At Pinnacle, GM Entrepreneurs and Centralized Accounting Support Growth

When the corporate office handles accounting, properties focus on profitability

• 
  SAVE
• 
  SHARE
• 
  TEXT SIZE
• 
  PRINT
• 
  COMMENT
• 
  PDF

. October 14, 2008

PITTSBURGH, PA, May 25, 2006. Pinnacle Hotel Management delivers what investors crave - profitability and fast growth. The company manages 17 properties for several different ownership groups and recently acquired an additional nine Marriott-managed hotels. So how does it drive this success? The secret is a combination of management entrepreneurship, centralized support, and hotel computer systems technology.

Founded in 1997 by Ron Franklin and Dick Vilardo, Florida-based Pinnacle operates with a philosophy that each property is its own business, and every hotel's management team is responsible for its success. To support its general managers, Pinnacle provides as much administrative assistance as possible, giving GMs freedom to focus on improving property performance.

"Our investors expect a strong bottom line with a minimum of management expense, and we deliver it," said Pinnacle Director of Finance, Felicia Matula. "We run a very lean operation, three regional managers and my accounting staff, and we automate wherever possible."

In an effort to tighten operations, standardize financial ownership reporting and support its general managers, Pinnacle automated and centralized its accounting processes with help from Aptech Computer Systems customized software solutions. Pinnacle implemented the Profitvue(R) enterprise financial system from Aptech that provides immediate secured access to Pinnacle's records for review, analysis and reporting.

"Before automating, property managers frequently requested changes or corrections to their manual entries by phone, which required the corporate accounting team to make corrections and email them verification," explained Ms. Matula, who began with Pinnacle as a GM seven years ago before being appointed director of finance. "Now, GMs can email or phone with their revisions and can verify the changes almost instantly to confirm accuracy and check performance. In addition, they can review their performance numbers online with Aptech's Webvue(R) to check expenses or get a first-draft P&L to verify accuracy; they don't have to wait until month end." Both Profitvue and Webvue are part of Aptech's suite of hotel management software and hospitality business intelligence software.

Pinnacle's dramatic growth necessitated the move to Aptech. "At first we did not even have an accounting office; but as we added hotels - like our full-service Orlando Marriott-Lake Mary -- we knew we needed to move to an accounting system designed for the hotel industry that could support multiple properties," said Matula. "That was when we upgraded our financial system to Profitvue." Matula added, "One of the advantages of using a proven accounting system for a complex operation like ours is the ease in maintaining reporting standards. In addition, it only takes about five minutes to add a new hotel to the system. With growth like ours, this saves lots of time." Nearly all Pinnacle's properties are Marriott flags and most are limited service.

Although Pinnacle Hotel Management is focused on developing and managing Florida hotels, the company also maintains projects that include a Residence Inn in Anaheim Hills, California, a Homewood Suites in Columbia, Maryland, and a Residence Inn in Hartford/Avon, Connecticut.

"Our growth, combined with the need to support our GMs so they can focus on their property's performance, makes us highly dependent on technology to keep us efficient and effective," said Matula. "Aptech is an excellent technology partner for us because they understand how we run our company. When we call, we speak with the same group of people. They know Pinnacle's business and how its financials are set up. When we add a new property, they bring the books online in the corporate system the same day we call them. All in all, it's a rewarding partnership that allows us to thrive."

Aptech will be exhibiting at HITEC 2006 in Minneapolis, Minn., June 20-22. Please visit booth 1001 to receive a complete demonstration of Aptech's Execuvue(R), Profitvue(R), Targetvue(R) or Webvue(R) solutions.