Exec summary

For the finance team at Pacifica Hotels, invoice and payment processing were slow, time-consuming, and frustrating. An AP automation system had limited functionality and didn’t provide the visibility needed. Replacing it with Ottimate expedited invoice approvals ensured every vendor was paid on time and enabled hotel staff to find specific information in seconds.

About Pacifica Hotels

Pacifica Hotels was formed in 1993 to consolidate the hospitality operations of Invest West Financial Corporation, which has been involved in acquiring, developing, refurbishing, and operating quality hotel properties and other commercial real estate properties for over 30 years. Today, Pacifica Hotels is the largest owner and operator of boutique hotels on the Pacific coast. Pacifica Hotels’ numerous independent and flagged properties in key California cities from San Diego to San Francisco, as well as Hawaii, feature outstanding locations, AAA 3 and 4-diamond ratings, upgraded amenities, and high guest service standards.

The challenge

Pacifica Hotels has a centralized team that manages all the financial operations for the company’s portfolio of properties. Previously, staff at each location received invoices on paper and via email from vendors. They’d send these to the company headquarters. The finance team manually processed each, matching line items between every invoice and related POs and receipts. 

They manually entered data into the NetSuite ERP system and sent every invoice to an approver, such as a hotel operator, a regional manager, or both. Once they issued approval, the invoice entered the payment process to compensate the vendor for their goods or services. As with invoice approval, this required painstaking tasks, such as manual indexing in the ERP system, which took a long time and was prone to errors.

If paperwork gets stuck on someone’s desk, it could delay compensating a vendor or lead to their payment being accidentally missed. This could compromise Pacifica Hotels’ relationships with its suppliers.

The solution

To address the issues arising from manual invoice processing and payment issuance, Pacifica Hotels adopted an AP automation suite. But according to Patrick Brady, Director of Financial Systems and Reporting at Pacifica Hotels, the vendor’s sales team overpromised and under-delivered. “The system was a black box, and we couldn’t see what was going on in it or control that,” he said. 

Brady and his team searched for a replacement system with AI features that could simplify document capture, intelligently route documents for review and approval, and eliminate tedious indexing in NetSuite. They also wanted to expedite the payment process. With a proven track record in hotel management and hospitality, Ottimate was the best fit.  

Before deploying Ottimate, GL coding invoices was a painstaking process. Now, a staff member maps a vendor to one or multiple GL accounts. Pacifica Hotels’ invoices often contain six or more line-level or invoice-level dimensions. Once they’re coded initially, Ottimate maps them without user intervention. It also splits invoices and routes the correct information to team members at multiple properties for rapid approval.   

“People are no longer writing down GL codes with chicken scratch on a piece of paper and hoping it makes it through – they can code in Ottimate,” Brady said. “We can also handle complex intercompany allocations through the upload process with account split coding.”  

When relying on manual invoice processing, Pacifica Hotels’ properties received invoices from vendors and then routed them to the company’s HQ for processing. Now, Ottimate allows suppliers to conveniently submit invoices to a dedicated email address, which Ottimate utilizes to initiate an electronic approval workflow. 

“The ability for vendors to send invoices directly into Ottimate reduces the amount of lost and skipped payments,” Brady said. “We’re paying our vendors consistently and completely.” 

He is also excited about rolling out Ottimate VendorPay to more of Pacifica Hotels’ vendors. The VendorPay Network connects the company directly with thousands of prospective suppliers for faster ACH transfers. They can also receive compensation via check, virtual card, or spend card. 

“Our vendors will be able to engage with the Ottimate system directly and set up payments to come the way they want to receive them. We won’t have to make special accommodations for them.”  

In addition to expediting invoice and payment processing, Ottimate’s versatile dashboarding and reporting features give Pacifica Hotels’ finance team greater insight into AP than ever before. 

“The accrual reports in Ottimate provide guidance about any invoices that haven’t been paid before month-end close,” Brady said. “The all-invoices report is also essential to validate that nothing got lost.”

Results /Impact

When asked what he likes best about Ottimate, Brady said: “The community element of it. Ottimate gives us the ability to get everybody in the same system to watch the entire life cycle of a document live and see documents go all the way through the process. That encourages collaboration.”  

Pacifica Hotels’ finance team used to receive inquiries about particular invoices from staff at the company’s properties. This kicked off a time-consuming search for precise information. Now, it’s easy for any of the company’s authorized users to see precisely where each invoice and payment is in an Ottimate workflow. 

“Transparency is the greatest value-add in Ottimate,” Brady said. “Everyone can be a stakeholder in this process without having to hunt for information. They find it at their fingertips.” 

Applying AI-driven AP automation features has expedited Pacifica Hotels’ purchase-to-pay procedures. It has also increased accountability and made it easier to monitor employees’ workloads. 

“The addition of Ottimate has allowed us to streamline the AP process and make it abundantly clear who’s doing what,” Brady said. 

As crucial as AP automation features are, they’re only effective if a platform is tailored to a company’s specific needs, deployed effectively, and used widely. The relationship between Pacifica Hotels’ finance team and Ottimate’s professional services group has been pivotal. 

“Ottimate’s implementation team has been spectacular throughout the entire process,” Brady said. “They’ve brought in experts who I’ve talked about the technical side with, cleared roadblocks, and implemented the changes we asked for.” 

Looking ahead, Brady is interested in expanding Pacifica Hotels’ AP automation project. 

“If we started using the PO matching solution, we could cover our entire purchasing lifecycle in Ottimate,” he said. “If you want to build an entire automated AP process, this is the company to try it with.”

Time to Transform Your Invoice and Payment Processing?

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