Balancing Act

PHOENIX HOUSE FINDS LAWSON SOFTWARE AND VELOCITY TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS THE RIGHT FIT FOR THE UNIQUE NEEDS OF THE NOT-FOR-PROFIT INDUSTRY.

Phoenix House, one of the nation's largest, private, substance abuse treatment agencies, focuses on helping people control their addictions. But its own materials and financial management systems were in need of more comprehensive and sophisticated controls to allow for continued growth and the efficient delivery of services. Faced with the daunting task of reengineering its information technology, Phoenix House used the winning combination of patience and planning to automate and streamline its processes and procedures. Along the way, the agency discovered that the right software and the right consulting partner made all the difference in meeting the unique needs of a not-for-profit entity.

That Was Then...

Phoenix House provides treatment for more than 3,000 adults and adolescents, mostly at residential facilities in New York, Texas, and California. As part of the challenge of providing client room and board on a daily basis, Materials Management is clearly a critical function. Prior to reengineering its systems, Phoenix House manually tracked such key supply processes using Lotus spreadsheets. Typically, creating a requisition meant handwriting an order on paper. Checking the order was often a slow and time-consuming process, as employees shuffled through stacks of paper to find important information.

"When I came to Phoenix House, all we had was an accurate bookkeeping system," says Phoenix House Director of Finance, Kevin Kirchoff. "There was no financial reporting to help us run the organization, except for the most basic information. Instead of an accounts payable system that would bring some science to the process of payables, we had an accounts payable department that simply paid bills. This meant there was no easy way of tracking who got paid, and how much and when they were paid."

...This Is Now

With the Lawson Materials Management and Financial solution, information is now easily accessible and readily available at Phoenix House. The functionality and ability of the Lawson solution has helped prepare the company for the future.

On the Materials Management front, Lawson is a fully-integrated solution that allows users to:

• Create online requisitions
• Electronically route requisition approval
• Track activity from requisition to purchase order or warehouse demand
• Provide three-way match among purchase order, receipt, and invoice
• Generate inventory replenishment reports to notify warehouses to provide just-in-time inventory

"The Lawson solution automates all of the functions we were doing on a manual basis before," Kirchoff explains. "Now we're doing it in less time, with less paperwork. That leaves our residential directors more time to concentrate on their core business - their clients."

Just as Lawson Materials Management has clearly given Phoenix House more control over its processes, the Lawson solution is also providing the tools for the Finance Division to better manage the agency. Like other not-for-profit organizations, Phoenix House has complex financial reporting requirements that are beyond the capabilities of most financial software packages. Specifically, the organization's financial systems must provide integrated information on spending by both internal operating department and external funding source. Compiling the necessary level of detail can be a Herculean task without the proper systems in place.

"The system has met all our needs," Kirchoff says. "It used to take us twelve weeks to close our books, now we're down to three weeks and our goal is to eventually close within one week. At the same time, we're empowering our accountants with the ability to write and generate their own reports. That not only saves time, it eliminates miscommunication between the accountants and MIS."

Detail information is more easily accessible as well. With the Lawson Drill Aroundý capability, accessing information is like riding in an elevator: you can go up and down, but you can also get out and walk around on each floor. When searching for information on the system, users can start out in the General Ledger and use the Drill Around capability to go to Accounts Payable and actually look at an invoice and its payment date. No longer do they have to physically go to the Accounts Payable Department to check if a bill has been paid.

Consultant Credibility Key

The experience of updating its systems has taught Phoenix House that selecting the right total solution of software and consulting firm is critical for success. From the outset, Phoenix House knew that it needed a consulting team with hands-on experience in the not-for-profit sector. The company also wanted a team willing to share their knowledge with the Phoenix House staff.

"We looked at a Big Five consulting firm, but it was simply too huge for our needs, and it didn't have not-for-profit experience," remembers Kirchoff. "We also spoke to a smaller consulting firm, but it didn't seem to have the depth necessary to handle a project of this size. With Velocity Technology Solutions, we have consistently had access to the right level of people, who knew when to step in on a hands-on basis and when to let our people do the work. I'm happy to say that Velocity established that credibility early on and maintained it throughout the duration of our project.

"Velocity started the implementation by holding a Conference Room Pilot where they worked alongside our core client project team - including key contacts in all functional areas - and mapped out our critical business processes. Then they assisted in the development of the training manuals and user documentation while training our internal instructors. Once the knowledge transfer was complete, we were able to roll out the training programs across our internal community on our own," adds Kirchoff.

One month after the training was complete, the Phoenix House system on the East Coast went live - unusual for a business where computer literacy was traditionally low. A few months later, the knowledge transfer from the East Coast implementation enabled the Phoenix House staff to handle its West Coast implementation themselves.

"The two most important things the Velocity team brought us was a sense of independence and a train-the-trainer mentality," Kirchoff says. "They helped us navigate the different levels of management and cultural issues inherent in this type of undertaking. For instance, they recommended that the kickoff letters come from our President's office to ensure the entire organization understood this project's importance. Then they educated our trainers and coached them through their first solo classes until they were comfortable enough to go it on their own. Every step of the way, the Velocity team helped us understand where we were going and how we needed to get there."