Key Features for Hospitality
Get smarter with your spending so you can keep your pricing consistent for your customers
Get control of spending
Allow your team members to easily create Purchase Orders and automatically route them to the appropriate approver. Gaining tighter control on what your team are purchasing reduces the chances of over ordering.
Send Purchase Orders directly to your suppliers and request acceptance notifications all from within Lightyear.
Better inventory monitoring
3-way matching enables you to automatically match invoices against the corresponding Purchase Order and Goods Received Note to ensure you only paying for goods that arrive at your venue.
Automated data at a line item level
Supplier invoices can be sent directly into Lightyear via email. Lightyear's advanced AI extraction tool pulls line item detail from the invoice ready for coding and approval.
Automate your coding to enable fast and accurate reporting at a product level. Identify popular produce for reordering and split costs across multiple venues.
Stop overpaying for the same products
The price of goods and services inevitably increases, however you can keep track of these cost rises and make smarter business decisions to help reduce overheads.
Lightyear automatically flags discrepancies in pricing between the supplier invoice and agreed supplier pricing, alerting you to an increase before payment. You can use this to report on price rises throughout the year and negotiate better rates with your supplier.
Don't pay twice
Duplicate invoices are common and hard to identify. Don't waste money double paying for the same products and services. Lightyear's AP automation automatically detects duplicate invoices and flags these to your team in the approval tab.
Align your approval processes
Multi-tiered approval workflows mean your team can automate the approval process across the organisation. Faster approvals means faster payments for your suppliers and an overall better relationship. Give your team a boost to negotiate better supplier terms or discounts.
Approval automation workflows can be set up by document value, supplier or keyword, for example venue location.
On-the-go approvals
Give your team the freedom to create Purchase Orders, view documents and approve invoices on the go, enabling smoother operations and avoiding payment delays to suppliers.
During busy period, staff may have to travel between multiple venues, so having the ability to work on the go keeps the accounts payable process moving.
Accurate reporting for decision-making
Lightyear's line item coding functionality means you can generate detailed reports across products and services, venues or other cost centres.
7 years of historical data means your team are able to forecast seasonal trends or customer purchasing behavior based on previous spending. This information helps make smarter decisions including availing of discounts for bulk purchasing during busy periods or popular produce, or reducing waste during quieter periods.
Purchase Orders
Get control of spending
Allow your team members to easily create Purchase Orders and automatically route them to the appropriate approver. Gaining tighter control on what your team are purchasing reduces the chances of over ordering.
Send Purchase Orders directly to your suppliers and request acceptance notifications all from within Lightyear.
3-Way Matching
Better inventory monitoring
3-way matching enables you to automatically match invoices against the corresponding Purchase Order and Goods Received Note to ensure you only paying for goods that arrive at your venue.
Line Item Extraction
Automated data at a line item level
Supplier invoices can be sent directly into Lightyear via email. Lightyear's advanced AI extraction tool pulls line item detail from the invoice ready for coding and approval.
Automate your coding to enable fast and accurate reporting at a product level. Identify popular produce for reordering and split costs across multiple venues.
Price Matching
Stop overpaying for the same products
The price of goods and services inevitably increases, however you can keep track of these cost rises and make smarter business decisions to help reduce overheads.
Lightyear automatically flags discrepancies in pricing between the supplier invoice and agreed supplier pricing, alerting you to an increase before payment. You can use this to report on price rises throughout the year and negotiate better rates with your supplier.
Duplicate Flagging
Don't pay twice
Duplicate invoices are common and hard to identify. Don't waste money double paying for the same products and services. Lightyear's AP automation automatically detects duplicate invoices and flags these to your team in the approval tab.
Advanced Approvals
Align your approval processes
Multi-tiered approval workflows mean your team can automate the approval process across the organisation. Faster approvals means faster payments for your suppliers and an overall better relationship. Give your team a boost to negotiate better supplier terms or discounts.
Approval automation workflows can be set up by document value, supplier or keyword, for example venue location.
