Melba – Case Study
Melba exceeding business goals with EBS and Dynamics NAV
Located in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, Melba Support Services is a not-for-profit community based organisation funded by both government and community, assisting 160+ adults with disabilities to lead everyday lives.
Melba has become an Australian leader in delivering services tailored to the needs of each individual. They manage seven residential care homes, via its Community Living Support Services, which assist 42 people, many with significant health and physical needs 24/7. Melba also own a fleet of 17 buses, enabling them to get around and actively participate in the community. Over the past decade Melba have seen significant changes in the disability sector, with the focus on disability care and delivering on a more personalised and individual level. With the ongoing changes Melba encountered various issues with their existing software, limiting their reporting capabilities and difficulties producing high level detailed financial tracking and reporting, specifically for individualised care.
The challenge: Individualised needs called for tailored reporting
With focus shifting within the disability sector and Melba seeing a migration from group-based service delivery to a more tailored and individualised delivery. This level of detail required Melba to upgrade their financial management systems.
Other key operating objectives for Melba were; eliminating reporting and data complexities, real-time, accurate, up-to-date and secure financial reporting and tracking with more reliable information and greater capability, with the flexibility to grow as Melba continues to grow.
Some of the things we wanted were a bit different because we were trying to lead the area in individualised support.
Nothing was too hard for EBS. They could always provide solutions for us. They responded well to what we were asking for, so we really enjoyed working with them.
Melba Support Services
Karen Gibson
Acting Business Manager
The journey:
Melba went to market seeking a system that could meet its evolving needs, after a thorough evaluation they selected Melbourne-based business management software specialist and Microsoft ERP Gold Partner Evolution Business Systems (EBS) to upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Microsoft Dynamics NAV (now Dynamics 365 Business Central) is a comprehensive business solution, providing small and mid-size companies value that extends across all operations. Microsoft Dynamics NAV increases productivity, enhances visibility and business insights, with an intuitive and familiar user experience.
“We wanted something that was flexible enough to grow with us because we were looking to expand our organisation. We provide individualised support to about 60 different people and their families so we had to improve our reporting and needed a system that was both easy for us to use and
easy for our families to read the reports that we provided.”
Ms. Gibson stressed why the Melba board decided to partner with EBS. “EBS is very professional in their approach, they would listen to us – we’re all about listening to people, so we liked that EBS would listen to us – and helped us to find solutions for what we wanted. We really enjoyed working with them from the early stages and we’ve found them very easy to work with going forward.”
What makes Melba unique is that we work with the people we support and their families and really listen to what they want, helping to provide a range of choices, and Microsoft Dynamics NAV helps us do exactly that.
We provide individualised support to about 60 different people and their families, with individualised support, we needed a system that could give us a lot more information that we could get to easily and provide reports for our service users and families at a detailed level.
The outcome:
Ms. Gibson shared some of the benefits Melba have seen since their upgraded software solution. “With families and their funding, they need to know how their money is being spent, how much funding they have and how much they have left at a given point in time. To do that, we needed to report on an individual level. One of the main
differences of an integrated system is that our information is now up-to-date and we know exactly where we are every day. We can get out our reporting in a really quick manner. If people have a query, we’re able to get into the system, right down to the invoice level, to what transactions are happening.” Microsoft Dynamics NAV has added new dimensions to Melba’s business and operation processes and provided; layers of business insight, real-time accurate reporting at an individual level and information and data at their fingertips. This has enabled Melba to meet their evolving needs with greater control, visibility and accessibility for the people they support and their families.
Client Profile:
Melba Support Services assists persons with disabilities in Victoria’s Yarra Valley.
Office Location
3/47 Burgundy St
Heidelberg VIC 3084
Postal Address
PO Box 1115
Camberwell VIC 3124
Phone
1300 303 973
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