Scattered invoice approvals are one of the biggest headaches in property management. A supplier sends an invoice to one property office, it gets passed around in emails or by courier, and—hopefully—it makes its way to you for approval. But if the right person is out of the office, or the invoice gets lost in transit, the whole payment process hits a bottleneck.
You end up chasing signatures, rerouting paperwork, and fielding calls from suppliers asking about payment status. And the more invoices you have scattered across offices and inboxes, the harder it is to avoid delays. Eventually, suppliers lose confidence that your payments will come through on time.
At AvidXchange, we’ve spent 25 years helping real estate companies overcome these kinds of accounts payable (AP) challenges. In this article, we’ll unpack invoice approval problems in property management, the risks that come with invoice decentralization, and how centralization through technology can help you get back in control.
The Problem With Decentralized Invoice Approvals
Decentralized invoice approvals might seem OK on the surface, especially if that’s the way your property management company has always done things. It may have worked fine when you were managing just a few properties, but that approach doesn’t scale as you grow your portfolio.
When invoices are scattered across dozens of properties, emails, and file folders, it becomes difficult to process them centrally. Approvals can depend on whether the right person is in the office at the right time. And when questions come up, it can take days of back-and-forth just to gather the details you need to validate a single invoice.
If you’ve ever had to track down an approver who was on vacation just to release a payment, you know how disruptive this can be. It creates frustrated employees and frustrated suppliers.
And without a consistent process across properties, it’s nearly impossible to maintain a reliable audit trail—something every property management company needs to keep owners, asset managers, and regulators confident in their financial controls.
A Real-World Example: Mansermar’s Struggle With Decentralized AP in Property Management
Mansermar, Inc., which manages 64 communities across 14 states, saw firsthand how these invoice approval problems can slow down a property management team.
Before automating their AP, invoices often landed at individual properties before being rerouted to headquarters. Accountants spent hours chasing down property teams for missing information, and even the smallest error could derail an entire batch of payments.
“It was a massive manual process and a constant battle to get our invoices and all the backup documentation on them in a timely manner,” said Accounting Manager Tammy Busbin. “We were always reaching out for invoices and info and waiting for it to be sent before we could process a payment.”
Mistakes were common, and every time a batch failed, an accountant could lose up to an hour digging through the details to correct it and try again—time that should have gone toward paying suppliers on schedule.
Long Approval Processes Are More Than Just Wasted Time
The obvious downside to decentralized invoice approvals is your team wastes time chasing paper and signatures. But the long-term effects go deeper than that.
When approvals take too long, payments to suppliers are delayed. Suppliers could get frustrated, which can jeopardize the relationships your properties depend on to operate. In some cases, this could lead to late fees or make it difficult to negotiate supplier contracts.
You’re also taking a gamble on accuracy. Manual rerouting and re-entry create more opportunities for human error—whether it’s a duplicated invoice, a typo in a GL code, or a batch crash caused by formatting issues. These mistakes not only waste time but also put your financial reporting at risk.
And then there’s visibility. Without a centralized process, it’s difficult to answer basic financial questions, like: How much are we spending across all properties? Are invoices being approved on time? What liabilities are coming due this week? Decentralization means you don’t have the basic business insights that help with forecasting and planning.
How Centralization Through Technology Helps Property Management Teams
The good news is the right technology can help with invoice centralization. Here’s how AP automation software through AvidXchange helps give you more control, no matter how many properties you manage:
✅ One point of capture. Instead of invoices being mailed to individual properties or buried in an email inbox, suppliers are given a single email address or PO Box (set up for your company by AvidXchange). From there, invoices are scanned and read using AI and machine learning, which extract the key details and prepopulate data fields with 99.2% accuracy. A professional indexing team provides an extra layer of validation, ensuring clean data before invoices move forward. The result is a much quicker review process that speeds up approvals—and ultimately, supplier payments—while eliminating the hassle of chasing paperwork across properties.
✅ Automated routing. From there, invoices are automatically sent to the right approvers based on workflows you set up. Approvers can review and sign off whether they’re in the office or on the road. And if someone’s out on vacation, the workflow can reroute or skip ahead to keep things moving. So no more chasing signatures or emailing for backup documentation.
✅ Integration with your accounting system. Centralized AP solutions can integrate seamlessly with your existing real estate ERP, eliminating the need for manual data entry. Your ERP remains the system of record, while the integration reduces errors and speeds up the payment process..
✅ Scalability. A centralized system makes it easier to onboard new users, train staff, and maintain consistent processes across dozens—or even hundreds—of properties. That means your AP process can grow with your portfolio instead of becoming a bottleneck.
At AvidXchange, we’ve seen firsthand how this solution transforms property management teams. Obviously, we believe every property manager could benefit from invoice automation, but the facts speak for themselves: AvidXchange customers have seen up to 75% time saved on invoice processing, $47K to $79K in annual savings on labor and admin costs, 50% fewer overdue invoices, 30% faster reporting, and the ability to scale without adding headcount—all while strengthening fraud protection through digital payments.
💡 Tip: For a deeper look at the numbers, check out our blog on The ROI of AP Automation for Property Management Companies.
Turn Invoice Bottlenecks Into a Streamlined Process
Decentralized invoice approval problems might feel like a normal part of property management, but they don’t have to be. By centralizing invoice capture, routing, and integration with AP automation, you can speed up invoice approvals with streamlined workflows. You’ll gain clearer visibility into your finances, pay suppliers on time, and create space for your team to focus on growth instead of paperwork.
Next, you’re probably asking yourself what kind of return you’d see from investing in AP automation software. Take a closer look at the ROI numbers other property management companies have seen in our blog, The ROI of AP Automation for Property Management Companies.