Accor North America

Accor North America Tightens Internal Controls and Streamlines Operations With Trintech’s Suite of Solutions

Profile

Accor North America is one of the nation’s largest owner/operators of economy lodging. Located in key gateway cities and suburban locales, their brands include Sofitel, Novotel, Ibis, Red Roof Inns, Studio 6 and Motel 6. The company has a portfolio of more than 1,000 hotels in the United States, Canada and Mexico, representing more than 130,000 rooms. Accor North America is the North American arm of French Leisure Group Accor, which operates nearly 4,000 hotels worldwide.

Challenges

Accor North America was struggling with manual account reconciliation that postponed month-end accouting for its growing number of properties. Department inefficiencies and error-prone manual processes caused delays with the identification of exceptions like missing and late deposits. High turnover at properties and reporting delays exposed the company to expensive losses with annual write-offs averaging $1.5 million. Accor North America had no process for escheatment and a 2004 audit resulted in $3 million dollars in penalties for unclaimed property that had not been filed with the appropriate states. Furthermore, a homegrown ACH system with many limitations left millions of dollars in idle cash balances.

Objectives

Accor North America wanted to:

• Improve staff efficiencies
• Verify deposits daily
• Perform timely period-end close
• Replace homegrown ACH system
• Reduce idle balances
• Manage unclaimed property
• Capabilities Provided

Accor North America selected Trintech’s ReconNET system to automate manual processes and detect fraudulent activities, the TRACKER solution for unclaimed property reporting and the DataFlow Transaction Network to manage bank data collection. Together these systems provide:

• Automated account reconciliation
• Timely month-end accounting
• Exception research, reporting and resolution
• Validated and aggregated data from all banks
• ACH processing
• Management of unclaimed property

Proven Results

Automated processes and operational improvements quickly showed results with:

• Reconciliation for 1,000 locations achieved with 2.5 FTEs and a 95% reduction in errors
• Reduced number of banks from 30 to 17, lowering overall bank fees
• Reduced fraudulent activity by 50% with nearly $200,000 in first year savings
• Reduced the value of write-offs by $1.5 million through timely exception item identification
• Recovery of $8 million in idle balances through ReconNET’s ACH and accelerated movement of $750k to $1 million daily
• Up-to-date reporting of unclaimed property
• Maximizing the use of Trintech’s powerful suite of solutions for automation, escheatment and data delivery gave Accor North America more control and insight into their business. They have future plans to reconcile credit card transactions with ReconNET.

“We are responsible for the earliest detection of fraud in Accor North America’s history at the property level. We are able to quickly identify fraudulent activities and remove those committing the offense.” - Susie Eddington, System Administrator

For more information on how you too can automate processes for increased control and savings with ReconNET, contact Trintech today.

Published Friday, October 27th, 2006 at 2:45 pm and filed under TRACKER, DataFlow Transaction Network, ReconNET, Hospitality & Travel, Success Story Library.