The Great Southern Hotel

The Organisation

The Great Southern Hotel brand encompasses hotels across Australia in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth, as well as a hotel in Sri Lanka. The hotels are managed by Acostay Hotel Group and employ a staff of more than 250 across the locations.

In reaction to the various restrictions brought on by COVID-19 over 2020 and 2021, The Great Southern Hotel has adopted remote working where possible and—whilst key roles remain on-site including at their head office in Sydney—they have subsequently moved a number of roles off-shore.

The Great Southern Hotel has been using Microsoft Dynamics GP for more than 18 years, and have been partnering with Professional Advantage (PA) for the duration of that time.  

“We deliver quality at a reasonable price giving maximum value to our customers. Our structures are lean, and therefore technology is essential. We rely on organisations like PA with whom we form a partnership to work together, and ultimately achieve more with our technology.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

The Need

The Great Southern Hotel had been bringing together their systems and software—hospitality management, accounting, human resources, sales—prior to COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns. As such, they were prepared to collaborate and work remotely when required.

However, there were areas within the organisation where it was identified that processes could be both improved and streamlined.

“We valued the accounting software of Dynamics GP, but we knew we would value more flexibility in our reporting processes.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

After honing the output of their systems, they wanted to refocus to their inputs and improve efficiencies from this end. Another key objective was to increase the productivity of staff, and doing this whilst considering new working environments and locations.

“We believed our teams were unnecessarily doing work that should, and could, be automated.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

The organisation also wanted to bring more of their processes to the cloud.

The Solution

The Great Southern Hotel ensured they completed a thorough investigation of the possible solutions and partners that would meet their requirements. PA presented the solution PaperSave: integrated with Dynamics GP it offers document management, electronic workflow, and invoice automation.

“The integration of PaperSave with Dynamics GP was very important. We know that the two solutions are set up and will work together.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

They also needed to consider their partner: this would be the team they would be working with for the foreseeable future and who would be instrumental in the success of the project.

“The longevity of our relationship with PA greatly influenced our decision. We have a longstanding relationship with them and have already developed a high level of trust. We know we will get the support and quality that we need from PA.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

The Great Southern Hotel utilised the support of their Client Management Team at PA to ensure their specific questions and queries were considered and answered to guarantee ultimate satisfaction with the solution.

“We were very particular about how the solution would work and what it needed to do. Our Client Success Manager went out of their way to provide us with all the information and knowledge we would need to make a decision, and ultimately presented us with the right solution.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

They were also presented with a cost comparison which allowed the board to be shown what the options were and why they were selecting PaperSave over other options.

The Results

The Great Southern Hotel identified an excess of hard copies which meant an excess in manual handling: invoices were emailed and printed, archived, and then manually located at times of audit. With the implementation of PaperSave, these hard copies became soft copies that were accessible at the click of a button; easily editable; constantly tracked; and verified instantly.

“We are obviously happy to be more environmentally conscious by saving paper, but are also appreciating the benefits this has brought to our business and staff: we have removed human error and reduced stress. The processes are simply more peaceful.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

The organisation moved their Dynamics GP to the cloud when that option was made available more than 6 years ago, so have appreciated that the integration of PaperSave with Dynamics GP includes the cloud.

“Now that our documents are being stored in the cloud, we need to ensure their security. Back-ups are scheduled to happen regularly to safeguard our data, so we don’t need to worry about this.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

The PaperSave mobile app is a key benefit of the cloud, with users able to access data and manage approvals on the go.

PaperSave is an intelligent system, providing a transactional edge as the organisation uses it; the practices for handling an invoice are learned and retained, resulting in manually repeated processes being eliminated.

“By learning the process for an invoice, we have eradicated multiple entry. This allows for data entry roles to progress to more senior and influential roles.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

Staff across the organisation—both financial and non-financial—are utilising PaperSave, with each department granted a log in and user profile. This has provided transparency across the organisation and is continuing to create value as everyone can contribute to the systems.

“Our staff are very happy. The computers manage the data and our staff then monitor it and act on the result.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

With quicker processes and greater access to data, the staff have more time to collaborate with each other and focus on other projects.

The organisation has also been working with Management Reporter, with PA consultants working with their staff to customise every aspect of the reports produced.

“We put Management Reporter to the test and succeeded. We have 25 reports that we can deliver at the click of a button. This is a process that used to take days every month.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.

The reports provide exactly what is needed at the time, ranging from different areas of the organisation, monies owed, and interest rates.

At the end of the project, The Great Southern Hotel was able to identify the following wins.

• Reduced labour by 50%.
• Improved efficiency by 75%.
• Converted two archive rooms into offices.
• Removed human error and increased transparency.
• Staff engagement with the system.
• Streamlined input to sync with output.

“Ultimately, our data is now safer, more accessible, and most importantly more accurate and verifiable.” - Syed Irfan, Director & Group Financial Controller, The Great Southern Hotel Group.