PBA Saves 8 – 10 Hours Per Hotel Per Month in Streamlined Accounting Processes

Platform Business Advisors (PBA) has built a reputation as a trusted third-party hotel accounting firm — one that savvy hotel management companies across the United States turn to for clean, timely financials and expert guidance. Principals Katie Paolino and Buck Paolino, alongside Director Albert Tinnell, have deep expertise in hospitality accounting, and a broad client base that count on them to deliver month after month.

PBA, formerly known as Hotel Solutions, is a College Station, Texas-based firm that has been in business for 15 years, serving hundreds of hospitality properties across select service, full service, boutique, and resort segments. 

But behind the scenes, PBA was working around the limitations of legacy hotel accounting software. Manual processes ate into their team’s time. Dashboards and visual reporting were out of reach. And clients on smaller or lesser-known PMS and POS systems had no path to automation — because the legacy platforms either wouldn’t build it for them or the custom integration was too costly.

Their search for a modern solution led them to HIA, the hospitality ERP by Hotel Investor Apps. What they found was not just a better accounting system, but a true ERP with hotel functionality already built in — the automations, the integrations, the reporting — ready to go from day one. 

And once the team was working in HIA, something else began to shift. Accountants who had spent years grinding through slow, inflexible systems started moving faster, asking sharper questions, and showing up to work with a new kind of energy.

01. The Challenges

As a third-party accounting firm serving many different clients, efficient processes are everything. PBA’s team had been working in legacy hotel-specific accounting software, but their accountants faced a set of persistent pain points that were causing delays, frustrations, and limitations in what they could offer clients.

Challenge 1: Slow Processing Speeds and an Outdated System

Non-cloud-native software meant sluggish performance, glitches, and a system that simply couldn’t keep pace with a growing client base. Switching between modules, running reports, and managing multiple hotels in the same session were all slower than they needed to be — and slower than their clients deserved.

Challenge 2: Tedious, Manual Processes — Especially Around PMS and POS Feeds

The legacy system required accountants to manually handle much of what should have been automated — including data that should have been flowing directly from property management and point-of-sale systems into the accounting platform. 

“There are two things that solve 99% of your financial reporting problems in hotels: accounts payable and the daily report feed from your PMS into your accounting system. If you get those right, it fixes almost everything else. Most hotels discount both as a low-level priority — and that’s exactly where the problems start.” – Albert Tinnell, Director, Platform Business Advisors

Challenge 3: No Dashboards or Visual Reporting for Owners and GMs

Owners and general managers needed a quick, visual snapshot of property performance — not a spreadsheet to decode. The legacy system had no ability to generate graphical KPIs or dashboards, making it harder for PBA to communicate results to clients and for clients to act on their data in real time.

Challenge 4: Limited Accounts Payable Functionality

PBA wanted to offer clients a more streamlined, digital AP process — getting invoices in faster and payments out quicker. The prior system required largely manual AP management, with no automation to speed up the cycle or reduce the risk of errors.

“We were passionate about delivering great value to our customers, and streamlining our own processes is part of that. We were really intrigued by HIA’s hospitality ERP to see what efficiencies and enhancements our team could gain and pass on to clients.” – Katie Paolino, Principal, Platform Business Advisors

02. The Solution: Implementing HIA

It was a management company client that first asked PBA to move their hotels onto HIA’s ERP & Accounting Software. Now, years into the partnership, HIA is used throughout the organization — from accounting clerks to the CEO, and across client contacts from night auditors to CFOs and ownership groups.

What drew PBA deeper into the platform was something the competition couldn’t match: HIA was the only ERP they encountered that had a true hotel vertical already built in — Daily Report, PMS feeds, POS feeds, AP automation — without requiring a costly custom build.

“There are a lot of ERPs trying to get into the hotel space. But they don’t have the hotel functionality — and when you start asking about a Daily Report, a PMS feed, a POS feed, AP automation, those ERP companies start saying it’s going to cost tens of thousands of dollars to build that for you. What HIA has done is cut all of that out. It already exists.” – Buck Paolino, Principal, Platform Business Advisors

Resolving the Pain Points

Fast, True-Cloud Performance

As a born-in-the-cloud ERP, HIA eliminated the processing delays and glitches of the prior system. There were no plugins required, no lag switching between modules, and no slowdowns — even with multiple hotels and multiple tabs open simultaneously.

“With HIA being all cloud-based, it’s definitely been faster.” – Katie Paolino, Principal, Platform Business Advisors

Automations Replacing Manual Processes — Including PMS and POS Feeds

HIA replaced tedious, manual data entry with built-in automations across the platform. This included automatic PMS and POS imports, automated daily report entries, error detection, and streamlined workflows that reduced the time accountants spent on routine tasks.

Critically, for clients on smaller or lesser-known PMS and POS systems, HIA already had automations built — connections that other providers had refused to develop. PBA’s clients finally had access to automated feeds regardless of which property management or point-of-sale system they were running.

