How Raceway Car Wash Cut AP Close by 2 Days with Stampli

Raceway Car Wash operates 46 locations across Arizona, Texas, Nevada, and California, supported by more than 200 active vendors providing everything from chemicals and equipment maintenance to software and operational services.

Accounts Payable Manager Elizabeth Garzon oversees vendor management, invoice coding, approvals, and the flow of invoices into Sage Intacct. With a two-person AP team, Raceway processes more than 1,000 invoices each month across its multi-entity operation.

After leading Stampli’s implementation and go-live, Elizabeth has seen the AP function evolve from a highly manual process into one built around automation, visibility, and control.

Before Stampli, processing more than 1,000 monthly invoices required extensive manual work. Invoices arrived as PDF email attachments. The accounting team downloaded each file, saved it into a subfolder, renamed it for identification, and hand-keyed the information into Sage Intacct. When Elizabeth first joined Raceway, even credit card statements were printed, coded by hand, and manually entered.

Approvals created another bottleneck. Invoices went to different supervisors based on location or GL account, leaving AP to search email chains, chase approvers, and sometimes resend the same invoice multiple times. It could take up to 10 days for an invoice to reach Sage Intacct, leaving less time to review aging invoices, take advantage of payment terms, and anticipate cash needs.

Vendor management was similarly fragmented. W-9s, certificates of insurance, and other documents for more than 200 active vendors lived in sub-folders, while AP manually managed document collection, updates, and vendor questions.

For a lean accounting team supporting 46 locations, Raceway needed a way to eliminate manual work while gaining visibility into every invoice and vendor relationship.

"Before Stampli, getting answers would require going through lots of emails. It was all manual — following up with people, resending the same invoice to the same person multiple times, and piecing all that information together."

Raceway Car Wash selected Stampli for its AI capabilities, centralized invoice visibility, and robust vendor management functionality.

During the evaluation, Billy, powered by Stampli Intelligence, stood out to Elizabeth for its ability to capture information across multipage invoices. Stampli’s Vendor Management solution also impressed her by bringing vendor documents, communication, and invoice information into one place. Together, these capabilities addressed two of Raceway’s biggest challenges: reducing manual invoice processing and gaining greater visibility across AP.

From there, Raceway moved quickly. Elizabeth worked with Stampli to connect Sage Intacct, set up approval routing by site and GL account, and ensure invoice data and supporting documentation flowed correctly between systems for reporting and audits. Raceway was live with Stampli in less than 60 days.

“Honestly, it was the quickest implementation that I've ever been a part of, and it was very streamlined and we were up and running in less than 60 days.”

Today, vendors submit invoices directly to Stampli, where Billy captures invoice information and suggests coding based on Raceway’s accounting structure.

Billy has even learned Raceway’s internal naming conventions. If an invoice uses shorthand for one of its 46 locations, Billy can associate it with the correct location. Month to month, Billy does 98% of the manual work on Raceway’s invoices which accounts for approximately 34,000 fields across 1,000 invoices. 

Invoices are then routed to the appropriate approver based on site or GL location before reaching Elizabeth for final approval and syncing to Sage Intacct. That centralized workflow gives Elizabeth a complete view of each invoice’s coding, approval history, supporting documents, and communication. Instead of searching email chains or repeatedly following up with approvers, she can immediately see where an invoice is held up and who needs to take action.

Raceway also implemented Stampli Vendor Management to centralize onboarding and ongoing management of more than 200 active vendors. Instead of AP collecting documents over email and storing them in sub-folders, vendors can maintain their own profiles and submit W-9s, certificates of insurance, ACH information, and other documentation directly in Stampli. The automated expiration notifications further reduce manual follow-up.

Vendors can also see the status of submitted invoices and payments themselves. When questions do reach AP, Elizabeth’s team can quickly review the invoice, approval history, and previous communication from one place. This combination of automation and self-service has helped Raceway increase the capacity of its AP function.

"Stampli has become more than an invoice-processing tool for us. It gives me the visibility I need to manage AP from both an internal process and vendor-management perspective."

With less time spent processing invoices and chasing approvals, Elizabeth can focus on improving the processes and spending patterns behind them.

Greater visibility has helped the team identify bottlenecks, review vendor relationships, consolidate certain suppliers, and explore better payment terms instead of relying on due-on-receipt arrangements.

Elizabeth has also begun using Stampli Deep Finance to investigate spending patterns and opportunities. One analysis identified nearly $32,000 in potential annual float loss from early payments, giving her a concrete opportunity to evaluate with leadership.

For Elizabeth, that ability to proactively manage AP has become as important as the automation itself.