“The best thing about working with Bowman Systems® is that they are not stingy with their time,
it’s obvious that Bowman Systems wants us to be successful.”
- Greta Rolland, HMIS Administrator, Tri-County Alliance, Maryland

The Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP) distributes grants to community service providers to be used for homelessness prevention, diversion and re-housing activities. However, like many government-funded programs, HPRP came with a critical reporting component. In response, Bowman Systems designed a detailed HPRP report within ServicePoint to help simplify the required reporting. Homeward, a homeless service provider in Richmond, VA, was one of the first agencies to fully utilize the ServicePoint HPRP reporting tools

Thirteen service providers in the Homeward managed region of Virginia distribute HPRP funds, and over 400 clients were served in the first few months of program participation. With the large volume of clients served, Tonya Harris, the HCIS Training and Support Manager at Homeward [www.homewardva.org], was particularly excited about the opportunity to move away from manual reporting.

One of the ServicePoint HPRP reports identifies the clients that are counted in the required Quarterly Performance Report (QPR). “Based on the data quality report, we were able to go back to each data entry record and determine what we did wrong,” said Harris. With this knowledge, Harris and the Homeward staff were determined to get it right on the second QPR.

“We focused on the workflow, adjusted our processes, and verified our data entry almost daily, explained Harris. “We completed the HPRP Assessment, ensured there were Entries and Exits when appropriate, and as services were entered, we made sure that the dollar amounts were accurate. We wanted to use the service records to validate and verify our HPRP expenditures as an accounting function,” said Harris.

She said the reporting results were definitely worth the extra time it took on the front-end to ensure accurate data entry. The second QPR took only one week to reconcile, and the financial balance in the report was off by a mere sixty cents.

“The beauty of ServicePoint is the flexibility --- all data entry steps are adjustable and can be tailored to the organization,” noted Harris. “We were able to identify problems, tweak our process and simplify our HPRP reporting.”

The Tri-County Alliance in Maryland (Somerset County Health Department [www.somersethd.org] is the lead HMIS agency in their community and was also one of the first agencies to utilize the ServicePoint HPRP reports. Greta Rolland, who serves as the HMIS Administrator and a consultant to the Alliance, said the HPRP reporting capability within ServicePoint caused many of the agencies, which once viewed data entry into a HMIS system as just “more work”, now see the tangible benefits of computerized data input.

“We completed the first HPRP Quarterly Performance Report by hand,” explained Rolland. “In developing the second QPR, we worked closely with our Support Specialist, Joey Flannery, at Bowman Systems. Joey helped us align the HPRP data entry requirements with our agency work flow. The process Joey helped us devise was more user friendly, and it made a huge difference at the agencies.”

“After we adjusted our data entry process we also began running the ServicePoint HPRP data quality reports more often,” said Rolland. “This has allowed the HPRP staff to adjust input issues well before the QPR is due, and we have much more confidence in the accuracy of our data.”

While the Alliance’s use of ServicePoint for HPRP reports is still relatively new, Rolland said that the agencies that have been using ServicePoint have recognized that the information they are entering can help them to capture critical data to run reports needed for submission to other funders such as the United Way. “They now see a benefit to using the system to capture client and agency specific data that helps them in their daily activities,” explained Rolland. “They can use ServicePoint data rather than needing to enter identical information into other database systems or to keep manual files, which requires a hand count for reports. They can solely use ServicePoint for all these needs which lessens their workloads.”

Rolland also noted that the quality of assistance and training Bowman Systems provides is unique and builds a foundation for successful reporting execution. “The best thing about working with Bowman Systems is that they are not stingy with their time,” said Rolland. “Joey Flannery and the other Bowman Systems staff we talked to throughout the HPRP process were always patient, understanding and helpful. It’s obvious that Bowman Systems wants us to be successful.”

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