If you’re still managing hotel finances with paper-based processes, it might be because it helps you feel more in control.
You want a paper trail. You want to personally sign off on every check because it gives you peace of mind that everything’s been handled correctly. You’ve been burned by automation and new technology in the past that made things harder, not easier.
So when someone says, “let’s automate the process,” you think about all the control you’ll be losing. But what if the opposite were true?
Will automating AP reduce control across my hotel properties?
“There’s a big difference between something that’s automated and something that’s automatic,” says Jon Land, senior director of sales at AvidXchange. “An automated process removes manual labor, but that doesn’t mean it runs without you. You’re still in charge.”
For finance leaders overseeing multiple hotel properties, that distinction matters. But the truth is, a centralized back office leveraging automation can give you more control—not less.
Here’s the thing about manual accounts payable processes: the paper is in control.
On the invoice side, the fragmentation in a multi-property hotel environment naturally creates risk. Invoices can arrive everywhere: some may go to corporate while others are sent to the property level. One is in an email until it’s keyed into your system, and another may be printed out and sitting on someone’s desk.
As a result, some invoices may become lost, resulting in late payments, and some may be entered as duplicates. Both are bad for your bottom line. And impact your ability to close the books accurately and on time.
On the payment side, as soon as you put that check in the mailbox, you can’t do anything to prevent check fraud.
“If you want to give a crook everything they need to steal from you, just send them a check,” Land said. “It’s all right there: your name, address, account number, routing number, signature. And they get intercepted all the time.”
Often, your visibility into that check payment ends until the fraudulent activity shows up on your bank statement.
While this may be working now, if you plan to scale from three properties to 10, or 50 to 100, that fragmented process will start to create more risk.
What risks manual AP processes are creating for hotels:
- Approval bottlenecks from fragmented invoice intake across properties
- Duplicate or lost invoices, resulting in delayed month-end close
- Inconsistent GL coding limiting portfolio-wide visibility
- Cash flow blind spots and increased audit risk due to lack of centralized reporting
- Check fraud exposure
- Strained supplier relationships due to slow or late payments
“There’s a big difference between something that’s automated and something that’s automatic. An automated process removes manual labor, but that doesn’t mean it runs without you. You’re still in charge."
How can I gain AP visibility across multiple hotel properties?
Automation can give you more control through improved visibility. If you manage payments across multiple hotel properties, how do you keep a real-time pulse on every payment without slowing down property-level operations?
An automated system like AvidXchange centralizes your payment activity. This means you track approvals, statuses, and supplier preferences in real time, on any device with Internet connection—and payments only go out when you say so.
You can still set specific approval workflows. Want to personally review every payment over $10,000? Done. Prefer certain invoices to go through a particular manager? Easy.
Detailed audit trails are complete with names and timestamps, so there’s no question of where an invoice or payment sits or who approved it. This can help prevent bottlenecks when GMs are traveling between properties.
While paper-based processes may help you feel more in control, AP automation actually helps you enforce the controls you’ve put in place by formalizing them across properties. This includes standardized coding, repeatable workflows, and consistent reporting for faster month-end closes and audits.
Will AP automation disrupt my hotel supplier relationships?
Often, hotels rely on recurring suppliers, such as maintenance, linen services, and food distributors. At AvidXchange, we understand how crucial these relationships are to running your hotels, and that slow or late payments can be a pain point for these businesses.
That’s why we allow suppliers to choose how they want to get paid—whether by paper check, virtual card, or AvidPay Direct (enhanced direct deposit)—and we take care of the delivery for improved payment predictability.
Additionally, through the AvidPay Supplier Network, your suppliers gain 24/7 visibility into their invoice and payment status and access to a dedicated support team. This helps them get answers fast, and frees up your finance team’s time.
How do I scale AP without adding headcount?
Speaking of your time: Imagine if you could free your team from manual tasks like invoice entry, coding, approvals, printing and mailing checks, and addressing supplier inquiries—and instead have them focus on forecasting, analyzing spend across hotel properties, and identifying opportunities for supplier consolidation or early payment discounts.
For a multi-property hotel group, this shift in focus not only increases efficiencies, but also allows your finance team to operate as a strategic function and help drive business growth.
“If you’re processing 1,000 checks a month, and it takes two to three minutes to prep each one, that’s a full-time job,” Land said. That’s time your team could be spending on work that’s more meaningful than stuffing envelopes.”
As you add new hotel properties, invoice, payment, and supplier inquiries will all increase. But by adding AP automation, your existing team can keep up—and divert their time to more value-added tasks—without adding headcount or sacrificing control.
Key Takeaways: More Control. Less Paper. Greater Scale.
Paper processes can feel safe because you can see the invoice, hold the check, and physically sign off. But real control comes in the form of visibility, consistency, and the ability to scale your business without introducing new risk.
For multi-property hotel finance teams, AP automation doesn’t take away your oversight. It preserves it and makes it scalable.
What multi-property hotel finance teams gain with AP automation:
- Standardized coding, approvals, and controls across properties
- Reduced fraud exposure with invoice ingestion and ePayments
- Centralized reporting and spend visibility across properties
- Freed time for finance team to focus on analysis and growth
- Strengthened supplier relationships with predictable payments
Paper processes may work today, but will they still work when your portfolio doubles?
Learn more about AP automation with AvidXchange, including integrations with leading hospitality ERPs like M3.