Exec summary

Hampton Golf, a top 20 golf course management company that operates 31 country clubs nationwide, transformed its accounts payable operations by implementing Ottimate’s AI-driven AP automation solution for golf and country clubs. This eliminated invoice processing bottlenecks, streamlined statement reconciliation, and provided enhanced visibility across multi-location operations. Virtual card rebates now nearly offset monthly subscription costs, while automated workflows free up valuable time for strategic financial oversight.

About Hampton Golf

Hampton Golf is a leading golf course management company specializing in comprehensive operational support for golf and country club communities across the United States. Based in Jacksonville, Florida, the company has a portfolio of 31 country clubs nationwide. Their corporate headquarters provides accounting services, enabling club owners to outsource complete operational management.

“You could buy your own club and learn how to manage it, or you can hire us, and we can run it for you,” said Jessica Rodriguez, AP/AR Manager at Hampton Golf.

Rodriguez oversees implementations across their portfolio, including POS applications and financial platforms. The company’s finance team consists of 23 people, with four dedicated AP team members handling invoice processing for multiple clubs each.

The challenge

Before Ottimate, Hampton Golf used an antiquated legacy system for its AP automation, which created significant operational challenges across its multi-location portfolio. The company processes between 6,000 and 9,000 invoices monthly, with volume fluctuating based on seasonal golf operations.

“We were looking for a program that would integrate with Jonas, which is our main POS system,” Rodriguez said.
The existing system’s limitations extended beyond integration issues. Its complicated approach created substantial bottlenecks in invoice management and approval workflows.

“We had a lot of issues with credits not being processed correctly,” Rodriguez said. “There was one e-mail box for all of our clubs, and they would manually map them to whatever department or club they belonged to. And if there wasn’t an exact match, those credits would just sit there.”

Manual credit processing proved particularly problematic for Hampton Golf’s operations. Credits would frequently get stuck in processing limbo, requiring manual intervention to resolve. This created delays in month-end closing procedures and forced the finance team to spend valuable time tracking down missing invoices across their extensive club network.

The solution

Hampton Golf was looking for an AP system that would seamlessly integrate with Jonas. After an evaluation period, they selected Ottimate for its robust integration capabilities and comprehensive feature set.

The implementation process proved exceptionally smooth, with their Customer Success Manager (CSM) leading the onboarding across all 30 clubs. Hampton Golf particularly appreciated the integration with Monday.com and Ottimate’s consistent communication throughout the process.

“[Our CSM] is amazing,” Rodriguez said. “Ottimate’s customer service has always been wonderful. Everybody that we’ve had to interact with from the Ottimate side has been so helpful and so quick to reply.”

Hampton Golf rolled out the implementation in waves, and its final club made the switch to Ottimate in March 2024. Hampton Golf now utilizes Ottimate VendorPay for payment processing and has integrated this seamlessly with QuickBooks. “We were onboarding two other systems at the same time, and Ottimate was a larger-scale transition than the other ones,” Rodriguez said. “It is crazy how well the Ottimate team did.”

The results

Ottimate’s implementation has delivered substantial operational improvements across Hampton Golf’s entire portfolio. Statement reconciliation and credit processing show the most significant impact, two areas where the previous system created persistent challenges.

“We love the statement reconciliation feature in Ottimate because it makes life a lot easier,” Rodriguez said. “The way that Ottimate handles credits was huge for our team because we had to figure out workarounds on the old system.”
EDI integration with Hampton Golf’s existing financial technology systems has eliminated manual invoice entry for large-volume suppliers, saving significant time for the accounting team. This automation has freed up staff to focus on more strategic financial analysis rather than data entry tasks.

“Now with EDI in Ottimate, everything gets into the system automatically,” Rodriguez said. “That used to take up a lot of time to log into a fintech system and pull all the invoices manually.”

Hampton Golf has experienced substantial improvements in workflow visibility and approval processing. The system’s default approver functionality ensures that invoices don’t get stuck in individual approval queues, while automated notifications keep the approval process moving efficiently.

“We can add default approvers in Ottimate, so if an invoice is sitting in somebody else’s inbox, we don’t have to chase them down,” Rodriguez said. “Their direct supervisor automatically gets notified that this invoice has been here for more than five days.”
Virtual card rebates through VendorPay have created substantial cost savings that nearly offset the monthly subscription fee. The solution has also improved Hampton Golf’s spend management practices.

“We’re at a point where Ottimate is almost paying off the full monthly fee just on the cash back,” Rodriguez said.
Automated coding has reduced manual work for on-site managers while improving accuracy and processing speed.
“Our golf club operators enjoy that a lot of the invoices get automatically coded for them,” Rodriguez said. “It saves them a lot of time.”

Enhanced visibility into payment processing has eliminated confusion around payment status and vendor communications that plagued their previous system.

“The fact that staff members can see the check and ACH remittance, who received it, and when it was sent has been a huge win,” Rodriguez said. “In our previous system, sometimes it was unclear what happened with these payments.”

The platform impacts operational staff across all club locations beyond just the finance team, giving them clear visibility into invoice status and approval workflows without requiring assistance from corporate headquarters.

The future

Hampton Golf continues to explore additional Ottimate features to further streamline its operations. They are currently evaluating spend management capabilities and have provided feedback on enhanced vendor management functionality to better serve multi-location operators.

Hampton is also exploring Ottimate Copilot, which will provide advanced data analytics and proactive financial insights.
“I was just in a Jonas seminar, and there were a lot of accountants,” Rodriguez said. “One of them had just signed a contract with Ottimate the day before, and the other one had been using the system for two months.”

When asked what she likes best about Ottimate’s AI-powered functionality, Rodriguez said, “The statements and the reconciliation. That was an area in which my team was struggling a lot with the old system.”

Hampton Golf’s transformation demonstrates how comprehensive AP automation can eliminate operational bottlenecks while delivering measurable financial benefits for multi-location hospitality and club management companies.

See how AI-driven automation can streamline your AP processes by booking your demo today.