October round up

With everything involved in exhibiting at the Care Show in Birmingham in October we didn't manage to get an update out in September, so this update covers new features and improvements for both.

In September we launched the new target metrics dashboard for CareHQ, whilst in October we focused on delivering improvements for our Direct Debit and reconciliation functionality along with more options for exporting to external accounting tools via the common journal export.

We also added 16 new video guides covering billing tasks, Direct Debit and a number of other frequently requested topics.

Target metrics

The new target metrics feature allows providers to set care homes (locations) monthly targets for key performance metrics including:

• Admissions
• Average days to admission
• Average weekly fee
• Deaths
• Discharges
• Enquiries
• Enquiry conversion rate
• Occupancy (average and headcount)
• Overdue actions
• Permanent vs Respite occupancy
• Private vs Funded occupancy
• Respite to permanent conversion rate

Targets can be set in advance either manually or in bulk by uploading a spreadsheet of monthly targets for multiple locations. Once targets are set the default dashboard becomes the target metrics dashboard, ensuring users see the performance of their location or locations (regional managers) each time they sign in. For account owners and regional managers a breakdown is available showing the performance of individual locations. Users can also set the order of target metrics on their dashboard (via drag and drop) so that priority metrics are shown first.

We plan to add a number of additional metrics in the future and are gathering feedback from clients using target metrics as to what additional metrics would prove useful. If you'd like help setting up target metrics within your account please get in touch in with our support team who can talk you through the process of setting targets in just a few minutes.

Improvements when reconciling payment receipts

The receipt reconciler now automatically handles overpayments, clawbacks and over clawbacks, reducing the time it takes to reconcile even the largest remittance advice to minutes. We've also made it easier to find the relevant invoices for remittance by showing you the date range an invoice covers (e.g. the period of care invoiced for) and the LA patient Id and NHS BroadCare number.

You can also upload a remittance advice (such as a PDF or Word document) against a receipt, ensuring a record of the remittance advice is available for a receipt should you need to look back.

Common journal exports

Earlier this year we introduced an OpenAccounts integration allowing you to export general ledger and cashbook journal entries from CareHQ and import them into OpenAccounts. Since then we've had requests for similar functionality for a number of other account applications. Unfortunately developing dedicated integrations for individual accounting applications takes time and can delay a move to CareHQ whilst we implement them.

To address this issue we've developed a new common journal export which can be configured to export for a wide array of accounting applications and client setups.

The common journal export allows us to provide a journal export for invoices, credit notes, payments, returns, refunds and write-offs, common to all accounts applications, and configure the resulting export in a format compatible with your existing setup and accounts application - crucially without the need to write a dedicated integration.

A typical configuration for an accounts application CareHQ hasn't previously integrated with now takes hours not weeks, allowing us to reduce the time it takes to onboard providers using our billing and reconciliation functionality.

Other updates & fixes

• Support for importing invoices in bulk has been added to the import engine.
• Service user key contacts listings added at account and location level.
• Added new video guides for the following topics:

• Adding a bank account to CareHQ
• Location financial settings and payment instructions
• Adding a resident as a Regional or Head Office user
• Adding a key contact to a resident record and setting them up for billing
• Adding a document to a resident record
• Editing or cancelling a booking before it is due to start
• Enabling billing for a resident and setting up the billing contract
• How to set up a fixed monthly billing and how it is calculated
• Setting up a linked contract
• Mid month admission invoice
• Setting up billable extras
• How to create a credit note
• How to create a credit note and apply a credit note, or refund to cash
• Setting up company Direct Debit
• Setting up a resident / key contact Direct Debit mandate
• Running a Direct Debit Schedule and creating the collection file

