For PCH Hotels & Resorts, Loyalty & Longevity Win

For more than 20 years, PCH Hotels & Resorts, a Mobile, Ala.-based hotel management and development company, relied on Aptech for back-office accounting. When the company learned that its existing software was being phased out and replaced by Aptech’s next generation enterprise accounting solution, PVNG, the corporate finance team had some big decisions to make. Do they remain with Aptech, a company that PCH President Tony Davis has been familiar with and successfully using for more than 35 years across his hospitality career, or do they move on and try something new?

“We performed due diligence and took a close look at the many accounting solutions on the market,” said Kristen Chastang, Corporate Director of Finance for PCH Hotels & Resorts. “We decided to stay with Aptech because their company’s values and culture aligns very closely with ours at PCH. They feel like family to us, and we know we can rely on them. Not all companies that provide accounting software understand the hospitality business the way that Aptech does. Because they develop solutions that are hotel specific, they get our lingo, and their support team can answer questions immediately where others outside of hospitality would never understand. They are reliable and honest people to work with.”

PVNG is a game-changer in the world of hotel accounting. It features the Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Statistics, Financials, and Bank Reconciliation that today’s hotel operators are seeking with much-needed browser navigation. Its OCR invoice processing, myriad of payment options, drill-down capabilities in financial statements and reports, ability to handle single or multi-property accounting, and the fact that it can be deployed as a hosted service, explains why this accounting solution is in such high demand. All these features played an important role in PCH’s decision to remain an Aptech customer, Chastang said.

“Because PVNG is cloud based, we no longer have to be connected to the company network to do our jobs,” Chastang said. “Multiple users can be in the system and post at the same time. That was a big reason we were eager to stay with Aptech. Also, the price point of the solution, the great relationship we already have with Aptech, and the look and ease of navigation of the system ultimately tipped the scales towards PVNG. Another major win with this new software is that we no longer must consolidate results at the end of the month. We have two owners for all 15 of our entities, so we do a lot of consolidating. With PVNG, we can have real-time consolidated results at any given moment.

“Additionally, when making changes to a financial statement, it can be done and pushed out to all companies at one time – instead of having to make the change in each company code,” she said. “Setting up and assigning user roles was very straightforward and is helpful for audit purposes to determine what access each user has. Overall, transitioning to PVNG was seamless – we received weekly updates on the project, and the knowledge, communication, quick responses, and friendliness of the team at Aptech has been incredible. Staying loyal to Aptech was an easy decision.”

One of the biggest feature enhancements, Chastang said, is within Accounts Payable. PCH can now import invoices, W9s, etc. and then drill down into those invoices while running financial statements and trial balances. Soon, the company will further automate AP by leveraging Aptech’s OCR-based invoice processing. The AP automation will enable the PCH finance team to receive critical invoice information accurately and efficiently while eliminating paper, removing manual data entry errors, and capturing cost savings. This will enable PCH to improve efficiencies and save significant time and money.

“Time and again, when our customers are faced with migrating to our next generation solutions or switching to another vendor, they tend to remain loyal to Aptech,” said Jill Wilder, Aptech Vice President. “In the case of PCH Hotels & Resorts, they did their homework, and we are so glad they did because the result speaks volumes to our core competency and dedication to hospitality. Aptech has not just been providing financial management solutions to hotels for more than 50 years, but we have been cultivating relationships that cannot be broken.  We are thrilled that PCH Hotels & Resorts chose to remain a satisfied Aptech customer, and we look forward to working with them side by side for the next 20 years and beyond.”