With tariff disputes threatening supply chains and tourism forecasts, savvy hotel management companies are building contingency plans to stay ahead.
One proven way to strengthen cost containment? Gaining more control over how you manage and monitor vendor spend.
That starts with a Global Vendor List—a key feature of advanced accounting platforms like HIA’s ERP—designed to give you clear, portfolio-wide visibility into vendors, costs, and opportunities to save.
Key Takeaways |
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Why Now Is the Time to Centralize Your Vendor Oversight
Hotel operators have always been under pressure to make every dollar count. But with growing economic and political uncertainty (and hotel expenses rising faster than revenue growth, per CBRE at the recent Hunter Conference), every expense is under the microscope.
The big problem: your purchasing team can’t make the right cuts with blinders on.
The systems that got the job done in the past—siloed vendor records, disconnected accounting platforms, etc.—aren’t built for the insights hoteliers need today.
The companies best positioned to thrive in the next economic cycle will have centralized vendor oversight that gives them access to portfolio-wide data, revealing where they can consolidate spend, eliminate redundancies, and negotiate with confidence.
What You Can Do With a Global Vendor List (and Why HIA Does It Best)
Unifying vendor data across your properties is more than an operational cleanup—it’s a strategic shift. A global vendor list doesn’t just tidy your records. It gives you the foundation for smarter purchasing, clearer reporting, and better decisions at every level.
See Vendor Activity Across Your Entire Portfolio
Visibility. It’s what every CFO craves—and what finance teams spend countless hours trying to provide. But when each property uses its own naming conventions and coding, it becomes nearly impossible to answer basic questions like:
How much are we spending with this vendor?
Are we paying different rates at different locations?
Can we consolidate this category?
Sure, finance teams do their best—merging spreadsheets, cross-checking exports, juggling reports—to deliver insight into vendor activity. But without a centralized vendor structure, even the most diligent teams fall short of the clarity today’s decisions demand.
A global vendor list changes that. It standardizes how vendors are tracked across your portfolio, so you can generate clean, reliable reports and see exactly where spend is happening—by vendor, property, or category.
With HIA, that clarity starts on day one. During onboarding, we help consolidate and standardize your vendor records—flagging duplicates, resolving inconsistencies, and creating a single source of truth for accurate, portfolio-wide reporting.
No more merging exports. No more second-guessing. Just fast, confident answers when you need them.
Consolidate Spend and Eliminate Redundancies
When spend is scattered across properties, it’s easy to lose track of opportunities hiding in plain sight. One property might be paying a premium for the same product another location gets at a discount. Or you might have multiple hotels sourcing the same service from different vendors, causing you to miss out on the kind of volume-based pricing that only comes with coordinated purchasing.
A global vendor list brings those patterns to the surface. With standardized vendor data, it’s easy to spot duplicate spend, negotiate bulk rates, and streamline your vendor relationships.
HIA makes this kind of analysis simple. With centralized vendor history reporting, your teams can quickly identify global vendor spend, top vendors, and opportunities for negotiation/consolidation.
Negotiate From a Position of Strength
Negotiating effectively depends on knowing your numbers. Without a consolidated view of vendor activity, purchasing teams are left making assumptions instead of deals.
HIA changes that. Our Vendor History Reports show total spend by vendor across your portfolio, along with a breakdown by property. It’s everything your team needs to negotiate confidently, without chasing down spreadsheets.
This kind of clarity matters most during high-stakes purchasing, like Property Improvement Plans (PIPs), where costs add up quickly. When you know exactly how much you’re spending—and where—you can leverage that insight to secure better terms.
Stop Leaving Money on the Table
Every property, every vendor, every dollar—it all adds up. The data is already there, as are the tools to act on it. What’s missing (for many) is a system that connects the dots.
The right ERP system doesn’t just make visibility possible—it makes it easy. HIA’s hotel-specific platform supports global vendor management with:
- Global vendor lists
- Vendor history reports
- Built-in automation
- Bulk vendor imports
- Centralized oversight designed for multi-property portfolios
- Role-based permissions for tighter control across teams and locations
- Reporting tools that surface spend patterns and negotiation opportunities
These tools aren’t just helpful—they’re essential for proactive vendor management. By gaining full visibility into vendor spend, you’re not only identifying opportunities for negotiation and/or consolidated purchasing, but laying the foundation for greater profitability.
Ready to learn more about HIA’s hospitality ERP & Accounting software that comes with a global vendor structure for consolidated reporting? Request a demo today.
Director of Marketing at HIA
Elisa Fritsch, Director of Marketing at Hotel Investor Apps (HIA), contributes 15+ years of sales and marketing experience from a wide range of corporate to start-up environments. At HIA, Elisa focuses on marketing strategy, content, and leveraging her hospitality industry knowledge to drive growth.
