How PowerPlay Saves 30+ Hours Per Week on AP Without Additional Headcount
PowerPlay Australia is a multi-venue entertainment business specialising in electric go-karting, with venues across Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. Its venues feature two-level indoor tracks and cater to a range of customers, from families and birthday parties to corporate events and group bookings. As the business expanded, managing the growing volume of invoices across multiple venues became increasingly challenging for its small finance team.
Results with Lightyear
Before Lightyear, PowerPlay’s two-person accounts team was responsible for processing around 500 invoices a month across six venues. With each invoice taking approximately five minutes to process, thoroughly checking every detail was unrealistic alongside their wider workload. This left room for errors, including duplicate payments, missed invoices and incorrect cost allocations. Since implementing Lightyear, invoice processing has dropped to under a minute per invoice, saving an estimated 12 hours across the team’s working week. Automated invoice coding, approval routing and duplicate detection have reduced manual administration, allowing the team to focus on other responsibilities and support continued business growth without increasing headcount.
6 Venues, 2 Accounts Staff & Growing Workload
PowerPlay’s accounts payable process was largely manual: invoices were emailed to the accounts team, checked and approved manually, and then uploaded to their accounting software. Managing this process across 6 venues was time-consuming and increasingly difficult as the business expanded.
“The workload was insane, and we were constantly dealing with errors, duplicate payments, missed payments and invoices being allocated incorrectly.” - Alexandra Groves, Accounts and Community Officer
With a two-person accounts team juggling multiple responsibilities, manual invoice processing was taking time away from other projects and increasing the risk of costly errors.
“We were spending so much time on accounts payable that we could have been using elsewhere. With the volume of invoices we were handling, human error was inevitable. Invoices were paid twice, payments were missed, and costs were sometimes allocated incorrectly.”
As PowerPlay expanded, the team needed a more scalable way to manage its accounts payable workload without increasing headcount.
“We started looking into Lightyear because the workload was so immense that we were considering hiring one or even two additional people just to manage accounts payable. We'd just launched our sixth venue and were already looking at building the seventh and planning for the eighth.”
The time it took to manage AP across venues, and the errors that came with all that manual work, were a huge challenge.
AP Automation That Processes Invoices in <1 Minute
Lightyear has streamlined invoice processing, reducing the time needed to handle each invoice from several minutes to under a minute.
“Previously, processing an invoice took around 3 to 5 minutes. With Lightyear, it's done within a minute. In a 38-hour work week, it probably saves me 30 to 33 hours. Everyone's invoice admin is approximately cut in half, saving around 12 hours of everyone else's week as well.”
Alexandra explained that a key benefit of Lightyear is the automation of repetitive tasks.
“I had to setup rules once in Lightyear, and then it remembers. When an invoice comes in, it automatically assigns it to the relevant approver, applies the right code, allocates it to the venue and splits the GST if needed. That's what saves us so much time.”
Lightyear’s AI-driven features are a standout for the team at PowerPlay, particularly Smart Extract+ Edit Mode and duplicate detection, which help reduce manual checks and the risk of duplicate payments.
“We really love the new Edit Mode in Smart Extract. It is phenomenal. Lightyear also picks up duplicate invoices so well. Previously, we were creating an Excel spreadsheet to compare them, and if we missed one or coded something incorrectly, it could get paid twice. Now, Lightyear flags the duplicates, and we can simply review and remove them.”
The automations save us so much time. Lightyear automatically allocates it to the venue and splits the GST if needed.
1+ Additional Hire Avoided While Growing From 6 - 8 Venues
“Without Lightyear, we would easily have needed another 1 or 2 people dedicated purely to accounts payable, given the workload and volume of invoices. It simply wouldn’t have been sustainable to continue doing things the way we were before.”
The time saved with Lightyear has allowed Alexandra to focus on a wider range of responsibilities beyond accounts payable.
“I now have a lot more time to support our venue managers with sales, manage incoming sales entries and accounts receivable, and help with budget reporting and larger projects. Having that extra time means I can contribute much more across the business, rather than focusing just on accounts payable.”
When we asked Alexandra what she'd tell Entertainment Operators considering automating their accounts payable, he said:
“I’d tell them straight up to use Lightyear. It’s as simple as that. I’d recommend it, offer a bit of advice around the setup and getting everything up and running, and then it’s pretty cut and dry: here’s Lightyear, use it. Otherwise, you’re making things harder than they need to be.”
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