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League One Volleyball: 75% faster invoice processing across 90+ entities

Two people sit on outdoor bleachers; one holds a basketball. They appear to be talking. A clear blue sky and sports bags are visible in the background.

5,000

suppliers onboarded in Tip

3,000

invoices processed monthly

90+

entities and growing

League One Volleyball (LOVB) finance operation spans more than 90 volleyball club entities, each with its own vendors, lease payments, and event workers, all managed through Tipalti. LOVB has onboarded over 5,000 suppliers, and that number climbs steadily as several  new clubs join the ecosystem each year. During peak volleyball season, from November through April, AP Manager Tyler Schmidt and his team process roughly 3,000 invoices every month. He expects volume to surge to 4,000 monthly invoices next season as the league expands from six to ten professional teams and welcomes even more clubs into the fold.

Before, making sure everything was smooth for rent payments could probably take a full day spread across multiple days. Now I can have the whole process done in an hour, hour and a half tops.

Tyler Schmidt

AP Manager, LOVB

Challenge

Legacy System Could Not Scale Across a Rapidly Growing Multi-Entity Volleyball Ecosystem

As League One Volleyball added new club entities year over year, its legacy accounts payable setup could no longer keep pace. The previous system lacked a unified queue, suffered constant sync errors, and offered zero automation for recurring payments or bulk processing. The fragmented infrastructure forced a lean, two-person AP team to waste hours toggling between separate entity queues and manually chasing errors. Ultimately, the platform provider delivered a shocking verdict: the system was breaking under LOVB’s multi-entity volume.

The legacy workflow stalled operations in three major ways:

  • Repetitive Payee Onboarding: Vendors and workers operating across multiple clubs had to onboard separately for every single entity, creating repetitive work as LOVB scaled beyond 90 clubs.
  • Siloed visibility: Without a consolidated dashboard, the AP teams had to manually log in and out of individual entities just to track down invoices, payments, and sync errors.
  • Manual payment processing: The system forced staff to process referee and event worker payments one by one, adding 8 to 10 hours of unnecessary manual labor every week.

It was clear that the platform could not support LOVB’s fast-paced growth.

They actually ended up telling us that we were starting to break their system because we had too many entities. It's so weird that they didn't vet how big we were going to be in two years to think about scalability.

Tyler Schmidt

AP Manager, LOVB

Decision

Multi-Entity Scalability and One-Time Payee Onboarding Made Tipalti the Clear Front-Runner

To scale from 90+ legal entities and even further projected growth in a few years, League One Volleyball needed an accounts payable platform purpose-built for rapid multi-entity scale. Tipalti emerged as the immediate front-runner by effortlessly unifying LOVB’s complex entity structure, introducing one-time payee onboarding across all entities, and syncing smoothly with NetSuite.

  • Centralized Multi-Entity Control: Tipalti’s architecture consolidates 90+ club entities into one platform, eliminating the need to manage separate queues for each entity.
  • Unified Payee Onboarding: Referees, coaches, and shared workers register just one time to receive payments across the entire LOVB ecosystem.
  • Rapid, Connected Deployment: Cloud Lounge Ltd., a boutique financial advisory firm, worked alongside a Tipalti implementation specialist to ensure a smooth NetSuite integration.
In the old system, when someone was onboarded to pay, they'd have to sign up for direct deposit in every single entity. Learning that Tipalti was just a one-and-done was an immediate huge win.

Tyler Schmidt

AP Manager, LOVB

Solution

Tipalti AP Automation, Mass Payments, and NetSuite Integration Power a 90+ Entity Volleyball Ecosystem

League One Volleyball replaced its legacy system with a unified Tipalti Accounts Payable and Mass Payments platform integrated with NetSuite to manage invoice processing, bulk payments, multi-entity onboarding, and automated workflows across 90+ club entities and 10 pro teams. Supported by Tipalti implementation specialist and third-party advisor Cloud Lounge, LOVB executed a swift 4-month implementation. The modernized process had key operational improvements:

NetSuite Integration Delivers Real-Time Sync Error Visibility

Tipalti’s native NetSuite integration surfaces sync errors instantly on one Tipalti dashboard. The team can now resolve errors within minutes, replacing the legacy process where errors hid across individual entity queues for days. The integration supports LOVB’s five-day close cycle with consistent, reliable data flow between systems.

One-Time Payee Onboarding Across 90+ Entities

A shared payee profile enables referees, coaches, and event workers to be onboarded just once and become immediately payable across the entire ecosystem. The team can include specific instructions using customizable invitation templates, such as clarifying that event workers do not need to submit invoices, to simplify communication during high-volume onboarding periods.

CSV Import Automates Recurring Lease and Non-Invoice Payments

The team uses Tipalti’s CSV imports to manage 110+ line items of recurring lease and rent payments. What previously took a full day spread across multiple days in the previous system, manually entering data, attaching documents, and verifying amounts, now takes approximately one hour from data preparation through import and submission. The same CSV workflow handles bulk payments to referees, officials, and event workers who do not submit invoices.

