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Neighbourgood is a next-generation property development and management company that exists to create connected spaces where good people belong and thrive.
190
Employees
Xero
Accounting Platform
Hospitality & real estate
Industry
Cape Town, South Africa
Location
8 reasons to bolster your financial controls for Xero users
As businesses expand, they can benefit from stronger financial controls and approvals to prevent, detect, and correct any financial issues before they arise.
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By using ApprovalMax, we can keep our finger on the pulse and be more proactive instead of reactive. It's intuitive, easy to understand, and not overly complicated. When our administrators or controller look at a supplier invoice, they can simply go back and check if it’s been signed off before pushing it to the bank.
Keldohn Swanepoel
Head of Finance at Neighbourgood
In 2020, Cape Town was filled with empty, under-priced buildings. The global pandemic forced everyone to rethink what home and work really meant – and that was the spark that brought Neighbourgood to light. It started with buying and converting these unused office buildings, hotels and guesthouses into residential buildings with flexible leases for residents.
Two years later, however, the city was busy again, and Neighbourgood shifted direction to a hospitality offering with both short stays and long-term leases that put community at its core. Now, the business offers connected living, co-working spaces, and community events and experiences. Operating with a density model, Neighbourgood has grown to have over 420 keys in the city and expanded to San Francisco in the USA, recently raising capital to grow the business there.
“Instead of staying with a traditional hotel, where you get a functional room for a night, the differentiator when you stay with us is you've got access to our workspaces and community events,” says Keldohn Swanepoel, Head of Finance at Neighbourgood.
“If you want to do free yoga on a rooftop or go to a networking event on a Wednesday, then we have all of that. We’ve got a strong focus on community.”
A real good tech stack
In late 2023, Neighbourgood went live with ApprovalMax with the help of Iridium. By connecting it into a tech stack along with Xero and Dext, the team is able to manage complex approvals across 20 entities in both South Africa and the USA.
The ease of use made it quick to get ApprovalMax up and running and see the impact. “It’s quite simple to understand, not overly complicated, and solves a massive problem – cost management,” says Swanepoel.
“We've got 20 companies under our management and I can't be in the detail everywhere. So it’s important to make sure we've got good processes throughout.”
This is especially true as the business focuses on growing its presence in the United States. “Systems and processes are super important when working across multiple timezones. If the US team needs to order a bunch of goods, they can process it in their day, then when we wake up in the morning everything has gone through the right approvals,” says Swanepoel.
With ApprovalMax, Neighbourgood has sophisticated approval workflows set out for all of its entities, that manage everything from OPEX budgets and POs to invoices based on certain criteria. All of this has saved a huge amount of time and increased visibility across spend, leading to fewer unexpected surprises.
Better spend control
With so many consumables needed for the hotels, it was easy in the past for spending to get out of hand. Now, Neighbourgood has the right framework to stay within budget.
Time savings
With streamlined, automated processes, there’s no longer the back-and-forth to double check approvals or get more information on an expense.
Complex, customisable workflows
The team has the configured approval workflows exactly as it needs, mapping to the business’ delegation of authority to manage responsibility and reduce the risk of unauthorised payments.
Processes that scale with the business
Neighbourgood’s processes can easily scale as it adds new entities across different locations; Iridium’s team simply handles the tech setup and Neighbourgood does the rest.
Discover some of ApprovalMax’s most popular features
Approval Automation
Streamline your approval processes with automated workflows.
Budget checking
Get a real-time overview of budgets during approvals.
Bill-to-PO matching
Easily match bills to purchase orders for accurate record-keeping.
Audit trails
Track all approval activity at any time for greater transparency and compliance.
Integration with any OCR
Pair ApprovalMax with any OCR tool to save time and reduce errors.
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