Haverhill Community Care

Background

Haverhill Community Care Ltd was incorporated in 2016 by Nathalie Gilder and Lorraine Juniper and started trading in April 2017.
The company offers non-residential care for elderly and disabled people who live in their own homes in the Haverhill area.
In just 18 months Haverhill Community Care has grown from the two directors to a team of twenty eight staff delivering over 700 hours of care a week. Most of the team are carers, employed on a full time and part time basis.
Nathalie is the registered manager and ‘Nominated Individual’ and as such has a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. In addition to running the operational side of the business Nathalie is also a carer. Lorraine’s role with the business is as Quality Assurance and Business Support and carer.

The Challenge

The directors had many years of experience in the community care sector and were passionate about creating a team of care professionals who shared the vision to provide high quality domiciliary care. Neither director had run a business before.
The provision of social care may seem a simple business, in reality it is far more complex. Any organisation within the social care sector is, quite rightly, highly regulated and audited by an external body. Record keeping is a key factor for compliance. The security, availability and integrity of data comes under close scrutiny, there is no margin for error.
It was critical for the directors of the company that they had strong financial management from the outset. They acknowledged that they would need to compensate for their lack of hands on business experience by using trusted advisors and implementing robust systems to reduce their administrative workload. As a young business they would need to be on top of their financials at all times.
The directors also realised that they needed an accounts system that could provide them with real time information and an accountant that was plain speaking and kept things simple.

How 1 Accounts Helped

After meetings with a couple of accountants in Haverhill the directors decided to work with 1 Accounts. They felt more comfortable with Paul because he explained everything in a way that they could understand coming from a ‘non-business’ perspective.
Initially the company was set up to run their accounts on Sage One. However it did not take long for Nathalie and Lorraine to make their mark on the local domiciliary care market and a growing client base meant an increase in the number of carers employed. As Sage One could only operate for a payroll of up to 25 employees Paul recommended a move to Xero in August 2018.
The transition to Xero and set up of the payroll was managed by the 1 Accounts team. Nathalie was trained on the use of the new software and Receipt Bank.
1 Accounts are currently looking into applications that integrate with Xero that could simplify the management of time sheets and allocation of carers.

The Outcome

1 Accounts look after the payroll, book-keeping and accounts for Haverhill Community Care. They provide advice and support to the directors and are always on hand to act as a sounding board when needed.
Nathalie has peace of mind that the financial management of the business is under control and her financial records are accurate, accessible and safe in the ‘cloud’.