Hampton Golf
“We were paying invoices every day so someone had to be in the office to sign a stack of checks and mail them out. If that person was out of the office, things wouldn’t get paid, and needless to say, that leads to unhappy vendors.”
Hampton Golf
Florida-based Hampton Golf is a premier golf course management company and development firm that manages nearly 30 golf courses and facilities throughout the United States. The company provides a range of services to help owners oversee the day-to-day operations of golf courses, addressing golf, food and beverages, agronomy, accounting, amenity management, marketing and human resources. It employs more than 2,600 people, including more than 40 PGA professionals.
Dede Franklin joined Hampton Golf as the CFO in 2020. She manages a team of 16 people, overseeing the day-to-day processing of invoices and payments and onboarding new golf courses to the company’s accounting systems.
Prior to experiencing AvidStrongroom and AvidPay, Franklin spent her days managing the arduous work of manual accounts payable (AP). Now, she happily oversees an automated AP process that provides her team with increased control and visibility. “I had no idea how truly exceptional automated AP can be,” said Franklin. “Now I have no idea how I ever survived without it!”
Managing paper invoices with little visibility
Prior to automating their AP process, Hampton Golf was manually processing stacks of paper invoices from each of the dozens of courses it manages. It was time-consuming work and the company had no way to know when a check was cut and sent to a vendor.
“The team was scanning paper invoices and pulling them from emails, then archiving in overflowing file cabinets,” said Franklin. “When AP is handled manually, it’s not easy to access your data or have a clear view of its history.”
As if these manual upload, filing, search and retrieval processes weren’t enough to keep them in the office, the Hampton Golf AP team also had to be there to physically print and sign checks.
Going paperless with AvidStrongroom and AvidPay for QuickBooks Enterprise
Hampton Golf selected to automate their AP processes with AvidStrongroom and AvidPay, an invoice-to-pay AP solution that provides a simple, streamlined and more secure way to process invoices and make payments.
One of the key reasons that Hampton Golf selected AvidStrongroom and AvidPay is because it seamlessly integrates with the company’s existing accounting software, QuickBooks Enterprise.
The integration has a robust API integration that eliminates the time-consuming manual work needed to export data from one system and import it into another. The API has next-level syncing, including purchase orders and material receipts.
Franklin also expressed how easy it is to onboard new users to AvidXchange.
“Because AvidStrongroom and AvidPay are essential to our business, and onboarding is such a simple process, it’s become the first thing we train new hires on,” said Franklin.
Streamlined AP with better visibility, from anywhere
AvidStrongroom and AvidPay, seamlessly integrated with QuickBooks Enterprise, empower Hampton Golf to more efficiently manage the high volume of invoices inherent to the management of hospitality, providing staff better visibility and the ability to work remotely, and eliminating the need to hire additional staff to keep up with growth.
By eliminating paper with AvidStrongroom and AvidPay, the AP team has real-time visibility into the status of their invoices, approvals and payments so they can ensure prompt payments.
“Having a history of invoices and payments is huge when you’re managing processes for multiple clubs,” said Franklin. “Now I can check the status of payments, pinpoint any holdups, and answer questions from clients in real time.”
The AvidXchange solution also enables the Hampton Golf AP team to run monthly invoice reports for clients within minutes, a task that Franklin said she wouldn’t otherwise be able to do without hiring a dedicated person to search for, print and copy scores of invoices to compile reports.
Another impressive benefit Hampton Golf reaps from automated AP is flexibility.
“With AvidXchange, I can see everything that the team has approved for payment and give executive approval, ensuring that payments are promptly paid no matter my location,” said Franklin.
What does that flexibility mean for Franklin and her team? She can take more than one day off at a time, regularly work remotely, and depend on two team members who work from another state.
“Automated AP is a no brainer,” said Franklin. “I’ve seen AP done both ways and I am amazed at how impactful my employees can be when they are freed from time-consuming, manual work.”