“There are things in HIA that don’t seem huge, but when you’re doing a ton of tasks over and over, they are huge. Like the ability to edit entries to make re-classes, and when you want to re-class something, the ability to copy and paste to duplicate your window — so you can compare things really quickly and easily. Those are all really big deals to our staff accountants.” – Katie Paolino, Principal, Platform Business Advisors

Dashboards for Owners and GMs

HIA’s standard accounting package includes real-time dashboards configurable by user role, giving owners, GMs, and regional managers instant access to the KPIs most relevant to their position — visualized in charts and graphs rather than raw data tables.

“A big thing for our clients is being able to see a quick snapshot dashboard. They want to see a visual representation of what’s actually happening. Looking at numbers alone can be overwhelming — but if you can see a pie graph, a bar chart, or how one hotel compares to another on a daily basis, that really makes a difference.” – Katie Paolino, Principal, Platform Business Advisors

Streamlined Accounts Payable

With HIA, PBA was able to automate and digitize much of their AP process through HIA’s integrations for invoice scanning and digital payments. OCR technology automatically scans, uploads, and codes invoices. Digital payment processing flows directly from within the HIA platform. Together, these two integrations helped PBA get invoices in faster and payments out quicker — for every client on the platform.

“With HIA’s Factura and Repay integrations we were able to make it more of a digital process — getting payment invoices in faster and payments out quicker.” – Katie Paolino, Principal, Platform Business Advisors

03. The Results

8–10 Hours Saved Per Hotel, Per Month

The most measurable impact of HIA at PBA is one they track closely and can put real numbers to: hotels managed in HIA generate 8 to 10 hours of time savings per month — per hotel — purely from the system’s ease of use, automation, and efficiency. 

One area of significant time savings is the new digitized AP workflow which automatically maps and enters invoices from emails or scans and invoices can be verified in as little as 30 seconds. 

PBA monitors their end-of-month close, weekly processes, and AP turnaround time, and the data is consistent. For an accountant managing 8, 12, or 15 hotels at a time, those hours add up fast — and they’ve changed how PBA thinks about staffing, growth, and capacity.

“We track very closely the end of month close, the weekly processes, how much time it’s taking for our accounts payable team as well as the accounting team — and mathematically we can see turnaround time decreasing. A hotel in HIA is going to be about 8 to 10 hours a month more efficient. So for an accountant doing 8, 12, 15 hotels at a time, that’s 10 hours a month saved on each one — just from the ability to attach images, drill down, or export directly into the file format you need with the filtering you already have in place.” – Buck Paolino, Principal, Platform Business Advisors

Those savings now inform PBA’s hiring decisions, onboarding capacity, and long-term growth planning. They know exactly what a full-time accountant can handle — and when it’s time to bring someone new on.

Happier, More Engaged Accounting Teams

Beyond the numbers, the cultural shift inside PBA has been just as significant. Accountants who once spent their days grinding through manual processes and slow systems are now moving quickly, drilling into the details that matter, and engaging with clients at a higher level.

“Our accounting teams are just happier and more excited to work in HIA. As a leader, that speaks volumes to me. Things like side-by-side views, the ability to open duplicate tabs — even the sheer number of tabs I have open doesn’t slow me or the system down. We’ve saved considerable time and frustration, and HIA just allows us to move quicker inside the platform.” – Albert Tinnell, Director, Platform Business Advisors

A Foundation for SOPs, Training, and Scale

HIA’s flexibility gave PBA the ability to build and standardize their own internal processes — establishing a firm set of SOPs that made training, onboarding, and team growth dramatically more efficient. New hires enter a pre-built environment with clear procedures they can learn, understand, and build on.

Better Scalability and Faster Onboarding of New Hotels

As PBA continues to bring on new clients and those clients grow their portfolios, the ability to onboard new hotels quickly has become a strategic advantage. HIA’s template duplication feature means adding a new property doesn’t start from scratch.

04. Summary

In third-party hotel accounting, efficiency isn’t just a preference — it’s the foundation of everything a firm delivers to its clients. For Platform Business Advisors, legacy software that lacked speed, automation, and real-time dashboards was holding their team back and limiting what they could offer.

With HIA’s born-in-the-cloud hospitality ERP, PBA found a comprehensive ERP platform that already had the hotel vertical built in — PMS and POS automations, AP integrations, visual dashboards, and flexible reporting — without the cost or delay of custom development. The result has been 8 to 10 hours saved per hotel per month, a more engaged and empowered accounting team, and a scalable infrastructure for continued growth.

“HIA is truly working on finding a way to help hotel companies get the cleanest, fastest, and most accurate data out there — and they aren’t afraid to connect with other platforms to make that happen. They’re very forward-focused. That’s why they have our business.” – Buck Paolino, Principal, Platform Business Advisors