Cloud-powered financial agility: Arizona Country Club's Quadient AP journey

ERP: Jonas Club Software

INDUSTRY: Hospitality

The Arizona Country Club is a private club in the prestigious Phoenix, Arcadia area — providing fine dining, golf, fitness, and leisure activities for more than 1,100 active members. The business has been in operation for more than 75 years and is consistently striving to be the #1 premier family club.

"The biggest asset is being able to look back at previous invoices, rather than going to the paper filing system and digging through them to find that one line-item. This allows us to work more effectively as a team, and it's also improved communication with vendors. Quadient AP is such an easy tool. It's so straightforward, and I've been blessed to have it!"

CHALLENGE

Arizona Country Club’s challenges will be familiar to any AP team reliant on legacy, manual processes. The club's AP clerk would receive a handwritten, paper invoice, chase internal stakeholders for physical signatures, and then manually input the invoice data into the company's Jonas Club ERP solution. Those were then stapled to the check stub and stored in physical filing cabinets. The process was convoluted and time-consuming, and there were unexpected inefficiencies at every stage:

"Even just walking it to the AP clerk to ensure that all the invoices were given to the accounting department and put into the system… And it was all hand-typed!" - Tessa Leverett, Staff Accountant

Process inefficiencies were not the only challenge. The AP clerk would be contacted frequently by vendors asking about past-due payments, which meant the team had to search through physical documents to find the information that proved payments had been made.

"If vendors are asking about an invoice from a year ago... I have no proof if it’s in a filing system that made it into a box in the storage unit."

SOLUTION

By 2020, Arizona Country Club recognized the need to automate their AP process. The team evaluated several solutions before selecting Quadient AP. A driving factor was the platform's ability to integrate well with the company's Jonas Club ERP. Since adopting the tool three years ago, the team have come to rely on the software.

"The AP/AR clerk is in there daily — rerouting the invoices to the proper department heads — and then the CFO and myself have approval chains set up so that we can ensure her work is correct." - Tessa Leverett, Staff Accountant

It was simple to get the department's buy-in due to the platform's intuitive interface and impressive ease-of-use. Specifically, it's simplified how quickly invoices can be located.

"We go to the global search, type in a few letters of the vendor’s name, and the invoice shows up!"

This capability also improves vendor relationships. As all invoice data is tracked digitally, the team no longer needs to search through physical storage to find proof that payments have been made. They have instant access to all necessary details, including when payments have been made, what the check number is, and the amount that was paid. As a cloud-based system, Quadient AP has enabled the accounting team to embrace remote and hybrid work — a traditionally challenging adjustment for AP teams. The platform captures the team’s real-time financial data and can be accessed from anywhere at any time, even on mobile devices.

RESULTS

Using Quadient AP, Arizona Country Club's team is so much more effective. This improvement is illustrated by the fact that accounts payable and accounts receivable is now handled by the same employee, whereas it was previously managed by two members of staff.

• Invoices are processed significantly faster.
• Duplicate invoices have been eliminated, saving staff time and the company money.
• Headcount savings of $50,000 achieved by consolidating AP & AR responsibilities under one employee.
• Vendor relationships are improved due to greater visibility into invoices.
• The team can work effectively from anywhere, without any delays to their process.