Exec summary

It used to take the finance team at Admirals Cove around 24 hours to process an invoice. The AI functionality in Ottimate has reduced this to under five minutes, enabling directors to do it themselves. VendorPay offered more flexible payment options, expedited vendor compensation, minimized check-related costs, and provided rebates for virtual card transactions.

About The Club at Admirals Cove

The Club at Admirals Cove is a private community located in Jupiter, FL, offering a world-class membership experience and an extensive range of amenities. These include 45 holes of golf, tennis and pickleball courts, a private marina, a variety of dining options, and modern wellness facilities. It is Florida’s most exclusive golf and waterfront real estate destination.

The challenge

Like many country clubs and resort communities, Admirals Cove receives hundreds of invoices each month. These are sourced from suppliers of food and beverages, sports equipment, and a wide range of other goods and services. Previously, it was challenging to capture hard copies and other invoice formats, aggregate them, and process each one.

“Prior to Ottimate, our accounting process was very manual with a lot of paper,” said Trevor Vecellio, Senior Staff Accountant at Admirals Cove. “Our team members used to key in invoice data and reconcile statements by hand.”

This paper-centric process made invoice processing frustrating and slow. Compensating vendors could be delayed even further by a manual payment process that requires staff members to perform frequent check runs.

“Some of the obstacles we were facing without Ottimate were timeliness, accuracy, and the possibility of missing invoices prior to month-end close,” Vecellio said.

“It was a hassle trying to chase down directors for invoice approval,” added Bruno Velasquez, Accounts Payable Coordinator.

The solution

The finance team at Admirals Cove sought an AP solution that would apply AI automation to invoice and payment processing. After seeing an Ottimate demo, they realized that it checked both boxes and could create an end-to-end procure-to-pay lifecycle. 

“We chose Ottimate over other products for its user friendliness and the statement reconciliation feature,” Vecellio said. 

The functionality he’s referring to enables Admirals Cove to reconcile AP without having to go through stacks of invoices manually. Now, they can see which invoices have been uploaded to Ottimate, those that have been paid, and any that weren’t received and need to be requested from a vendor. This simplifies month-end closing. 

Ottimate is also speeding the throughput of each individual invoice. An employee maps GL codes to a particular vendor, and from then on, machine learning does it automatically. Ottimate maps other key data to Admirals Cove ERP system without user intervention, solving the data accuracy issue that Vecellio mentioned by removing human error. 

With multiple systems to administer, the last thing that the Admiral’s Cove finance team needs is a vendor that’s unresponsive or difficult to work with. Fortunately, their partnership with Ottimate has been a help rather than a hindrance.  

“We’ve had a memorable experience with Ottimate right from the start,” Vecellio said. “From the salesman to the onboarding process, everybody’s been communicative, knowledgeable of the software, and helpful.”

Results /Impact

The initial motivation for finding an AP automation platform was to remove headaches and delays from invoice processing. But Admirals Cove soon discovered that the solution was equally effective at streamlining the payments process. With VendorPay, supplier payments are authorized through a swift electronic workflow. 

“We use Ottimate throughout the whole company for all of our accounting processes, including invoice processing, statement reconciliation, and VendorPay for ACH payments,” Vecellio said. 

Previously, Admirals Cove compensated most vendors via check. This is still an option with VendorPay, but the system’s flexibility has enabled the finance team to make more payments via virtual cards and rapid ACH transfers. 

“We’re saving on check stock, envelopes, and postage by using ACH, and we get a rebate from virtual card payment processing,” Vecellio said. 

By expediting invoice capture, facilitating automated coding, and intelligently routing for review and approval, Ottimate is saving time as well as money for Admirals Cove. 

“One of my favorite things about Ottimate is the labor time savings,” said Velasquez. “Instead of our team coming and keying over a hundred invoices, it’s easier to have a director look at each one, code it, and approve it on their own. We’ve reallocated a lot of time to doing more in-depth work.” 

Getting invoices into a review process used to be one of the most significant sticking points for Admirals Cove. Ottimate has eliminated the bottleneck. 

“There’s a cool Ottimate feature called Instant Capture,” Vecellio said. “It allows our directors to process an invoice in less than five minutes, instead of having to wait 24 hours. They love it.” 

When relying on paper-driven invoice and payment processing, it was difficult for Admirals Cove to gain visibility into its AP workflows. Now, Ottimate’s versatile reporting features offer greater transparency and visualize key information for stakeholders. 

“Another benefit of using Ottimate is that it allows us to see data in a timelier manner, due to the quick processing of the AI automation,” Vecellio said. “This leads to more accurate financials for our board.”

See Ottimate’s AI-driven AP automation in action by booking your demo today.