Accounting Efficiency

Silverado + PAYscan

By Erica Rascón on Jul 8, 2019 in People

About a year ago, Carmin Tomassi, vice president, controller at Silverado, walked through the doors of the Irvine, Calif., headquarters for the first time. He was promptly introduced to all 12 systems used by the AP department. From day one, he knew that greater efficiency would take the organization to the next level. He enlisted Yardi to help make that vision a reality.

Identifying inefficiencies

Silverado’s presence spans the west coast and midwestern United States. Its 59 properties specialize in senior care with an emphasis on assisted living and memory care, as well as hospice and home services. Each location offers a broad range of services for aging seniors. The sites require specialized equipment and steady maintenance.

Each day, the accounts payable team received stacks of invoices in various stages of completion and accuracy. Approvals and reconciliation with the general ledger took days longer than Tomassi preferred.

To create efficiency, he embarked on a campaign with two major goals. The first was to simplify the department’s software use.

“We had maybe a dozen systems that affect accounting. They were all different which was just crazy to me. Even keeping track of your logins was ridiculous,” said Tomassi. “With accounting, things need to talk to each other, and it needs to be seamless. Otherwise, you’re asking for trouble.”

The second goal was to expedite approvals by streamlining the filing process. “AP would arrive in the morning and there would be stacks of invoices in their little baskets: no signatures, no allocations, no coding, no nothing, right? They just kind of dealt with it for a while but I said, ‘No. We’ve got to figure out a way to make this more efficient.’ We also needed metrics so we can track the workflow and make changes.”

Streamlining processes

The Yardi Senior Living Suite unites property management, finance and business oversight on a single platform. The integrated solution improves efficiency and reduces costs.

Yardi PayScan increases cost savings with paperless invoice processing. Online workflows provide consistency, minimize errors, and facilitate timely vendor payments via EFT or automatic check writing.

As the first step in Tomassi’s campaign, Silverado switched from its previous software to PayScan. The system integrates seamlessly with the organization’s Yardi Voyager software.

“It was a really big win for us,” said Tomassi. “Both for the quality of the maintenance and controls. We now make sure that every single invoice gets reviewed.”

Within three weeks, most invoices were processed through PayScan. Tomassi and his team prepared for the second phase of the campaign: using built-in analytics to identify snags in the approvals process.

Tomassi said, “PayScan provides a level of information that we didn’t have before that now we can act on and do something about. It helped the folks in accounting for their part, like really getting people to pay attention to how they’re coding things.”

With a more streamlined process in place, Tomassi is already noticing an improvement in efficacy and lower overhead costs for Silverado.

“PayScan brings a lot of structure. Through attrition, we reduced our AP team by one person,” said Tomassi.

Learn more about the Yardi Senior Living Suite.