Community Home Care
Community Home Care is an aged care service that has been in operation for over 30 years, providing in-home services to around 3,000 elderly clients across the South West region.
Five years ago they went through a significant growth spurt where they acquired a number of small service providers, taking their current tally to six locations: Bridgetown, Bunbury, Busselton, Collie, Donnybrook and Margaret River.
Currently they employ 145 professionally qualified staff and a further 350 dedicated volunteers to help deliver their care-specific services – from domestic assistance to meals on wheels, as well as garden and house maintenance.
“Tim Partridge (AMD Director) very quickly realised that I’m a CEO who hates numbers. Finance is not my strong point and Tim has been amazing at stepping in – not only provide support and guidance, but also teaching me so that I can grow in my role. As a result, I’m able to report to our CHC Board with confidence knowing everything in the right place and above board.
Over time, I became astounded at how many facets there were to AMD’s services and quite quickly they became more than just our auditors – we now count them as part of the family. From providing advice on applying for Government funding to helping with recruitment, the team now also present our Financial Reports at the Annual General Meeting too. They’re able to do so in a really eloquent, easy-to-understand format and have become familiar faces in our community.
If I ever have a problem, I can simply pick up the phone and someone is available. It gives me great peace of mind knowing we have such incredible support and provides me with confidence to do my role properly, which is to lead this fantastic organisation.”
You can hear the sigh of relief when Sue Clements is asked about AMD. As the Chief Executive Office of Community Home Care, Sue has her hands full juggling the demands of the organisation that includes more than 3,000 clients spread across the South West region – a number that continues to grow every year.
“When I first joined CHC in 2013, AMD had already been our auditors for a number of years – they’d come once a year to audit our Government funding so that everyone could be assured everything was above board,” Sue said.
“Over the years our relationship has developed into much more; AMD are now like family. They help with a variety of financial items, such as bookkeeping, tax and superannuation; however it’s the advice they provide to us that I find invaluable.”
CHC has experienced rapid growth in recent times, which has taken up a lot of the Executive team’s time and attention. While many businesses would worry about ‘dropping the ball’ during times of big growth, Sue admits she always had confidence CHC’s finances were well looked after.
“I freely admit that I’m no good with numbers – I’m not an accountant,” Sue said. “My relationship with AMD, and Tim in particular, gives me full confidence that our financial affairs are all in order. That means I have peace of mind and concentrate on the strengths I bring to my role.”
While Sue explains how AMD have gone above and beyond, one particular example springs to mind.
“Unfortunately our Financial Manager recently resigned to return to the UK for family reasons. While there’s never a good time to lose critical staff, it was a particularly bad as we had just introduced a swathe of new financial and payroll systems.
“Within 24 hours, Tim had found someone to step into the role. Not only did they hit the ground running, but they helped guide the whole team through the process. Externally, you wouldn’t have even known we’d had a major shift in personnel.
“There’s no way I could have found that solution by myself so quickly.”
For more information, visit www.communityhomecare.org.au.