital’s expansive budget spreadsheet had grown to over 40 tabs. Performing meaningful what-if scenarios and flexible data reports became prohibitively difficult. With the growth they were projecting, Mountain View would have needed to hire additional staff to continue using Excel for their budgeting and forecasting process.

After considering industry-specific FP&A software as an Excel replacement, Mountain View landed on Centage because of its clean interface and comprehensive what-if scenario planning. Centage’s robust analytics capabilities give Mountain View the metrics they need and the ability to customize report presentations to the format that management was accustomed to, easing the adoption process.

Monthly reports that used to take a day now take half an hour

“It takes less time and there is less hassle. There’s no second guessing. The budgeting process and report generation are a lot quicker, a lot more reliable, and it adds value to decision makers.”

After a one-on-one implementation and training process, Mountain View’s budget was loaded into Centage, along with several prior year actuals. That starting point delivered immediate value by giving Mountain View’s finance and management teams access to variance analyses and reporting capabilities that they weren’t able to capture before.

Formula errors that led to last-minute scrambles and accuracy concerns about a missing cost center in the consolidated budget became an issue of the past.

After month-end, the general ledger trial balance is imported, and the data is validated by the finance team. A data refresh is done, and the package of monthly reports is kicked out and ready for analysis. Each month, this step alone saves a complete day’s work and is performed in just half an hour.

2-3 day data entry process completely eliminated

The budgeting and forecasting process at Mountain View Hospital reflects the hands-on nature of their business. Several department heads now routinely enter their volume and expense expectations directly into the new system.

This streamlined process removed a layer of data entry and gives users instant feedback while eliminating the time spent and potential for mistakes when rekeying the data. This results in a more accurate consolidated budget plan with a bottom-up approach to budget creation.

New scenario planning & reporting capabilities unlocked

“It’s a big leap forward from using Excel for budgeting.”

After switching to Centage, Mountain View’s individual cost center managers were trained to understand how drivers, sales volume, and financial data interact to create more accurate budget and forecast reports. This enabled them to recognize how a seemingly independent cost item would vary with a known metric, unlocking new ways to model and compare scenarios.

Mountain View now saves a significant amount of time each budgeting season by using report templates and pre-built drivers. With Centage, their budgeting process is far less complicated and they see time savings each month, especially when scenario planning or modifications are needed.

Book a demo to learn more about Centage’s formula-free FP&A software.