AI-Driven Consolidation Targets Hospitality's Back Office Fragmentation

Craftable will demonstrate its AI-powered back office platform at HITEC 2026, positioning unified procurement, invoicing, and payment processing as an antidote to the fragmented systems that currently plague hospitality operators.

The Dallas-based vendor serves over 50,000 operators across 10,000 venues, combining purchasing, inventory, accounts payable, embedded payments, and analytics into a single connected system. The platform's centerpiece—a unified Procure-to-Pay workflow—eliminates friction between purchasing, receiving, and finance teams.

"We spend a lot of time with operators, and the reality is they don't need more software. They need relief from the complexity of running their business," said David Cantu, CEO of Craftable. "For too long, procurement, invoices, and payments have lived in disconnected systems that don't reflect how teams actually work. What we've built at Craftable is a simpler, connected approach. One system that brings purchasing, payables, and data together in a way that makes sense for both operators on property and finance teams at the corporate level. When you combine that with AI, it's not just about processing faster. It's about helping teams make better decisions in the moment, reduce unnecessary spend, and run more effective operations every day."

Real-World Adoption Signals Market Traction

Pier Sixty-Six in Fort Lauderdale recently selected Craftable to manage procurement and payables operations, replacing multiple incumbent systems. The property now processes approximately 1,800 invoices monthly with a single supervisor—a significant operational lift from its prior scattered approach.

"Before Craftable, there was a lot of back and forth between receiving and accounts payable, and it took real effort to keep everything aligned. Now, we're processing around 1,800 invoices a month with a single supervisor," said Frederic Nguyen, Executive Director of Finance at Pier Sixty-Six. "Everything from ordering through invoice processing and reporting is connected, and the team isn't chasing paperwork anymore. They're actually managing the operation."

Pier Sixty-Six plans to implement Craftable Pay in August, extending the platform into embedded payments and eliminating manual check processes.

Three-Part AI Stack Targets Operational Bottlenecks

Craftable will showcase three AI capabilities at the conference:

- Invoice AI: Automates invoice processing using hospitality-specific recognition for faster, more reliable data capture.
- Operator AI: Analyzes POS and labor data nightly to surface prioritized opportunities with quantified impact and recommended actions.
- Crafty: An in-app AI assistant allowing teams to query their data, investigate performance, and generate operational outputs within their own system context.

Joe Eberhart, Vice President of Enterprise Strategy & Business Intelligence at Davidson Hospitality Group, emphasized the operational value of consolidation. "Technology should help operators spend more time running the business and less time managing systems," Eberhart said. "By bringing procurement, inventory, and analytics together in a single platform, we've eliminated much of the friction that comes from disconnected tools and processes. AI builds on that foundation by automating administrative work behind the scenes, allowing our teams to focus on understanding the data, improving accuracy, and driving better operational outcomes."

Why It Matters

For multi-unit operators and finance teams, back office fragmentation directly impacts margins and labor efficiency. Craftable's approach—consolidating purchasing, payables, and analytics with embedded AI—addresses a persistent pain point that legacy vendors have struggled to solve. The Pier Sixty-Six case study demonstrates measurable labor compression; broader adoption could signal a shift toward integrated back office platforms in hospitality, particularly as AI-driven invoice and spend analysis becomes table stakes for competitive procurement management.

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Written by FBM Publications Editors