Financial Control and Managing for Success

Recent years have seen substantial changes in primary care with significant new pressures placed on staff. The surgery of today is no longer a small operating unit run in a hands-on manner. Rather it has become a more complex organisation with many demands and pressures, often across more than one site.

At the core of every organisation, regardless of type or industry sector, is a structure surrounded and supported by a processes and procedures and the key to it's success is how well they integrate together to allow staff to work together in a smooth and efficient manner. 

Similar to a traffic management system in a small city, without a well organised structure and system there is disorganisation and chaos. Even the human body has a skeleton supported by a muscular structure. Without a structure supported by organised procedures and processes there is weakness and failure.

Day-to-Day Operating Procedures: One of our key focuses is providing our members with a powerful IT based infrastructure that has been tested, refined and improved from member feedback over a period of 25 years. Working alongside this IT infrastructure are various controls, procedures and checks, with most hidden from view. They save time and reduce day to day working pressures, thereby contributing to the success of the surgery. 

Feedback Procedures: it is however not only the above discussed structure and procedures that contributes to the success of an organisation. Just as important is a powerful feedback system that quickly identifies breakdowns in operations and in turn allows for improvements and refining of operations. In this way the successful operation is able to constantly refine and improve itself as it grows, people and rolls change, and new operating units and structures are added or reorganised. Thus the successful operation is always able to evolve and move forward, constantly operating at top performance levels.

For example, in the table below, on the right in the green box, can be seen day to day operating procedures and processes that in turn feedback information to the feedback procedures box on the left.  Again, the feedback system gives staff and management a clear understanding of operations, where they are working well and where there may be opportunities for improvement and further refinement.

In the Help Guides section we discuss the various procedures and reports that make up the operating structure, and how you might wish to use and implement them in your organisation. These are designed around the Surgery Network IT infrastructure and reports. We are constantly receiving feedback and requests from members and as a result are regularly improving the reports and Help Guides. The following lists the various reports and guides that you may wish to view. 

Please note, recently we have updated our Help Centre and not all earlier versions of the manuals and guides have been updated to the Help Centre. We are gradually converting the older documents and if a subject appears to be missing please get in touch to request an as yet updated earlier version.   

Key Day-to-Day Purchasing Steps and Procedures

Procedures cover many areas including checks on best market pricing, delivery charge warnings, over and understocking, automatic year end stock valuations, purchase authorisations when expenditure levels and budget limits are exceeded, prescription reimbursement profit checks, missing scripts identification, failure of asset service / calibration tasks, reception cash and cheque collection control, and much more.

• Purchasing Approvals and Authorisations - view guide
• Ordering and your Personal Catalogue Smart Check on Best Prices and FP34 profit - view guide
• Ordering and your Stock Control indicator - view guide
• Recording of Goods Received and Used with your App - recording received and used guides
• The well organised Stock Room and Stock Counts - view guide
• Assigning and managing cleaning, calibration and other tasks - view guide
  
• Communicating directly with your Support Manager and Supplier Staff - view guide
• Managing your Private Patient Appointments Web Interface - view guide
• Managing your Private Patient Sales invoices, receipts, collections and deposit report - view guide
• COSHH Safety Data Sheets - view guide

Feedback Reports and Procedures

A number of powerful reports and procedures have been created to allow both staff and management to truly benefit from operating information.  They include:

• Heartbeat Monitor report - view guide
• Saving Analyser Report - view guide
• NHS Reimbursables History Report - view guide
• NHS Reimbursables Personal Catalogue Audit Report - view guide
• Inventory Register, Activity Report and Stock Usage FP34 Report  - view guide
• Asset Register - view guide
• Task Activity and Exception Report - view guide
  
• Sales Report, Outstanding Debtors/Receivables and Client Statements - view guide
• Financial Reports and using the Standard Pre-prepared Reports - view guide
• Financial Reports and Creating Personalised Custom Reports - view Guide
• Accounts Interface with Data Export to Accounts Packages - view guide

Other Specialised Areas and Reports

In addition to the above there are a number of specialised procedures and reports available for use in mainly multisite/multilocation operations. Many are more advanced versions of the reports discussed above. In particular:

• My Purchase History Report with Multi Location Results - view guide
• Heartbeat Monitor Report with Group / Multi Location Results - view guide
• Multisite Purchasing and Stock management with a Primary Store option - view Guide
• Asset and Task Management with Group/Location reporting - view guide