The Background

Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa is located on the sugar-white sands and emerald-green waters of the Gulf Coast in Northwest Florida. Featuring 590 rooms, a luxury spa, and six on-site seasonal dining venues, Hilton Sandestin Beach prides itself on creating memorable stays for every guest.

The resort’s finance team was looking for ways to become more efficient and expedite vendor payments to keep resort operations running smoothly.

Their accounts payable (AP) team—a team of just two AP managers—was paying 200+ vendors every month and cutting 75-150 checks every week to cover linens, food and beverage, groundskeeping, and more. The check-cutting process was consuming time they didn’t have to spare.

“It was taking us three to four hours a week just to cut, record, scan and mail the checks,” said Matt Olsen, Hilton Sandestin’s Accounts Payable Manager.

Additionally, the approval process required several touchpoints, adding to the time.

“Payment approvals would pass from the department head to the CFO to the general manager and then finally to AP,” Olsen explained. “We needed quicker payment and approval processes.”

The Solution

Walters Management and Phoenix Financial, dba Service Loan South and Loan South Finance and Tax Service have been helping families in Alabama, Georgia, Texas and Tennessee with their financial needs since 1974. The company extends loans to individuals and households to help them get through emergencies, loss of income or unplanned expenses. They also provide financial counseling to their youth and adult customers on responsible borrowing. They are members of the Alabama Consumer Finance Association, Georgia Installment Loan Association, Tennessee Independent Lenders Association and the Texas Consumer Finance Association. CEO Rob Robinson has served in Board positions and been active in each of the trade groups.

REPAY’s vendor payment integration with Microsoft Dynamics Business Central offered an attractive option for expediting the resort’s vendor payments by replacing paper checks with ACH and virtual cards—all within a system they were already familiar with.

“Paying our vendors from Dynamics BC allowed us to replace manual uploads with payments in a click,” Olsen remarked.

The Result

Looking ahead to the future and how to serve their customers and employees better, Walters Ma“REPAY contacted every single one of our vendors to enroll them in virtual cards or ACH. If a vendor comes directly to me, REPAY is always available to assist. I know many of the payment specialist team members by name now!” said Olsen.

Getting the resort’s AP payments off of checks helped avoid mail delays and enabled them to make payments more quickly in the event of fast-approaching due dates. REPAY also provided better tracking and options to quickly send remittances or check copies if needed.

Additionally, managing every vendor payment within Business Central gave them the time savings they were seeking.

Olsen explained, “REPAY with Business Central allows me to look at all vendors at once, instead of one by one, to see if they have been paid. I simply hit a button to submit the payments and the CFO approves in mere minutes. We are saving several hours a week by eliminating paper checks.”

When asked to confirm his comment, Olsen stated, “I don’t have to cut checks anymore!”

Why Choose REPAY

REPAY helps hotels and property management groups of every size simplify their accounts payable processes to reduce costs, save time and increase security. The results experienced by Hilton Sandestin and many others are what REPAY aims to bring to each of its clients.