Emerald TC Provides the Remedy for ApolloMD’s Accounting Woes With Sage 500

ApolloMD is a privately held practice that provides physicians for Emergency Medicine, Anesthesia, and Radiology Services to over 60 hospitals across the United States. As the 4th largest and fastest growing company in its industry, ApolloMD has about 500 internal employees and 500-600 independently contracted physicians who work with Apollo. Naturally, Apollo had outgrown their accounting system and Sage 500 could provide that.

ApolloMD’s Accounting System Needed Some TLC

ApolloMD’s corporate office is in Atlanta, Georgia, with several other locations throughout the U.S. However, despite their size, they had been running on QuickBooks for many years—a program that was never designed to run a large company. Patricia Placek, Controller for ApolloMD recalls, “When I came to work with Apollo about four and a half years ago, I was pretty surprised to find them using such a small-scale accounting program. They had definitely outgrown it, and day-to-day operations were slowed and tedious as a result.” At that time, each of the 20 different hospitals that ApolloMD was working with had to be organized into a separate LLC within QuickBooks. This meant that ApolloMD’s staff could only open and work within one company at a time. If they wanted a consolidated statement they had to print and send 20 different statements to an outside accounting firm. As Apollo grew, this became more and more time consuming, not to mention very expensive. In addition, their reporting was extremely difficult and minimal at best. There was no such thing as a “real-time” quick view of their entire organization, making it virtually impossible to know where they stood at any given time.

Ultimately, ApolloMD decided it was time to make a change. Patricia explains, “I had previously worked for two other companies that had contracted Emerald TC for Sage 500 (MAS 500) implementations. I researched several other systems in order to be thorough, but we ultimately determined the Sage product was definitely the best fit for our needs. It is an excellent program for companies who have a lot of ‘intercompany’ activity and are looking for a solution that will improve their operations and make them more efficient. We have 40 to 45 different legal entities and I knew Sage 500 could handle that without any problems. Once the decision was made, I naturally called Emerald TC for help.”

Emerald TC Prescribes Health, Wellness, and a Streamlined Process with Sage 500

Wanting to keep costs as low as possible, ApolloMD asked Patricia to do as much as the implementation as possible, herself; and since she had been through the process twice before, this was a manageable request. She explains, “I talked with Cherry and Libby at Emerald TC and they wrote some special files for me which allowed me to pull data from QuickBooks and download it directly into Sage 500. They were there for me whenever I had any questions or issues and the implementation went off without a hitch.”

With their more sophisticated accounting solution, ApolloMD has not only seen a significant time savings—but they’ve been able to create a better recipe for growth as well. With real-time data and a much easier setup for new contracts they couldn’t be happier. Patricia reflects, “While we could have grown while still using QuickBooks—I hate to think of how difficult it would have been. With Sage 500 and Emerald TC, we are better equipped for efficiency. We moved our system over in 2007 and in 2008 we really began to grow … we made the change just in time!” Adding to the benefits they’ve received, they now have a much more streamlined process for reporting. “On our old system, when upper management would ask for a report it may have taken me 2-3 days to pull all of the data together. Now I can do it much faster, providing them with detailed graphs in under an hour! This time savings has been incredibly helpful to all of us.”

Patricia reflects, “Your software is only as good as your implementation. Having worked with Emerald TC three times now, I can tell you that they understand your needs and know what must be done in order to get you up and running successfully. They’re there for you for the long term should you have any questions or problems, and they understand how important it is for a company to structure their system in such a way that they can better manage their time and create an effective plan for growth. I would definitely recommend them to anyone looking for a more comprehensive solution to get them to that next level.”