Silverado Senior Living Takes Control of Waste and Utility Expenses

Use Case

Centralizing utility and waste expense management across a multi-site senior living portfolio to improve cost visibility, streamline billing processes, and optimize procurement strategies for greater efficiency and savings.

Challenge

Arcadia worked with Silverado Senior Living’s finance and accounting teams to identify three core resource management challenges:

Wasted Operating Expense

Because procurement decisions were managed by individual communities, the organization was not taking advantage of the lower rates than they could find by aggregating energy and waste services.

With individual communities responsible for paying utility and waste invoices, different bill-paying practices resulted in additional fees and security deposits from the utility and waste providers. And without having energy and waste experts validating their expenses, many communities were unaware that they qualified for utility sales tax exemptions.

Excessive Administrative Costs

The administrative costs of having multiple people contract for energy and waste services, as well as process and pay monthly invoices, was a suboptimal use of internal resources.

Limited Visibility

Without having complete, reliable data, forecasting utility and waste expenses became a significant challenge. Accountants at the home office didn’t have visibility into what was going on in the communities. It was very difficult to accurately accrue for expenses.

Solution

After aligning on the specific challenges at hand, Arcadia  and Silverado Senior Living collaborated on a utility and waste management program that would deliver immediate results while building a foundation for future success.

Invoice Auditing and Payment

Rather than having individual communities pay utility and waste invoices, Arcadia  now collects, audits, and consolidates payment for all Silverado Senior Living’s utility and waste invoices.

Cost and Consumption Reporting

To provide visibility into cost and consumption trends, and to identify savings opportunities, Arcadia  captures and posts line-item detail for every invoice in an intuitive, online portal.

Strategic Resource Procurement

Arcadia helped Silverado Senior Living establish an integrated resource procurement strategy that aggregates its purchasing power and capitalizes on savings opportunities.

Benefits

Together, Silverado Senior Living and Arcadia are working to make Silverado a national leader not just in memory care and hospice, but in resource management. Chris Michael, Vice President of Finance & Analytics at Silverado Senior Living, said, "Arcadia found savings for us that we never would have been able to find on our own."

Cost Reduction

• 30% energy cost reduction in competitive markets
• Six-figure savings from tax refunds

Streamlined Operations

• 75% reduction in invoice processing time
• Aligned contract end dates streamlined utility purchases
• Arcadia handles all utility account opens/closes

Improved Back-Office Controls

• 100% of ENERGY STAR® reporting handled by Arcadia
• Improved budget performance
• Quicker resolution of consumption anomalies