Money Matters

Your first month-end close after acquiring a senior living community: the finance setup to settle first

Preparing your first month-end close after acquiring a senior living community? Review the chart of accounts, opening balances, deposits and census first.

Published November 2, 20267 min read Share

The deal has closed, operations is settling in, and finance has inherited a community whose books were kept by someone else, in a chart of accounts that doesn’t match yours. Much of what makes the first month-end close smooth or painful is decided before close week starts.

This post walks through the setup to agree before your accounting cutover date, the day your ledger takes over the community’s transactions: chart of accounts and reporting dimensions, opening balances, resident deposits and prepaid fees, census figures, and the move off a management company’s books. Each section ends with a question to put to any accounting platform you’re comparing.

Key takeaways

• Agree your accounting cutover date, owners and readiness checks before handover, and document anything that stays provisional into the first close.
• Map the acquired community into your chart of accounts and reporting dimensions at cutover, so consolidated and per-community reporting work from the first close.
• Treat resident deposits and prepaid fees as their own workstream, and agree their classification, recognition and the custody of the related funds with your accountants.
• Reconcile census figures with operations at cutover: resident counts, occupied and available units, resident-days and the effective dates of moves in progress.
• If management functions are coming in-house, agree who does what from which date, and have controls in place before your team processes its first transaction.

What we’ll cover

Mapping the community into your chart of accounts and reporting dimensions

The acquired community arrives with its own chart of accounts. Mapping it into yours at cutover means you won’t be running two charts side by side and reconciling them in month two.

Start with your reporting dimensions: entity, community, service line (independent living, assisted living, memory care), payer and department. Map the new community into each one at cutover, so consolidated reporting holds and per-community analysis works from the first close.

Three areas to check:

• Service-line detail. If the community records independent living, assisted living and memory care revenue in a single account, check whether the detail survives in dimensions or supporting records, and agree any mapping or reclassification needed.
• Balances with the management company. If the management company has advanced funds to the community or holds reserves on its behalf, identify those balances and ask your accountants how they should be classified, reconciled and settled.
• Department structure. Dining, housekeeping, maintenance and care services are often separate cost centers. Agree how the community’s departments map to yours before the first close.

Question for your platform: can it add a new entity and its dimension structure without a reimplementation or a parallel chart of accounts?

Opening balances at cutover

Opening balances are the starting line for the community in your ledger. Agree each line that carries forward:

• Cash and bank accounts: which accounts transfer, which stay with the management company, and the balances at cutover. If the management company used pooled accounts, agree and document the allocation.
• Accounts receivable (AR): which resident balances transfer, which are in dispute, and how aged balances will be handled.
• Fixed assets: ask your accountants which asset values, useful lives, depreciation methods and acquisition adjustments apply.
• Accrued liabilities: payroll and vendor accruals, and any deferred revenue the management company was carrying.

Question for your platform: can it import the approved opening balances at a set date, keep a full audit trail, and support controlled adjusting entries and reconciliation afterward?

Resident deposits and prepaid fees

Deposits and prepaid community fees deserve their own workstream, because they touch the balance sheet, the income statement and the resident relationship at the same time.

The questions to settle with your accountants before cutover:

• Classification and recognition: how should each deposit and prepaid fee be classified and recognized under the resident agreement and the accounting requirements that apply?
• Custody of the funds: which balances transfer, who holds the related funds today, and what custody, reconciliation and transfer arrangements apply?
• Refunds and move-outs: if the management company processed refunds from its own accounts, how will refunds flow through your ledger from the first move-out after cutover?
• Resident-level records: which system holds the resident-level deposit records, and how will their total reconcile to the ledger control balance?

Question for your platform: can you see the reconciliation between resident-level deposit records and the ledger, and how the refund workflow posts?

Census figures at cutover

Census figures drive per-resident cost analysis and occupancy reporting, so finance should reconcile them with operations at cutover rather than inheriting them later.

Agree these figures and their effective dates:

• Resident counts and unit mix by service line, with occupied and available units.
• Resident-days for the partial period from cutover to month-end. For cost per resident-day, divide the included costs by resident-days for the same period. Define occupancy separately: occupied units over available units, or occupied bed-days over available bed-days, as fits the setting.
• Moves in progress: for any move-in or move-out under way at cutover, ask your accountants how the related charges and adjustments should be split between periods.

Then agree how reconciled census totals reach your financial reports. Nisbet Lodge, a senior care community in Toronto, connected Sage Intacct to its PointClickCare system to import resident days, linking operational metrics directly to its financial reports.

Question for your platform: how would census totals reach financial reports (through statistical accounts or another connection), how often, and who reconciles them?

Moving off the management company’s books

If the acquisition includes bringing management functions in-house, the handover is a change of accounting workflow as much as a data migration. Agree which responsibilities transfer, which stay with service providers, and the effective date for each:

• Accounts payable (AP): which invoices the management company pays up to cutover and which your team picks up. Invoices that straddle the date are a common source of duplicate payments and missed accruals.
• Payroll: the last cycle the management company runs, the first one you run, and the accruals at cutover.
• Bank accounts: which accounts move, when, and with what balances, with new accounts set up and tested before the first payroll and AP run.
• Controls: approval workflows, access permissions, segregation of duties and bank reconciliation, set up and tested before your team processes its first transaction.

Question for your platform: can it support AP, payroll integration and bank reconciliation from the cutover date, and what does adding each new community involve?

How growing operators standardize

Agemark Senior Living grew from 10 to 25 communities while halving its monthly close and growing its finance team by only 20%. It centralized finance and reconfigured Sage Intacct, streamlining its general ledger (GL) and standardizing processes across its properties, so each community follows the same template.

For your next acquisition, ask which mappings, opening balance templates, census definitions and controls can be reused, and which need to be agreed for that community. When you’re comparing senior living accounting software, those are the questions that show how well a platform handles growth.

Frequently asked questions

What should finance settle before the first month-end close after acquiring a senior living community?

Agree the accounting cutover date and owners, then work through the chart of accounts and reporting dimensions, opening balances, resident deposits and prepaid fees, census figures, and any AP, payroll and bank workflows that are moving from a management company. Document anything still provisional, with a date to resolve it.

How should resident deposits be handled after a senior living acquisition?

Ask your accountants how each deposit and prepaid fee should be classified and recognized under the resident agreement, who holds the related funds, and how they transfer. Agree which system holds resident-level records and how their total reconciles to the ledger, and set up the refund workflow before the first move-out.

Why does census data matter to finance at cutover?

Resident counts, occupied and available units, and resident-days drive per-resident cost analysis and occupancy reporting from the first close. Reconcile them with operations at cutover, agree effective dates for moves in progress, and decide how the totals reach your financial reports.

What should a multi-community operator ask when evaluating an accounting platform for acquisitions?

Ask whether it can add a new entity and its dimensions without a reimplementation, import approved opening balances with an audit trail, show the reconciliation between deposit records and the ledger, bring census totals into financial reports, and support AP, payroll and bank reconciliation from the cutover date.

What can make the first close after a senior living acquisition difficult?

Common pressure points are an unmapped chart of accounts, deposit balances whose funds and records haven’t been reconciled, census figures that operations and the seller disagree on, and AP or payroll responsibilities that weren’t agreed before cutover. Most are setup questions you can settle before close week.

Settle the setup before close week and see how your current platform handles each question.

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