Many senior living teams start the same way: the Electronic Health Record (EHR) runs care, and the books live in the EHR’s rudimentary GL or in multiple QuickBooks files. It works — until growth, lenders, and weekly performance reviews demand apples-to-apples reporting across communities. That’s when a connected approach pays off. Keep resident care and services in the EHR software your teams know. Run accounting, consolidations, and reporting on a purpose-built cloud finance platform. Connect the two and let leaders study the business without leaving the system.
This post lays out when that shift makes sense, what improves when you do it, and how we can help you pair Sage Intacct with your EHR software (e.g., ALIS by Medtelligent) so finance and operations move in the same direction.
Two systems, one story
Call it a best-of-breed or best-in-class approach, it’s a simple matter of the right tool for the right job. Your EHR software handles resident activity and clinical documentation, including census, level-of-care updates, services delivered, eMAR (electronic Medical Administration Record), and staff notes. A connected cloud finance platform handles the work finance is judged on, including multi-entity accounting, intercompany transaction processing, allocations and eliminations, roll-ups, audit trail, and executive reporting, with planning on the same structure you close on.
Some EHRs go beyond basic GL with billing/AR and light AP or purchasing. These tools support clinical workflows but struggle with the financial tasks that scale — multi-entity AP, intercompany transactions, consolidations, and audit workflows. That’s where a dedicated cloud accounting hub proves its value.
The boundary between systems is deliberate. Finance needs counts, levels, dates, dollars, payer context, and basic service detail mapped to dimensions such as community, level of care, and service line. Clinical information stays in the EHR. That keeps protected health information where it belongs and gives auditors a clear line, while finance still gets what it needs to run the business.
Signs you have outgrown the EHR’s GL (and what changes after)
A short reality check is usually enough to tell whether you’ve outgrown the EHR’s GL:
- Portfolio-to-community reporting takes exports and elbow grease, so weekly ops meetings spend time reconciling instead of deciding.
- Close and consolidation dates slip because intercompany and eliminations turn into side projects.
- Lender requests trigger a spreadsheet scramble before the covenant package is ready.
- Budget season turns into translation season because planning doesn’t share dimensions with actuals.
- New communities take too long to adopt the standard chart and reporting model.
When care and finance are linked, the rhythm shifts. Finance reviews the portfolio first, then explores a community without leaving the system. Revenue connects to the subledger. AR aging begins clear. Cash provides a dependable morning overview. Variances are explained while they still matter. Planning aligns with the same dimensions as the GL, so plan-versus-actuals becomes a conversation, not a rewrite.
If you use ALIS by Medtelligent for resident billing, census and service detail, that information maps cleanly to finance when your dimensions mirror how you operate. Most EHR software can share the minimum needed set on a schedule or through an API while keeping clinical detail where it lives today.
One senior living group we work with used to spend over 20 hours a week collecting, combining, and formatting reports. We wired statistical data (like census) from ALIS by Medtelligent into Sage Intacct and delivered a single set of financials automatically to stakeholders. Their Executive VP told us the shift let the team spend time on the real work — solving problems and improving operations — instead of assembling spreadsheets.
Why the accounting side should be purpose-built
A dedicated cloud finance solution puts multi-entity at the core and dimensions that match how senior living actually runs. Intercompany transactions, eliminations, and roll-ups behave like routine work rather than one-off heroics. Approvals, attachments, and immutable logs travel with each transaction, so you can easily show your work to lenders, investors and auditors. Executive views open at the portfolio level and drill into communities without exporting anything, which means leaders see the same story finance closes on.
That combination is difficult to replicate inside an EHR’s basic ledger once acquisitions and entity changes enter the picture. The best-in-class approach solves the either-or dilemma. Operations keep their system. Finance gets the hub it needs. The connection between them carries a small set of well-defined fields, so both sides stay fast and compliant.
How BT Partners and Sage Intacct fit
Sage Intacct aligns with senior living: multi-entity accounting is native, the dimensional GL mirrors communities and care lines, and integrations are dependable.
We’ve implemented and supported Sage Intacct for senior living operators across complex, multi-entity environments. Our team shapes a dimensional chart that mirrors your operation, maps EHR activity into finance without moving PHI, establishes a steady posting cadence, aligns approvals and audit trails with your policies, and sets up simple integration health checks. You get lender and audit views you’ll reuse and a weekly rhythm that feels calmer because the numbers arrive on time and in the same language leaders use.
Use as callout:
“The efficiencies are huge. We’ve nearly doubled our entities and still have the same accounting headcount.” –Jason Parrott, Director of Finance, Bayshire Senior Communities
Where to from here?
When finance and operations are connected, the week runs smoother: one set of numbers, cleaner roll-ups, and answers that stand up with lenders and auditors. We help senior living teams link their EHR software — including ALIS by Medtelligent — to Sage Intacct in a way that keeps PHI where it belongs and gives leaders a clear view they trust. If you’d like to talk through what that could look like for your portfolio, the BT Partners team is always up for a conversation.
