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Case study

AUSMAR

How one of South East Queensland’s most decorated home builders cut accounts payable headcount in half, slashed the weekly payment run from a day and a half to an hour, and gave its team back their working lives - with Ellby’s tailored solution.

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50%

reduction in AP headcount

~1 hour

weekly payment run (was 1.5 days)

5 years

running the solution - and still evolving

Driving Success

Scaling Without Adding a Headcount

Introduction

For a residential builder at AUSMAR’s scale, accounts payable is the operational heartbeat of every active project. The business manages approximately 350 annual builds and 5,000 monthly invoices from subcontractors and suppliers.

Before implementing Ellby, processes were entirely manual. Four accounts payable staff spent their days printing, sorting, and manually coding invoices. Meanwhile, site supervisors had to drive into the office to physically sign paper folders.

Even with half the current invoice volume, the weekly payment batch took a day and a half, and reconciliations dragged across most of the month. Nearly five years on, automation has completely transformed operations. Mellanie Walker, who has managed the system since its implementation, reports that month-end now closes within five business days. The weekly payment batch takes just one hour. Ultimately, despite significant business growth over the last five years, AUSMAR now operates efficiently with just two accounts payable staff members instead of four.

Location: Maroochydore, QLD

Established: 1993

Build volume: ~350 builds per year

Invoice volume: ~50,000 invoices per year (5,000 per month)

Regions: Sunshine Coast, North Brisbane, Gympie

Ellby solution: Ellby Accounts Payable automation with Databuild integration

Solution in place: Approximately 5 years and still evolving

Key Results

Efficiency

Payment batch processing reduced from 1.5 days to just 1 hour.

Automation

Invoice volume managed smoothly at 5,000 documents per month

Scalability

50,000 annual invoices handled with half the staff once required.

Accuracy

OCR-enabled capture and validation eliminates manual stamping and data entry.

Integration

Seamless automated data flow directly into Databuild ERP.

Connectivity

Digital approval workflows connect remote site supervisors instantly to HQ.

Situation

Breaking the Cycle of Manual Admin

The Challenge

AUSMAR processes invoices that span the entire construction lifecycle - soil testing, structural frames, roofing, tiling, carpentry, landscaping, fencing, and everything in between. Every invoice, without exception, must be approved and signed off before payment is authorised. For overhead invoices, approval sits with the relevant manager. For construction invoices, it sits with the site supervisor for that job.

Before Ellby

Before the Ellby solution, the process looked like this: invoices arrived overnight, were sorted and divvied up between four staff each morning, and each one was manually stamped, annotated with the supplier code, job code, and cost centre, then cross-referenced against the relevant purchase order in Databuild. 

Matching invoices went into physical folders - one per site supervisor - and waited for that supervisor to come in and sign them off, typically once or twice a week.

If an invoice was over budget or didn’t match the purchase order, it went to the estimating team, who would track down the supervisor, discuss the variance, raise a purchase order variation, and return the invoice to accounts to be entered and refiled.  The payment run began on Tuesday to be ready for Thursday.

The Real Costs

The manual model had a high cost that impacted the resourcing of the entire business: 

  • Four full-time accounts payable staff dedicated primarily to data entry and manual matching.

  • Supervisors spending time each week travelling to the office to sign physical paperwork.

  • Payment batches requiring a day and a half to prepare, with frequent last-minute chasing.

  • Human error risk: wrong job codes, wrong cost centres, missed purchase order variances.

  • Compliance documentation - subcontractor licences, insurances - managed separately by a different team.

The process was structurally incapable of keeping pace with the growing business.

"It was a really arduous process. We’d start working on the Thursday payment batch on Tuesday and still be on the phone to supervisors that (Thursday) morning asking what we could and couldn’t pay”.

Mellanie Walker,
AUSMAR

Task

Finding the Right Solution Partner

Choosing Ellby

Ellby implemented a tailored accounts payable automation and invoice approval solution built directly around AUSMAR’s complex business workflows. At the centre of the solution is Ellby’s document management and workflow platform.

Invoices now flow into the solution automatically via SecureAI capture, are matched against purchase orders drawn from Databuild - AUSMAR’s construction management system and source of truth for job accounting - and are routed to the correct approver without anyone handling paper. Supervisors receive tasks in their digital queue and approve or decline from wherever they are onsite. The physical folder, the drive to the office, and the Tuesday-to-Thursday run-around no longer exists.

