Introduction: Blue Water Development Corporation
Blue Water Development Corporation is a fast‑growing hospitality management company overseeing campgrounds and hotels across the United States. When the company first adopted Yooz in 2020, they were managing AP for 13 properties. Six years later, they have expanded to 69 properties and 106 entities withing Yooz. They process between 4,000 and 5,000 invoices every month. Throughout that growth, Yooz has remained one of the most critical systems in their financial operations.
| Previous Pain Points | Yooz Solutions |
|---|---|
| Lost invoices and no visibility into where approvals stalled. | Centralized intake with full tracking and real‑time status. |
| Manual, inconsistent approvals across dozens of properties. | Standardized workflows that route invoices to the right approvers automatically. |
| No audit trail for compliance or publicly traded ownership requirements. | Automated audit trails capturing every action and approver. |
| Bottlenecks when approvers were out causing delays and vendor issues | Delegation and impersonation to keep invoices moving without interruption. |
| Heavy manual entry and complex multi‑entity allocations. | Real‑time, no‑template AI that captures invoice details instantly and accurately from the very first document |
The Challenge
Prior to Yooz, Blue Water’s AP process was entirely manual. Invoices were emailed, printed, or physically placed on desks, with no centralized intake and no visibility into where approvals stalled. The AP team frequently had to walk from office to office asking whether someone had seen a missing invoice. If an approver was out of the office, invoices simply sat in their inbox or drawer until they returned. As Kristen Gerhart, Treasurer at Blue Water, explained, “We didn’t have any way to track whether invoices came back to AP for payment. We would lose a lot of invoices that way.”
This decentralized approach also created inconsistencies across properties. Each campground or hotel had its own controller managing AP independently, making it difficult to enforce approval standards or maintain an audit trail. As the company grew, the volume of invoices and the lack of transparency became unsustainable.
Why Yooz
When evaluating automation solutions, Blue Water needed a platform flexible enough to support multiple entities, complex approval chains, and a wide variety of invoice types. Yooz stood out immediately. Unlike other systems they considered, Yooz could accommodate the company’s highly variable workflows, including routing based on dollar thresholds, general ledger account codes, vendor types, user groups, and individual approvers.
“Our whole company is like a series of one‑offs,” Kristen shared. “Yooz was the only company able to handle everything we were looking for.” The platform’s audit trail capabilities were equally important, especially as Blue Water began managing properties owned by publicly traded companies with strict compliance requirements.
Yooz even influenced their ERP strategy. During the evaluation process, a Yooz reference call led Blue Water to adopt Sage Intacct, which now sits at the center of their financial ecosystem.
Implementation: Fast, Smooth, and Built to Scale
Blue Water implemented Yooz during the height of COVID‑19 and despite abnormal working conditions, still went live within a few months. The initial workflows remained effective for years before needing only minor adjustments. As the company expanded, Yooz scaled with them supporting new entities, new invoice types, and eventually a full transition from QuickBooks to Sage Intacct. The switch between ERPs was seamless. “It was basically unplug from QuickBooks and plug into Intacct,” Kristen recalled. “There was no pain at all.”
The Impact: A Unified, Centralized AP Engine
Yooz transformed AP from a decentralized, property‑level process into a centralized, standardized operation managed by Blue Water’s corporate AP team. Every invoice now follows a consistent, transparent workflow, and every approver, from general managers to regional leaders to the CFO, sees only the invoices relevant to their role.
This unified approach has dramatically improved visibility, timeliness, and control. Approvals no longer stall when someone is out of office, thanks to easy delegation and admin impersonation. Complex invoices, such as capital expenditures or insurance, automatically route to the appropriate reviewers, while routine property‑level invoices move quickly through a streamlined approval path.
Yooz also plays a critical role in Blue Water’s broader financial ecosystem. Invoice data flows into Sage Intacct, which then feeds into their other systems for budgeting, forecasting, and property‑level financial visibility. “Everything talks to each other,” Kristen said. “Yooz is one of the backbones of our company.”
Words of Wisdom: Find A Platform That Supports Growth
Blue Water’s growth mindset means they are constantly onboarding new properties, often 15 to 17 at a time. Yooz has enabled that expansion without overwhelming the AP team or requiring additional manual processes. New properties adopt the standardized workflows from day one, ensuring consistency across the entire portfolio.
Kristen Gerhart, Treasurer at Blue Water, emphasizes that automation isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about building a financial infrastructure that can support aggressive growth without breaking. Yooz enabled Blue Water to unify AP across the entire organization, eliminate lost invoices, strengthen audit controls, and ensure every stakeholder sees exactly what they need to see. “We’re never done,” she says. “We’re always looking forward.” Yooz is the system that continues to grow with them.
Kristen’s advice to other financial leaders is simple: “Don’t purchase a product based on where you are now, but where you intend to be. Yooz grows with us.”