The Challenge
Before Vroozi, the Little Rock Convention Center & Visitors Bureau was drowning in paper and inefficiency.
"We had a completely paper-based environment with purchase orders and invoices getting lost," explains Chris Phillips, CFO at Little Rock Convention Center & Visitors Bureau. "This led to a lack of trust between departments. We also struggled with the need for wet signatures across multiple buildings and had no mobile-friendly approval processes."
The stark contrast between corporate procurement and everyday online shopping created additional frustration.
"Our employees found the procurement process difficult compared to their personal online shopping experiences," says Phillips. "They would often just pull out their own credit cards for business needs because going through the official process was such a hassle."
The Solution
Little Rock Convention Center & Visitors Bureau implemented Vroozi in 2018, beginning with Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains integration and later transitioning to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
"Vroozi was willing to integrate with our legacy system when others weren't," notes Phillips. "The connection to Business Central has been straightforward, with minimal engagement needed from Vroozi's team."
The organization runs all spending through Vroozi, maintaining a 50/50 split between PO and non-PO approaches:
- Purchase Order Processing: Now consumer-friendly through punchout catalogs
- Invoice Management: Unified visibility of all spending types
- Budget Controls: Blanket POs for recurring expenses like marketing
- AP Automation: Vroozi Intelligence for faster invoice processing
The adoption of punchout catalogs has been particularly effective. "Punchout catalogs have been life-changing for us," Phillips emphasizes. "The Amazon-like experience from vendors like Office Depot has completely changed how we get our supplies."
The Results
Faster Procurement and AP Processes
- Little Rock CVB achieved a 50% reduction in AP processing time, with PO-based invoice matching now taking just a couple of clicks.
- The organization also cut procurement cycle times by 7 days, with most POs now approved within hours instead of getting stuck in paper trails across multiple buildings.
- New users can be onboarded in just 1 hour, supporting operational agility across all four divisions.
"With Vroozi Intelligence, processing PO-based invoices is now so much faster," Phillips notes. "It's just a couple of clicks and we're done."
Complete Spend Visibility and Control
The organization now maintains 100% spend visibility across both PO and non-PO spending by running everything through Vroozi. "We intentionally put everything through Vroozi for a unified view," explains Phillips. "Even though utilities don't go through a PO process, Vroozi's invoice approval feature still gives us consolidation and makes review simple."
Better Supplier Relationships
With 54 supplier catalogs centralized and 70 users fully onboarded, the "Amazon-like experience" has transformed procurement. "Punchout catalogs have been life-changing for us," Phillips emphasizes. National suppliers prefer working through Vroozi's electronic platform, and sourcing specialty items for conferences now takes hours instead of days.
Real-time Budget Management
- Faster forecasting and budget revisions, plus an early warning system for potential overspending, help the team handle urgent requests more effectively.
"The budget module gives us quick visibility into potential issues before they become problems," Phillips explains. "We're still learning all its capabilities, but it's already proving valuable for our forecasting."
Practical ROI in Daily Operations
Ryan Callison, Vice President of Marketing & Communications, shared a real example of quickly sourcing rock candy for an event through the platform, which would have been a lengthy manual process before Vroozi.
Matt Mills, Controller, adds: "The PO AI features just make sense – they're easy to use and have made our AP process night-and-day better."
Mills, who works closely with Phillips, adds: "The PO AI features just make sense – they're easy to use and have made our AP process night-and-day better."
Looking ahead, the organization is working on a KPI dashboard for organization-wide visibility. They're also eager for the budget module to expand to include non-PO invoices.
"This year we're focused on building our KPI dashboard within Vroozi," says Phillips. "We're also hoping to see the budget module evolve to include our non-PO spending for a complete financial picture."