• Exporting data in Microsoft Excel format has been optimised, reducing export times by approx. 10%.
• Optimisations made to the location performance report to improve load times for larger providers, reducing load times by up to 50%.
• The Respite to permanent report export now includes a sheet containing details of the service users that make up the report.
• A list of email addresses to notify when a service user passes away can now be set against a billing party (for example a local authority or ICB).
• Where applicable, Regional managers can now list invoices for all the locations in their scope and bulk approve invoices. Previously regional managers could only list invoices for one location at a time and had to approve invoices on a per invoice basis.
• Absences are now displayed on the room chart.
• Added a new notification event for when a financial email (invoice, statement, etc.) fails to be delivered. As with all events, a group of users and/or emails to notify on such an event can be configured within the Account > Notifications area.
• Added the service user account code as a separate column to the Billing review and Occupancy reports as well as the Xero export report.
• You can now add a service user expense (e.g. haircut, chiropodist, etc.) to multiple service users at a time.
• Invoices and credit notes can now be exported for Xero or Quickbooks in a single file/export; previously they had to be exported as separate files.
• Manually generated invoice line items can now be assigned to contracts and billing periods when created to address a discrepancy identified by the billing review report.
• Actions generated for missing required documents where the service user hasn't yet moved in are now given a due date 2 days before their check-in date (previously the action's due date was the current date which was often too far in advance to be practical).
• We now offer an additional approach when determining the primary funding source for a service user. The current method remains, where the largest contribution determines the primary funding source, but we now offer an alternative method where the list is prioritised by funder type. In this method LA or CHC funding is always prioritised over private contributions based on the following list:
  • CHC + Lifestyle
  • LA + Top-up
  • CHC
  • LA
• The payment method assigned to an invoice based on a billing party's preferred method can now be changed for individual invoices. This can be useful in scenarios where a billing party is set up for DD but prefer their deposit invoice by bank transfer.
• We now send a notification email to billing parties when their Direct Debit payment fails.
• A cancellation period can now be set for Direct Debit collections. When set, the advance notice sent to billing parties for collections will show a date by which any cancellation request for the collection must be received.
• When an invoice is marked as in dispute we now automatically remove it from any non-exported Direct Debit collection.
• Direct Debit collection days have been replaced with schedules which provide more flexibility including support for collections based on number of weeks and separate collection dates for service user expenses within the same schedule.
• Prior period adjustments have been added to the Accruals report.
• Payment returns can now be recorded including: Direct Debit returns, Direct Debit indemnity claims, Bounced cheques and credit card receipt recalls.
• Invoice and Direct Debit notice PDFs that need to be posted are now emailed on a per location basis to the relevant department/person at the organisation.
• Invoices can now be filtered by payment method.
• Invoices can now be filtered by communication preference.
• The target metric for actions now includes a separate stat showing the number of currently overdue actions.
• Overpayments are now automatically added when specifying an amount over the value of an invoice within the reconcile process.
• Account codes are now shown for service users and service user contacts in all listings.
• Billing contracts shown against a location contact now show location name and service user account code.
• Billing contracts for location contacts can now be filtered by date and location.
• Listing pages have been updated to be printer friendly.
• The invoice search on the reconcile page now supports searching by patient Id and NHS (BroadCare) number.
• The invoice search results on the reconcile page now show the date range covered by the invoice (e.g. the period of care covered by the invoice).
• Locations can now be flagged as offering Assisted living as a service.
• Invoices and credit notes can now be flagged as relating to a service user's deposit and a deposit balance is now shown on the service user billing page.
• Documents (such as PDFs and images) can now be uploaded against receipts.
• The reference value in Xero CSV exports can now be customised. For example it can be updated to include the date range of care covered by an invoice which can make invoice reconciliation within Xero easier.
• Clawbacks can now be recorded when reconciling invoices (e.g. for local authorities and ICBs).
• The export for the Payment methods report now includes the billing emails and comms preference for each billing party.

• Voided invoices generated for a billing schedule or ruleset no longer prevent modifications of the associated schedule or ruleset.
• Fixed an issue where deleting a service user did not delete associated complaints which could caused an error when exporting the complaints report.
• Discharge notifications are now sent when a service user is discharged but reverts to the pending state due to a future booking.
• Attempting to specify an invalid account name for a bank account now results in a field error explaining the issue; previously a 500 error page would be generated.
• Fixed an error where exporting locations whilst applying a search string would result in an error.
• Fixed an issue with the location performance report export where a service user's deceased date could be incorrect if they had a previous checkout date.
• Added an additional check to prevent Direct debit collections being exported before the new mandate instruction for a collection has been exported.
• The import engine now removes spaces from list values within CSVs (e.g. where values are separated by the pipe | character). Previously spaces around the pipe character could cause the values to be flagged as not matching one of the required options.
• Using the select all helper when generating service user invoices no longer selects service users marked as unavailable to invoice (e.g. when no billing party has been configured for them).
• The tab showing invoices awaiting payment now shows the correct number when looking at invoices for a single location; previously the figure always showed the number of unpaid invoices for all locations.
• The link to a service user key contact within the aged debt by service user report now links to the key contact's record and not the service user record.
• Required documents with an "applies from" date now use the date on which a service user checked in and not the date their most recent booking started (as this could relate to a different event such as a room or rate change).
• The aged debt report now correctly handles early payments.
• Added additional checks to Tradeshift invoice syncing to prevent sync requests if no reference is in place for the invoice.