A finance foundation built for a 100-entity healthcare portfolio

Client background

A private operator propelling growth through acquisition
Northwood Healthcare Group grows the way many modern, disciplined operators do: by acquiring facilities, taking full responsibility quickly and building repeatable processes that hold up as the portfolio expands. When Northwood purchases a skilled nursing facility or a retirement community, the team doesn’t just add an address to a list. They take on the operational work and the financial accountability that come with it, then bring the new facility into a consistent back-office rhythm — and ultimately into profitability.

That model has real-world scale. Today, Northwood owns roughly 40 skilled nursing facilities and a smaller number of assisted living locations. Each community also has a property entity and an operating entity, doubling accounting complexity. Across the portfolio, that adds up to more than 100 entities that need clean books, reliable workflows and reporting leaders can trust.

For the finance team, the goal stays clear even as the portfolio changes. Keep the back office steady while growth continues. Bring newly acquired facilities into a standard way of working without slowing the team down. And give leadership fast, credible answers when performance varies from one location to the next.

The business challenge

Portfolio complexity puts pressure on reporting, speed and consistency
Skilled nursing and senior living finance rarely follows a single template. Costs shift by facility. Reimbursement patterns vary. Operational realities show up in the numbers, and leadership expects finance to quickly explain them.

For CFO Matt Weisz, that expectation falls into one category: comparisons across entities. The work often starts with a simple question. Why does one facility run higher costs? Why does another show a reimbursement difference? Finding the answer requires accurate reporting and the ability to trace details without rebuilding the story manually. “Comparisons drive a lot of my day,” he says. “If costs move in one facility or reimbursement looks different in another, I need to get to the why quickly.”

At the same time, the business operates with the staffing realities common to healthcare. New employees join frequently. The accounting system has to support quick onboarding, consistent processes and daily execution without slowing the team down.

With so many entities, basic accounting tasks can also become more difficult than they need to be. Uploads, recurring processes and routine transactions can either scale cleanly or compound into extra work. Northwood needed a finance foundation that could keep up with the structure and the pace, while helping the team stay consistent through growth.

Strategy and solution

Standardize early with Sage Intacct, then build for repeatable operations
Northwood took a direct approach from the beginning. The team put Sage Intacct in place early and built the environment around the organization’s operating model. That foundation helps the finance team work efficiently across the portfolio, even as the number of entities grows.

Matt had prior experience with Sage Intacct and chose it again because it supported his needs in a multi-entity environment. Industry familiarity also mattered. In senior living and skilled nursing, many organizations already run on Sage Intacct, which supports hiring, integrations and data exchange across an ecosystem of shared tools. Northwood, for example, integrates Sage Intacct with its payroll software, PointClickCare, its clinical software; Stampli for credit card management; and Cherry for AP automation.

Onboarding stays simple at Northwood, even as the organization hires and expands. Matt values a system that new employees can learn quickly, so the team spends less time training and more time keeping the portfolio running.

To keep pace, Northwood relies on repeatable processes and a consistent financial structure. Sage Intacct supports the everyday mechanics that keep a multi-entity environment running, including bulk uploads and standardized workflows across entities. “Sage Intacct is a workhorse for us,” Matt says. “It does what we need across all our entities, and it holds up as we grow.”

Northwood integrates Sage Intacct with additional tools that streamline routine workflows. Matt points to integrations that support invoicing and payments, as well as payroll connectivity. Revenue also flows quickly from the organization’s clinical systems into Sage Intacct, helping the accounting team keep pace without adding manual steps. “The integrations matter,” Matt says. “They help us keep AP and payments moving without creating extra work for the team.”

When Matt is traveling, the work still needs to move. Approvals can’t wait for someone to get back to a laptop, and routine payments can’t pile up. That’s where the native cloud access of Sage Intacct becomes practical. “When I’m traveling, I can still get the work done,” Matt notes. “Any function, including paying a bill, right from my phone. It’s incredible.”

Northwood’s relationship with Baker Tilly began through a Sage Intacct specialist firm Matt already trusted, which later merged into Baker Tilly. From the start, the goal was practical: set up Sage Intacct to match Northwood’s structure and provide the finance team with a clean, scalable environment to run on.

That early work pays off every day. With the right foundation in place, Northwood’s team can move quickly and handle most needs in stride. And when something new comes up, they have the confidence of knowing Baker Tilly understands the environment and stays close enough to step in quickly whenever Northwood wants an extra set of hands or a second opinion.