A Case Study for Automating the AP Process

4 Min Read By Matt Ogle

Matt Ogle, the AP and Vendor Manager for Montana Brands Management (MTB), a fast-growing Taco Bell franchisee in Western Montana, is responsible for all accounts payables and vendor management for 12 Taco Bell stores and the management entity. This is how they made the investment to automate their AP system.

The initiative to automate our AP process was really kick-started during Covid. Each of our Taco Bell stores has 20-30 standard vendors. That includes local vendors servicing a specific store as well as franchise-level vendors which serve all stores.

Before the pandemic hit, our AP process was 100% manual and paper-based. This included receiving, managing, and approving invoices for our then eight different Taco Bell franchises, as well as paying all of their suppliers. As you might guess, there were some challenges with our approach. In addition to being extremely time-consuming, it probably wasn’t as secure as we would have liked, and most importantly, it was not going to…