How Bentley Legacy Manages Accounts Payable Across 8 Hotels Without Dedicated AP Headcount
How tailored workflows helped Bentley Legacy take AP off its accountants’ plates, give hotel teams more visibility, and avoid adding headcount.
“Before Ottimate, our accountants spent about 80% of their time on AP. Now they have time to focus on the accounting work they were hired to do.”
— Angie Abston, Vice President of Accounting, Bentley Legacy
Exec summary
Bentley Legacy is a Plano, TX-based business that operates a diverse portfolio of branded, independent, and lifestyle hotels. The company manages accounts payable for eight properties, each with its own mix of vendors, workflows, and approval policies. Without a dedicated AP employee, Bentley Legacy’s accountants spent an estimated 80% of their time on AP, which left little time for higher-value accounting work.
Today, the company manages invoice processing and payments through Ottimate, with tailored workflows for each property. Bentley Legacy can comfortably manage AP without adding headcount, and the company’s accountants have more time for the higher-value accounting work they were hired to do. In addition to time savings, Ottimate has also increased property-level visibility and ownership, sped up vendor payments, and helped protect the business from payment fraud.
About Bentley Legacy
Bentley Legacy is a multi-generation business with deep roots in hospitality. Founded in 2013 in Plano, TX, the company operates and invests in a diverse portfolio of branded, independent, and lifestyle hotels. Bentley Legacy provides expertise in operations, budgeting, remodeling, design, and branding, while helping each property retain its unique charm and character.
The challenge
Bentley Legacy manages accounts payable for a portfolio of eight hotels, each with its own unique mix of vendors, workflows, and approval rules. But when Angie Abston joined Bentley Legacy as Vice President of Accounting, no dedicated accounts payable employee managed this work. Instead, the company’s accountants handled it on top of their other responsibilities.
The team processed invoices primarily through Sage Intacct. But because the platform’s invoice capture functionality wasn’t always reliable when populating invoice fields, the accounting team spent significant time on manual data entry and rework.
In addition, Bentley Legacy wasn’t using electronic vendor payments at the time, so the accounting team had to manually print, sign, and mail a large volume of paper checks.
“It was horrible,” said Abston.
Across eight properties, the manual work added up. In fact, Abston estimated the company’s accountants spent around 80% of their time on accounts payable, leaving little time for higher-value accounting work.
“Honestly, they didn’t have time to do their actual jobs because there was so much AP,” she explained.
The company’s labor-intensive AP workflow also gave property-level teams very limited visibility and ownership. Sage Intacct charged per user, and it wasn’t cost-effective to buy a license for everyone at every property. So anytime a property-level employee needed to check on an invoice, they had to ask an accountant.
Bentley Legacy knew they needed a solution that would take manual AP work off accountants’ plates while giving properties more visibility and ownership of the AP process. But with eight different hotels, a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’t work.
The solution
Abston had evaluated Ottimate at a previous company, and she saw an opportunity to bring it to Bentley Legacy. Several factors made Ottimate stand out from other options. For one, Ottimate could let Bentley Legacy make payments from each hotel’s individual operating account rather than requiring payments from a single centralized account. Payments would also appear as individual transactions instead of a single bulk withdrawal, making bank reconciliation easier. Virtual card rebates were another major selling point.
“The rebates actually help pay for the platform itself, which is very nice,” said Abston.
Once Bentley Legacy chose Ottimate, Abston worked closely with the implementation team to connect the platform with Sage Intacct, configure bank accounts, and set up workflows for each property.
The company’s hotels range from smaller properties, where a general manager may handle invoice approval, to full-service hotels with their own accounting teams and multiple department heads. With Ottimate, Abston created different workflows to suit each property’s needs.
“It’s just really nice not having to stick to one workflow for everybody because it doesn’t work for everybody,” Abston said.
After an initial training, Bentley Legacy rolled out Ottimate across all eight of its hotel properties.
“The implementation team at Ottimate basically held my hand,” said Abston.
Today, properties and vendors submit invoices through Ottimate. From there, property teams code and approve invoices according to their unique workflows, and payments are routed to the appropriate reviewers for approval. Bentley Legacy can now make payments by virtual card, ACH, or paper check.
Property teams also have access to Ottimate, so they can log in whenever they need to check on an invoice.
“It’s been a very pleasant experience because the software is so simple,” noted Abston.
The results
Implementing Ottimate has helped Bentley Legacy manage AP across eight properties without adding a dedicated AP employee. It’s also significantly reduced the amount of AP work the company’s accountants have to take on.
“We don’t need an AP person. We have Ottimate,” explained Abston. “It’s wonderful because we’re saving a whole salary.”
With less AP work on their plates, Bentley Legacy’s accountants have more time to focus on higher-value accounting work, such as reviewing general ledgers, completing reconciliations, and digging into the company’s financials.
“My accountants are just so happy because they’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can finally do my job,’” said Abston.
Abston noted that having more time to focus on accounting has helped improve the accuracy of the company’s financials. At month-end, property teams can identify prior-month invoices entered after cutoff, which helps the accounting team accrue expenses in the correct period.
Moving to Ottimate has also provided greater property-level visibility and ownership. Property teams can now log in to the platform for invoice updates, rather than chasing down an accountant.
“They can actually log in [to Ottimate] and see their invoices now. They can look up if something’s been paid or not, and they can see all the history in there,” said Abston.
Vendor payments are faster, too. The company can now use ACH and virtual cards in addition to paper checks, so employees spend less time printing, routing, signing, and mailing checks.
“Definitely the payments are a lot faster,” Abston noted.
The new process is also easier for payment approvers. Rather than reviewing a stack of paper checks, signers can review payments within the platform and click into the underlying invoice to see additional details, including who has already approved it, before releasing payment.
In addition, Bentley Legacy has added an extra layer of fraud prevention by implementing Positive Pay through Ottimate. Rather than manually uploading check files to its bank each day, Ottimate sends the file on Bentley Legacy’s behalf. The team has configured electronic payments coming through Ottimate to be automatically approved because they have already gone through the company’s established approval process. If a payment appears outside of Ottimate, the team can flag it for additional review.
“That has really helped a lot for fraud,” said Abston.
With Ottimate in place, Bentley Legacy’s accountants can still oversee AP, but they don’t have to micromanage every step.
“We got that off their plate, where they can still see it, supervise it, and monitor it. But they’re not in the weeds anymore,” concluded Abston.
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