Case Study: SerenaGroup achieves faster budgeting, consolidated P&Ls and greater visibility into personnel expenses with Centage

Faster Budgeting and More Timely Reports Provides Greater Visibility into Personnel Expenses

SerenaGroup, a Cambridge-based healthcare management company that operates Centers of Excellence in wound care and hyperbaric medicine across 25–30 cost centers, struggled to produce consolidated financials and timely forecasts. Controller Joe Paratore had to export individual P&Ls from QuickBooks and merge them in Excel—a manual 2–3 day month‑end process—while the company also needed a two-stage allocation (personnel then overhead) and more detailed payroll visibility than QuickBooks could provide.

By keeping QuickBooks for actuals and implementing Centage’s budgeting, forecasting and reporting tools, SerenaGroup automated the consolidation and double-layer allocations and added a personnel expense data group for FTE/location detail. The new process produces all 25–30 site P&Ls plus the consolidated report in minutes, enables rapid what‑if scenarios and variance analysis, saves Paratore about 24 workdays a year, and shortened full budget build time from a month to one–two weeks—deferring the need to add headcount.

SerenaGroup

Joseph Paratore

Controller