How City Golf Saved $100K in Finance Costs with Automation

Paul Stephenson, City Golf Club's virtual CFO, oversees the club’s financial performance, focusing on timeliness and consistency across all finance processes. He believes that AP teams could fall behind without an effective automation solution. 

"It’s not just about handling the day-to-day accounts payable and approval processes, but also the back-end work like reconciling statements. For your AP person, 50% of their week can disappear just keeping on top of these tasks." 

Paul shared that when City Golf's management had an appetite for change and a focus on streamlining and efficiencies, their goal was to implement a tech stack that generated revenue. They wanted to streamline and utilise Xero functionality in ways that most people don’t. 

"You review the paper process and take the team on the journey. That way, you and your team can focus on the business, and the software providers can think about integrating better, more AI-efficient products into their software.'' 

Paul also explained that they evaluated different solutions, prioritising the selection of one that genuinely reduced manual work rather than adding another layer of complexity. 

"The automation software we tried before used to be appealing, but it hasn’t developed or grown the way Lightyear has. It really doesn’t handle the complexities of hospitality. The key benefit of Lightyear is that it was developed by hospitality people, for hospitality. That’s why Lightyear is the solution we chose." 

Paul explained how Lightyear handles the full spectrum of City Golf’s finance processes, including purchase orders, statement reconciliations, and inventory uploads to the point of sale, eliminating the need for manual input. Its intuitive design makes it easy to use, and staff appreciate its user-friendly interface. 

"I was speaking with a lady today, and she said, ‘Every time I open it up, I get excited because it’s so easy to use.’ She’s from the accounting world, so she understands why this product is so amazing." 

But that was just the beginning. Paul noted that beyond invoice entry, there were other challenges, such as filing invoices, managing archive folders full of paper, and handling the ongoing printing requirements. With Lightyear, however, all of this is automatically stored in Xero, removing the need for manual filing and paper-based processes. 

"Previously, half of the week was spent on back-end AP activities. Now, we don’t have to do any of it. The time saved is incredible because there is no printing of paper or manual statement reconciliations, and that’s why you save around 75% of your accounts payable workload." 

Paul shared that once the team became familiar with the changes, everyone saw Lightyear’s value, often saying they wished they had adopted it sooner. 

"Everyone who uses Lightyear has their own reasons for loving it. From an accounts payable perspective, they love it because everything is done for them when the invoice arrives. For approvers, they love that they can approve from their phone, on the fly, at home, wherever they like. The financial controller and finance manager love it because they can rely on the accuracy and consistency of the information pushed into Xero." 

For City Golf, the process is now far more straightforward since everything is stamped, automated, and ready to go within seconds.