Savoring Efficiency: A Regional Restaurant Group Streamlines Payments
In the fast-paced kitchen of the restaurant world, every detail counts. Just as chefs need precise ingredients and timing for a perfect dish, so do restaurants need efficient financial systems to ensure their business runs smoothly.
One growing restaurant group, intent on expanding locations, found itself facing more than a few challenges with its payment processes. Here’s a glimpse into their journey to cook up an optimized accounts payable (AP) system.
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The Challenge: Exhausted by Inefficiency
This regional restaurant group processed almost 15,000 invoices a month. The 3 person AP staff was overwhelmed with mostly manual processes – building batches one-by-one, printing checks, and endless data entry. As the group continued to expand and add more legal entities, dealing with multiple checkbooks and workflows became even more complex.
The result? An administrative mess, with a higher risk of errors and inefficiency.
Cooking Up a Solution: Streamlining and Outsourcing
The restaurant group needed a comprehensive payment system that could streamline processes, manage its growing entities, and handle payments as smoothly as a well-oiled kitchen. They identified three key areas needing immediate attention:
- Process automation: Like any efficient kitchen, automation was key. They needed to automate batch-building and payment approvals to lighten the load on their AP team and reduce errors in the preparation process.
- Multi-company support: As the restaurant chain grew its legal entities, they needed a system that could manage multi-entity operations - ensuring consolidated reporting, smooth checkbook management, and seamless approval workflows.
- Outsourcing Payment Services: The financial leaders aimed to outsource payment processing—whether checks, ACH, or virtual cards. The solution needed to integrate seamlessly with their Business Central environment and handle vendor onboarding and maintenance.
The Solution: Mekorma Payment Hub
After carefully curating their options, the group landed on Mekorma Payment Hub, an embedded application that blends seamlessly with their ERP and manages the payment lifecycle. The benefits they sought were akin to finding the perfect recipe:
- Efficiency and cost savings: By automating the payment processes, they have reduced manual labor and associated costs, can handle more payments with the same staff, and streamline operations across companies and checkbooks.
- Seamless integration and accuracy: The solution fully embeds with BC to ensure accurate data flow and a secure approval process within the ERP.
- Reduced administrative burden: By outsourcing vendor payment management, the restaurant group shifted the burden of managing vendor data, payment types, and security checks to the payment service provider.
A New Recipe for Success
With Mekorma Payment Hub Optimized, the restaurant group is ready to serve up efficiency in their AP operations. By automating and streamlining their processes, they expect significant reductions in manual labor, improved accuracy, and enhanced efficiency. The ability to manage multiple companies effortlessly and outsource payment services has freed up their staff to focus on tasks they simply couldn’t get to before.
As they embark on this journey, the group is confident that this optimized recipe will lead to smoother operations and amplify their continued success.