Mobile App
On-the-go approvals
Give your team the freedom to create Purchase Orders, view documents and approve invoices on the go, enabling smoother operations and avoiding payment delays to suppliers.
During busy period, staff may have to travel between multiple venues, so having the ability to work on the go keeps the accounts payable process moving.
Reporting
Accurate reporting for decision-making
Lightyear's line item coding functionality means you can generate detailed reports across products and services, venues or other cost centres.
7 years of historical data means your team are able to forecast seasonal trends or customer purchasing behavior based on previous spending. This information helps make smarter decisions including availing of discounts for bulk purchasing during busy periods or popular produce, or reducing waste during quieter periods.
Lightyear has been able to reduce bookkeeping time by between 40-50% purely because of data entry. There is no manual entry now, which has allowed my bookkeeper to get the accounts up to virtually a live situation each month, where previously we would have been 3-4 months in arrears. It is huge for us!
Jonathan Poots, The Cardan
Automated AP is the best benefit. Invoicing reading and coding plus bill matching and statement checking are all great. Prior to Lightyear, so much of our time was consumed with data entry.. Now we've saved between 13-15 hours per week. We would advise anyone in hospitality to automate! You'll get back so much time.
Kyle Martin, Pirate Life Brewing
The team at Lightyear have been fantastic from the outset, from onboarding to ongoing support. The software itself it very user friendly, makes our processes much more efficient and eliminates our need for paper in the accounts payable process.
Pearse Mulvenna, Andras Hotels
I think the workflow is really well laid out making it super easy for new staff to pick-up. The ability to cross-check statements against invoices also saves us a lot of time each month. Reporting is great because it is so versatile I can pretty much get any information I am looking for with a couple of clicks. We have much better visibility of costs across the team.
Pippa Evans, 3Sheets
Automated AP is the best benefit. Invoicing reading and coding plus bill matching and statement checking are all great. Prior to Lightyear, so much of our time was consumed with data entry.. Now we've saved between 13-15 hours per week. We would advise anyone in hospitality to automate! You'll get back so much time.
Kyle Martin, Pirate Life Brewing
The team at Lightyear have been fantastic from the outset, from onboarding to ongoing support. The software itself it very user friendly, makes our processes much more efficient and eliminates our need for paper in the accounts payable process.
Pearse Mulvenna, Andras Hotels
I think the workflow is really well laid out making it super easy for new staff to pick-up. The ability to cross-check statements against invoices also saves us a lot of time each month. Reporting is great because it is so versatile I can pretty much get any information I am looking for with a couple of clicks. We have much better visibility of costs across the team.
Pippa Evans, 3Sheets
Lightyear has been able to reduce bookkeeping time by between 40-50% purely because of data entry. There is no manual entry now, which has allowed my bookkeeper to get the accounts up to virtually a live situation each month, where previously we would have been 3-4 months in arrears. It is huge for us!
Jonathan Poots, The Cardan
Benefits for your Hospitality Business
Accurate Data
Identify best selling items to create a more appealing offering, identify your popular locations, understand where your costs are going, and keep better track of your inventory
Spend Smarter
Reduce your labour overheads, get a heads up on duplicated invoices, flag product price increases, and identify consumer purchasing trends to avoid over/under ordering stock
Tighter Control
Create approval workflows to avoid unnecessary ordering, 3-way match invoices so you're only paying for the stock you receive, and get notified on fraudulent invoice with bank detail checking
Integrated Solutions
Create a 2-way communication stream between your technology solutions, eliminate duplicated work, transfer stock details from invoice to your inventory solution
Integrate with leading solutions
From accounting packages to inventory solutions, Lightyear offers seamless integration into leading systems in the hospitality industry. Eliminate duplicated work for your team and give them back time they need to complete more pressing tasks.
Trusted by 7,500+ businesses globally
Servicing hospitality businesses is what we do best. We have over a decade of experience working with businesses just like yours. We've helped finance teams reduce their invoice processing by up to 90% and save thousands annually.
Talk to the team about how we can integrate into your business.
Additional resources
CASE STUDY
Here's how The Carden changed the way its finance team operated and seamlined their processes.
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