Hospitality Solutions Provider
Modernizing Financial Operations: National Parking Services Leader Transforms $1B Business with Cloud-Based Billing Solution.
A leading hospitality company specializing in parking and mobility solutions, with $1 billion in annual revenue and over 770 locations, struggled with Excel-dependent financial operations that couldn't keep pace with growth. Allata implemented a low-code solution on Microsoft Power Platform, transforming its billing system in just six months. The result: dramatically reduced processing time, improved accuracy, enhanced customer satisfaction, and a scalable foundation for expansion, positioning this nationwide parking services provider to manage high-profile clients while accommodating their ambitious acquisition strategy efficiently.
OVERVIEW
Rapid Transformation of Critical Financial Infrastructure
This premier provider of outsourced parking and mobility solutions ran all financial operations on a network of interlinked Excel spreadsheets. This manual approach created accuracy problems, delayed financial closes, and hindered their acquisition strategy. Allata delivered a custom billing solution on the Microsoft Power Platform that modernized their entire billing process while accommodating their limited IT support capabilities.
The implementation delivered immediate business value:
- Reduced new customer onboarding time from 1-2 days to just minutes.
- Transformed the billing process from requiring three full-time staff to largely automated operations.
- Established a reliable contract data source of truth, supporting future financial system improvements.
- Created a foundation for integrated data insights across finance operations.
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THE CHALLENGE
Manual Processes Limiting Growth Potential
This national leader in hospitality and healthcare parking services had built a successful business providing turnkey solutions across over 770 locations in the hospitality and healthcare sectors. However, their back-office operations couldn’t match their front-line success. A fragmented process undermined confidence in a company managing a billion dollars in revenue through Excel spreadsheets.
Each customer location submitted daily revenue reports to headquarters via Excel, which were then linked to other spreadsheets for financial reporting and projections. This approach created multiple pain points that worsened as the company expanded. Scale became increasingly problematic as each new acquisition added different contract structures and customer site requirements.
The existing process presented numerous critical challenges:
- Complex Excel workbooks with 25+ tabs containing macros and formulas that field staff couldn’t understand.
- No data controls to maintain integrity, leading to accuracy problems and potential revenue leakage.
- Difficult employee onboarding due to process complexity.
- Billing cycle consuming nearly half the month, delaying general ledger closing.
- Limited ability to respond to competitive pressures due to back-office inefficiencies.
- No central repository for contract details besides inaccessible PDFs.
OUR SOLUTION
Custom Platform Designed for Scalability and Integration
Allata implemented a tailored solution that modernized the billing system of the parking services company while accommodating their limited IT capabilities. Strategic technology selection was crucial, as the company lacked the resources to support a complex custom software solution long-term.
An AI-enabled design Approach became a key differentiator in the project’s success. Allata employed an innovative process where AI tools created real-time clickable prototypes. This allowed stakeholders to see the system “working” immediately, providing instant feedback that refined the solution design. This collaborative approach significantly accelerated the development cycle, ensuring the final product precisely matched user’s needs.
The approach featured a custom front-end UI built with React, backed by Microsoft Dataverse for data storage and Azure BLOB for document management. Phased implementation allowed for user feedback throughout the process, with development divided into four major milestones, each followed by user acceptance testing.
Key solution components included:
- Custom React-based user interface designed for the corporate billing team
- Microsoft Dataverse backend providing enterprise-grade data integrity
- Power Automate for business logic and data integration
- Azure Static Web Apps and Azure Functions for application hosting
- Integration with on-premises SQL data warehouse via data gateway
- Automated PDF generation and email distribution of invoices
- General Ledger integration with Microsoft Great Plains
- AI-powered prototyping for rapid iteration and stakeholder alignment
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THE RESULT
Transformed Financial Operations Supporting Growth
The new billing system has dramatically improved the hospitality parking provider’s financial operations, creating immediate efficiency gains and a foundation for continued improvement. The system now serves as the source of truth for their contract configurations – critical information that previously wasn’t systematically captured.
Operational efficiency skyrocketed with the monthly billing process transforming from three people working at capacity for five days to largely automated operations. As noted by their Finance Manager, “the system has a major impact on efficiency, provides a foundation for integrated data insights across finance, with big accuracy impact and ability to scale.”
The customer experience transformation has been equally impressive. The company’s clients—primarily major hotels and healthcare facilities—now receive professionally formatted, machine-readable invoices that integrate smoothly with modern accounts payable systems. This improvement has eliminated disputes and delays in the payment cycle, improving cash flow and strengthening client relationships.
Strategic positioning for acquisitions has been enhanced through the new system’s scalability. The company is now able to rapidly onboard newly acquired businesses without the previous 1-2 day setup process per location. This capability directly supports their aggressive growth strategy in a consolidating industry.
Measurable outcomes include:
- 556 of 771 total customer sites now operating on the new billing system
- 118 Management Agreement sites scheduled for onboarding in May-June
- Approximately 50 highly customized sites to be migrated over the next two months
- New customer onboarding reduced from 1-2 days to minutes
- Improved invoice quality leading to higher customer satisfaction
- Identification of previously unbilled revenue from formula errors
- Foundation established for upcoming forecasting and budgeting improvements
technology
Enterprise Platform Supporting Long-Term Success
The solution architecture balanced immediate needs with long-term maintainability, focusing on technologies that would support growth without requiring extensive IT resources.
- Microsoft Power Platform for low-code configuration capabilities
- Microsoft Dataverse providing enterprise-grade data storage
- Azure Static Web Apps and Azure Functions for application hosting
- React front-end for optimal user experience
- Power Automate for workflow automation and business logic
- Azure BLOB for document storage
- Integration with on-premises systems via data gateways
- Microsoft Great Plains for general ledger management
- AI-powered prototyping tools for agile development and stakeholder engagement
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