Multi-Flag Operators Partner with Tech Provider

PCH Hotels & Resorts and Charter One Hotels & Resorts maintain steady growth with sc

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. October 14, 2008

MAY 24, 2007. Two successful hotel companies operating different types of properties in different markets, and employing diverse growth strategies are enjoying similar success by expanding their portfolios with the help of centralized financial platforms and standardized reporting.

Alabama-based PCH Hotels & Resorts, the resort division of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, manages eight upscale and upper-upscale resorts. The Marriott- and Renaissance-flagged destinations feature world-class golf, fine dining and European-style spas. All are owned by the employees' Retirement Systems of Alabama.

Charter One Hotels & Resorts provides on-site management, turnaround services, development guidance, food and beverage consulting and sales and marketing for multiple ownership groups. The company's portfolio includes Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn, Radisson, Best Western and Ramada brands and two independents. About a third of its 11 properties across Florida and New York are full-service.

"A successful strategy for us is to focus on downtown and second-tier markets where our full-service hotel is the only full-service property in the area," said Larry T. Tyner, corporate controller for Sarasota, Fla.-based Charter One.

While each company is unique, one thing both have in common is their long-time partnership with Aptech Computer Systems which provides the Profitvue enterprise financial accounting solution used by each for centralized financial controls, back office accounting, data collection, information access and financial reporting. Both Charter One and PCH have worked with Aptech for over five years utilizing Profitvue to support their rapid expansion.

"PCH has grown quickly from a single hotel to eight large resorts," said Tony Davis, chief financial officer for PCH Hotels & Resorts. "We discovered the Profitvue back office system after we acquired a property that was using it. It worked so well we standardized on Profitvue as we expanded. It is a comprehensive hospitality financial system that supports all our resorts centrally from PCH's corporate headquarters." Davis said PCH's use of global chart of accounts makes the system ideal for a company with multiple properties. "Our relationship with Aptech is like a partnership. No one on my staff has to ask a support question twice because Aptech's team knows the hotel business."

Davis explained that Profitvue makes it a simple matter to add properties and ownership entities to its portfolio by applying PCH's accounting formats, general ledger codes and reporting used by their other resorts. "Profitvue is scaleable and supports all our hotels on one server. We utilize the same hardware platform for all our resorts, which is an efficient use of resources and saves us money."

Charter One Hotels & Resorts also partners with Aptech to leverage centralized financial accounting technology that supports its growth strategy.

"We have been using Profitvue for eight years and developed an strong technology partnership with Aptech," Tyner said. "Adding properties to Profitvue is effortless, principally because we created a standard chart of accounts that works for all our properties. We pooled resources with Aptech to develop hospitality reports and financials; their understanding of hospitality operations is an asset to our business."

Tyner explained that Charter One maintains management control centrally by accessing individual property data daily in Profitvue and then running queries to monitor performance. "We compare similar propertys' performance side by side in Profitvue, then go looking for metrics that are different between hotels. This kind of flexible reporting is great for problem solving. For example, when we recently compared utility costs at properties in the same market, we noticed the expense for electric utilities was very high at one property." Tyner said his team discovered an onsite accounting employee was billing power to the wrong account. Correcting the error resulted in an improved bottom line. "We would not have caught that mistake if we were not comparing expenses for the two properties on one report. The beauty of Profitvue is that it offers consistent reporting that lets us analyze the numbers without going out of our way to do it."

PCH's Davis said his accounting staff prefers Profitvue because it is tailored to the hotel industry and easy to use. "Since it is designed for the hospitality companies, the system delivers many advantages that generic accounting systems lack. Getting performance information out of the Profitvue is simplified, and entering data over the Internet is effortless with Aptech's Thin Client version of Profitvue. Data security is important to us and the system offers excellent protection from unauthorized access."

Centralizing its multi-property accounting enabled PCH to become more efficient with its accounting staff as well. "Each time we add a hotel, we are gaining efficiencies in staff utilization," Davis said. "We leverage centralized accounting for much greater efficiency. Profitvue's flexibility is very helpful because we can oversee each hotel's operations centrally via codes on one server so we can centralize the general ledger, corporate consolidations and other functions."