How Align ENTA consolidated tools and gained control with Ramp

Align ENTA was designed with the intent of keeping headcount lean and the accounting and finance function streamlined. “That way,” explains Director of Financial Planning Analysis Greg Finn, “we could grow the business without having to add headcount, increasing owner value with each acquisition.” For that reason, Greg sought a technology partner that could add automation and drive financial efficiency. 

“There was no solution before Ramp,” says Greg. “Each division had its own accounting.” Align ENTA started with five practices, which meant five different instances of QuickBooks, five or more credit cards, countless personal cards, five different bank accounts, and manual check-cutting. “It was all over the place,” Greg says. 

Align ENTA needed a solution that could consolidate these various fragmented tools, and which had the functionality to move larger financial functions -- i.e., revenue collections, corporate cards, etc. -- onto the same platform.

Align ENTA partnered with Ramp to consolidate tools, automate processes, and create a more efficient and transparent financial system. “Almost every corporate user has a credit card or at least has access to Ramp,” says Greg. “They’re trusted to use the card as they see fit for their function, then there’s approval from finance, accounting, and operations.” 

Each division has a single practice manager who controls three or four function-dependent cards. Each practice manager has a general spend card s/he can use for office supplies, team-building activities, and other one-off purchases, which has a relatively small limit. They also have a medical supply and allergy supply card, and a recurring subscription card.

“The concept of having one physical card and unlimited virtual cards per holder is helpful,” says Greg. “And Ramp automatically attempts to map physical card purchases to the correct virtual card, which is nice.”

For big-ticket items like hearing aids, Align ENTA leverages Ramp Procurement to centralize and streamline the purchasing process. Practices submit a purchase order (PO) request through Ramp, which is automatically routed to Greg's team for approval based on pre-set workflows. Once approved, the finance team selects a virtual card to pay the vendor, which provides flexibility and peace of mind by preventing any card limit headaches. With Ramp Procurement, Align ENTA's finance team gains visibility into spend, an audit trail for compliance, and confidence that their vendors will be paid accurately and on time.

Whereas Align ENTA had “no solution” before Ramp, implementing the platform has enabled a far improved finance and accounting system. With Ramp, Align ENTA has real-time visibility and enhanced control over spend, which is helpful in detecting fraud and in budgeting. “The notification and live alerts when spend is made have been very helpful,” says Greg. “There have been numerous times where we’ve proactively prevented either fraud or poor management from a card holder.” The ability to modify card limits and authorize or lock cards or vendors in real-time has been extremely helpful, Greg says. He appreciates the opportunity to put guard rails on spend and point employees in the right direction, aiding in standardization across the footprint.

The new visibility Align ENTA has over its spend has enabled Greg and his team to overhaul its formerly frustrating, unscientific budgeting process. “Now we’re building what we call a zero-based budget,” says Greg. “Basically, we’re crumbling up all previous activity to minimize run-rating as much as we can.” Greg uses activity exports from Ramp to identify common merchants in dollar spend and volume activity, which then translates into a budget file on historic spend for main merchants. “Spelling out every vendor and what we intend to spend also allows me to map that vendor to a general ledger account,” says Greg. “When the budget is done, I will have set expected spend by vendor, and then I can auto-map to the account within Ramp. It keeps everyone honest to where spend should go within the budget.”

Improving control has also helped the Align ENTA team save significant time. “Ramp takes away the ability for different users to decide where certain expenses, that every division will incur, are mapped,” says Greg. “Inconsistent mapping is no good from an analytical perspective, so we save time there by gently guiding our users to the appropriate account.”

Ramp isn’t just beneficial for Greg, though -- it’s also helpful for end users. “Prior to Ramp, we were handling employee reimbursements through payroll, which basically broke the payroll process,” says Greg. “Having the functionality within Ramp to have users add their bank information has been very helpful for us and a time save in many ways.” Plus, it’s ensured employees receive reimbursements in a timely fashion. 

Ultimately, feedback on Ramp has been strongly positive across the organization. “The practice managers love it,” says Greg. “They are allowed to keep some agency for paying practice expenses.  They like that they can instantaneously attach support at the time of transaction, they like that they can text back-and-forth with the automated system as part of the platform. We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from users.”