Avalon Healthcare

Health Care Solutions Provider Improves Financial Planning and Analysis with NetSuite Planning and Budgeting

Working with MindStream Analytics, Avalon Healthcare Solutions adopts NetSuite Planning and Budgeting to accelerate budgeting and forecasting processes.

Based in Tampa FL, Avalon Healthcare Solutions has developed the world's first Lab Insights System to generate actionable insights in real-time and at scale to help payers and providers optimize treatments, improve outcomes and decrease overall cost. This all starts with lab testing, which is the gateway to appropriate diagnosis and treatment care.

"The NetSuite tool has very strong capabilities and the ability to give us the cash flow statements that we need, as well as the analysis of our AR." Osman Gruhonjic, VP Finance, and Controller, Avalon Healthcare Solutions

The company generates actionable lab-driven insights in real-time to proactively ensure appropriate care and enhance clinical outcomes. "As a result, we all save. Not just dollars. But we save time, waste, and uncertainty," said Osman Gruhonjic, VP Finance, and Controller. "We also build momentum for value-driven care."

Managing two different sides of the health care transaction is never straightforward. Avalon contracts with health plans, receives payments from those plans, and then uses the resources to manage two different lab networks, both Avalon's and the health plan's, all while helping to drive costs out of the system.

"We have that element of upstream and downstream processing of transactions," said Gruhonjic, "unlike in the traditional hospital environment, where the focus is on Medicare, Medicaid, self-pay, and other more typical transactions."

Working with NetSuite Alliance Partner MindStream Analytics, Avalon recently implemented NetSuite Planning and Budgeting . The platform enables organizations to implement world-class planning and budgeting functionality across lines of businesses with flexible and customizable deployment options.

With NetSuite Planning and Budgeting in place, Avalon can produce accurate financial statements, including balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements. The company is currently using NetSuite General Ledger (GL) for basic financial reporting and to run reports. "Our accounting team is interfacing with NetSuite Planning and Budgeting on a daily basis," said Gruhonjic.

Next, Avalon plans to format its financial statements in NetSuite Planning and Budgeting to match what is on NetSuite GL. "Then, our accounting team will be able to move from using NetSuite GL financial statements and use financial statements in NetSuite Planning and Budgeting," Gruhonjic said.

Supporting Effective Revenue Planning With myriad different contractual terms and client agreements to manage, detail is incredibly important to Avalon. Gruhonjic said he appreciates how NetSuite Planning and Budgeting allows his team to structure the detail segregated in products and categories that reflect different services.

"NetSuite Planning and Budgeting turns that detail into a solid revenue model that we can incorporate into any scenario that we want," he explained. The company has also started doing quarterly changes to its budget and forecasting to reflect different scenarios. "The tool has very strong capabilities and the ability to give us the cash flow statements that we need, as well as the analysis of our AR."

Gruhonjic can now also generate detailed workplace planning reports. "This really goes beyond budget; literally every forecast and projection that we do reflects the full employee detail," he explained, "including the benefits, current compensation, and other metrics-all of which interface directly with our financial reports-that drive our success and ability to stick to projections and stay within budget."

"That's the next step in our evolution in the use of NetSuite. We want to expand [Planning and Budgeting] to the organization as a whole so that everyone at Avalon becomes a finance expert." States Gruhonjic.

NetSuite Planning and Budgeting also helps Avalon better manage its dynamic budgeting process. Rather than creating a static budget at the end of every year, the company's finance team can create multiple budget scenarios in NetSuite Planning and Budgeting and adjust budgets as needed to reflect changes in the environment.

"I find that to be the key to our success," said Gruhonjic, who likes the granular details that NetSuite Planning and Budgeting provides. "We can be sensitive to every line-item category and every possible change," said Gruhonjic. "Since we started using the tool, we haven't had any budget misses; the detail is there to support everything."

Now ready to roll NetSuite Planning and Budgeting out across all departments, Avalon has successfully used the tool to get its entire financial department working from the same playbook. "We're all on the same page and feel NetSuite Planning and Budgeting needs to be rolled out to our operational leaders so that they can log in, input their own variances and even go to that next level where they do some of their own modeling with the data that's there," said Gruhonjic.

Case Studies

Related Links