For property management firms, vendor payments are more than a back-office task. They shape board relationships, vendor trust, financial reporting and the day-to-day experience of the communities they serve.
For Castle Group, one of Florida’s largest property management companies, vendor payment automation became a way to modernize operations without changing the in-house accounts payable model that made its service approach successful.
About Castle Group
Castle Group manages more than 600 condo and homeowner associations, represents about 250,000 residents and works with thousands of vendor relationships across the communities it serves. As CFO Craig Vaughan explains, Castle’s financial role spans vendor hiring, contract negotiation, vendor payments and financial reporting for each association.
That level of responsibility made the company’s payment process a critical part of its service promise. It also made manual payments increasingly difficult to sustain.
When Property Management Accounts Payable Outgrows Paper
Before partnering with REPAY, Castle Group paid every vendor by check.
At the time, the company was managing hundreds of associations and paying thousands of vendors each month. Vaughan puts the scale plainly: Castle was paying approximately 7,500 vendors by check, with teams manually processing payments from the company’s home office. The workload totaled 3,000 checks every week.
The process worked, but it was no longer built for where Castle was headed.
Manual check payments created operational drag. Staff had to print, process and mail payments instead of focusing on higher-value financial services for associations. Paper checks also introduced fraud risk. Vaughan notes that, with manual checks, checks could be intercepted or altered, creating frustration for clients and necessitating additional controls and account management.
Castle needed a way to improve its competitiveness.
“Our partnership with REPAY allowed us to bring our payment processing into the 21st century, and that allowed us to compete at the highest levels in our market,” Vaughan says.
The Goal: Modernize the Payment Cycle, Not Outsource AP
Rather than replace its accounts payable function, Castle wanted to modernize the payment cycle while keeping control of the AP experience.
That distinction was crucial.
In property management accounts payable, boards often want direct access to the team managing their association’s finances. Castle wanted to keep that line of communication open, handling calls and AP questions from the home office. An outsourced provider would simplify the overall payment cycle, but, as Vaughan explains, it would also disrupt the broader financial service model that Castle’s vendors and associations expect.
That’s why REPAY gave Castle a modern vendor payment platform that fit into its existing workflow. Instead of forcing Castle to adopt an entirely new AP model, REPAY supported the specific payment execution layer they were determined to improve.
Giving Vendors More Ways to Get Paid
With REPAY, Castle could offer vendors three payment options: check, ACH or virtual card. That flexibility was necessary because Castle’s vendors range from small local contractors to large national providers.
While some vendors still prefer checks, others are ready for electronic payments. REPAY helped Castle meet vendors where they were, while still moving the overall payment process forward.
Vaughan estimates that vendor payments shifted from 100% check-based to roughly half electronic and half check-based. For an organization that had relied entirely on checks just a few years earlier, that represented a major operational change.
B2B virtual card payments and ACH gave Castle a path to reduce paper, streamline payment delivery and support vendor preferences without creating unnecessary complexity for boards or internal teams.
Turning Payment Processing Into a Better Use of Time
For Castle’s finance team, vendor payment automation helped them focus on work that created more value.
Vaughan explains that Castle did not reduce staffing after implementing REPAY. Instead, the company redirected resources toward more meaningful financial services, including vendor relationship management, disputes, cash management and association support.
That shift is central to AP automation for HOA management. The ultimate goal is to reduce the time spent on low-value manual work, so finance teams can improve service and support more complex association needs.
As Vaughan puts it, printing and mailing checks is among the lowest-value activities Castle performs for clients. Automating that process frees the team to focus on the financial work associations actually need.
A Partnership Built Around Support
Castle’s decision to work with REPAY was about the relationship as much as the technology.
“They made us feel like a partner, not a customer. That was huge for us,” Vaughan says.
That partnership has continued after implementation. Vaughan describes regular meetings between Castle and REPAY’s teams, where both sides can raise questions, address issues and keep the program moving. He also points to REPAY’s support team as a key part of the relationship, especially when vendors need help tracking payments, reissuing payments or resolving questions.
Over time, the process has become another part of Castle’s operating rhythm.
“It really is a well-oiled machine,” Vaughan says.
A Modern Vendor Payment Platform for Property Management Firms
Castle Group processes about $30 million in vendor payments per month. For Vaughan, that scale makes the partnership with REPAY easy to recommend. You can watch the full Castle Group story here.
The larger lesson for property management and association management firms is clear: AP modernization does not have to mean giving up control of accounts payable. With the right vendor payment automation approach, firms can keep their in-house financial service model while automating the payment execution process behind it.
Castle is the perfect example: REPAY helped transform a manual, check-heavy process into a more flexible, modern payment experience for vendors, boards and internal teams.
And for property management companies evaluating how to reduce check volume, improve payment workflows and support vendor choice, Castle’s story shows what is possible when modernization works with the business instead of forcing the business to work around the technology.