The Solution

Ellby Accounts Payable Automation with Databuild Integration

For overhead invoices, routing goes to the relevant cost centre manager. For construction invoices, it routes to the site supervisor for that job. If an invoice exceeds the purchase order, it flags automatically and routes to the estimating team for review and, if appropriate, a variation purchase order is created - systematically, rather than depending on someone noticing and walking a piece of paper across an office.

Compliance Documentation - A Natural Extension

More recently, AUSMAR extended the Ellby platform to manage subcontractor compliance documentation - licences, insurance policies, Safe Work Method Statements, and period trade contracts. When a previous provider discontinued its platform at short notice, AUSMAR migrated these tasks smoothly to the Ellby solution, leveraging existing supplier data already in the system.

Supervisors can now access compliance documents seamlessly when dealing with inspectors, without contacting the office.

Implementation

A Structured and Collaborative Process

Implementation began with a testing phase. Ellby ran a representative sample of basic overhead, commercial, and residential invoices through the system to confirm workflow behaviors. A shared live document allowed both teams to log issues, track adjustments, and iterate in real time.

AUSMAR’s approval logic features multiple levels, absence-handling rules, and complex exception paths. Rather than capturing every edge case upfront, the teams started with a manageable base workflow and refined it during real-world operations.

Change Management in Practice

Transitioning from manual processes required active management, as some long-tenured team members initially resisted changing familiar habits. The turning point came through the estimating function. Integrating Databuild purchase orders into Ellby made budget visibility clear at every approval step, making the system’s value undeniable. Today, new hires regularly comment on how smoothly the workflow operates.

“The determining factor was that Ellby were prepared to make modifications to their standard process for us without it being too much of a big deal. The other company was pretty rigid.”

Greg Tramontan,
AGnVET

Success

Transformation Across the Board

Scaling Through Automation

AUSMAR’s accounts payable transformation delivers powerful results across operations, accuracy, and team culture. By replacing manual tasks with automated workflows, the business has successfully scaled its capacity while tightening financial controls.

Efficiency and Headcount

AUSMAR’s accounts payable team has gone from four staff to two, whilst the processing has doubled – from approximately 2,500 invoices per month when the project started to approximately 5,000 invoices per month today. The current two team members now cover a broader scope than the four who preceded them. The weekly payment run takes approximately one hour. Supervisors no longer travel to the office to sign paperwork.

Visibility and Reporting 

Month-end close now completes within five business days. Directors receive financial
reporting weeks earlier than before, based on live data. Project-level accountability has also improved: supervisors and estimators now communicate through the system when
something on an invoice doesn’t look right.

“Invoice rejected. That’s because someone else did the job, not this supplier.”

Mellanie Walker,
AUSMAR

Financial Accuracy and Governance 

Because every invoice is matched against a Databuild purchase order, the system surfaces discrepancies that previously depended entirely on human attention to catch. The flag is automatic: if an invoice is over budget, it stops and must be investigated. This has caught not just budget overruns but outright invoicing errors - including cases where a supplier invoiced for work they did not perform. The system flagged the invoice as over budget; investigation revealed a different contractor had actually completed the job.

Staff Wellbeing

The accounts payable team that Mellanie inherited five years ago was under genuine stress. Team members were stressed and overwhelmed by a workload that was simply too manual for the volume of invoices coming through. They worked as hard as they could - and still couldn’t keep up.

The accounts payable team is now a highly capable group who own their supplier relationships, manage their own monthly reconciliations, and carry a fraction of the pressure that defined the environment before.

“They always felt like they weren’t doing enough, even though they genuinely couldn’t do any more than they were. Bringing Ellby in and giving them more control definitely improved their state of mind.”

Mellanie Walker,
AUSMAR

Key Results

50%

reduction in accounts payable headcount

~1 hour

weekly payment run (was 1.5 days)

5,000

monthly invoices processed (2,500 previously)

100%

automatic flagging of over-budget invoices

A Partnership 5 Years and Counting

Despite being 5-years past the point of implementation, quarterly check-ins with Ellby continue - a routine that keeps the system tuned to the business as it evolves.

“Even nearly five years on, their customer service is outstanding. We still catch up every three months just to see how things are going. Anything we come up with, they’ll investigate it and find a way to make it work. I would highly recommend them.”

Mellanie Walker,
AUSMAR

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