AI-Powered Invoice Capture Eliminates Manual OCR Processing

Tipalti’s AI invoice capture agent automatically captures, queues, and prepares invoices for quick review, eliminating the need for a fully manual OCR process that required a dedicated person to spend every day mapping vendor names, invoice numbers, and line items from scanned documents. This helped LOVB speed up invoice processing by 75%. Invoices now flow into a collection email, are automatically captured and queued, and require only a quick review before processing, reducing per-invoice handling time from up to 20 minutes to under 5 minutes.

Duplicate Bill Detection and Email-Based Approvals Support a Fast-Paced Team

Tipalti’s duplicate bill detection automatically flags potential duplicates, which is especially valuable given the high volume of similar recurring payments across LOVB’s club entities. Email-based approval workflows allow club directors, who are constantly on the go running volleyball operations, to approve invoices instantly from their phones. Since they no longer need to log in to a separate system, payment processing remains on schedule during peak season.

Responsive KYC and Support Teams Accelerate Entity Onboarding

LOVB can rapidly onboard several new clubs joining the ecosystem each year. Each one requires a Know Your Customer (KYC) review before going live in Tipalti, so speeding up onboarding is critical. Tipalti’s KYC team helped LOVB standardize submission templates, reducing what was originally quoted as a four-to-six-week process to much faster turnaround times. As Tipalti’s support team consistently responds within hours, the KYC team has been a reliable partner in keeping pace with LOVB’s growth.

This is my second time implementing an AP system, and compared to the last one, Tipalti has been by far the easiest to train people on. I'm always going in with excitement that they can easily view and approve stuff — it works with our schedule because most people we train are on the go.

Tyler Schmidt

AP Manager, LOVB

Impact

Faster Processing, Fewer Errors, and Scalable Finance Operations Across a Growing League

By replacing the legacy system with Tipalti, League One Volleyball cut invoice processing time from 20 minutes to under 5 minutes per invoice, reduced weekly payment processing for referees and officials from eight to ten hours down to one to two hours, and compressed payment reconciliation from two to three days to just one to two hours. The team now processes up to 3,000 invoices per month across 90+ entities with a four-person AP team, maintaining a consistent five-day close cycle that previously stretched past five days due to errors in the legacy system.

  • Invoice processing time dropped from up to 20 minutes to under 5 minutes per invoice, with AI-powered invoice capture and faster review workflows.
  • Weekly referee and event worker payment processing fell from 8 to 10 hours to 1 to 2 hours using Mass Payments and CSV-based bulk submissions.
  • NetSuite integration surfaced sync errors in one place, cutting payment reconciliation from 2 to 3 days down to 1 to 2 hours.
  • LOVB now processes up to 3,000 invoices per month across 90+ entities with a four-person AP team, without needing proportional headcount growth.
Before, making sure everything was smooth for rent payments could probably take a full day spread across multiple days. Now I can have the whole process done in an hour, hour and a half tops.

Tyler Schmidt

AP Manager, LOVB

Next

Scaling Club Growth While Exploring Tipalti AI and a Faster Close

With LOVB on track for more growth this summer and continued expansion toward the end of the decade, Tyler expects peak-season invoice volumes to climb to 3,500 to 4,000 per month by the upcoming November-through-April cycle as new clubs and four additional pro teams enter the ecosystem. 

The recent hire of a third AP specialist, bringing the team to four, has freed the team to shift from day-to-day processing toward more strategic work. They are planning to explore using Tipalti’s AI assistant and automated reporting tools and to evaluate whether to compress the five-day close cycle as confidence in the NetSuite-Tipalti integration continues to grow. Meanwhile, the upcoming launch of Rippling as LOVB’s new human capital management system is expected to further streamline club onboarding, accelerating the pace at which new entities can move from signing to fully operational within the finance stack.

FAQs

Still Have Questions?

How did Tipalti help League One Volleyball scale AP across 90+ entities?

Tipalti’s multi-entity architecture lets LOVB manage all 90+ club entities from a single platform with consolidated visibility into invoices, payments, and sync errors. Payees are onboarded once and are immediately payable across every entity, eliminating the repetitive sign-up process that the legacy system required. This enables LOVB to add several clubs per year without overwhelming its four-person AP team.

Why did League One Volleyball switch to Tipalti?

The legacy system required payees to be onboarded separately in each entity, lacked a consolidated queue view, and suffered frequent sync errors that were difficult to locate. As LOVB grew past 90 entities, the provider informed the organization that the system was breaking under the volume. Tipalti’s multi-entity support, one-time payee onboarding, and NetSuite integration addressed every limitation.

What Tipalti products does League One Volleyball use?

LOVB uses Tipalti Accounts Payable and Mass Payments integrated with NetSuite. The team processes up to 3,000 invoices per month during peak season, manages CSV-based bulk payments to referees and event workers, and uses AI-powered invoice capture, duplicate bill detection, email-based approvals, and customizable payee onboarding invitations across the entire club ecosystem.

What measurable results did League One Volleyball achieve with Tipalti?

Invoice processing time dropped from 20 minutes per invoice to under five minutes. Weekly payment processing for referees and officials was reduced from 8 to 10 hours to 1 to 2 hours. Payment reconciliation went from two to three days down to one to two hours. The team also maintained a consistent five-day close, which had previously been overrun due to errors in the legacy system.

Is Tipalti a good fit for multi-entity sports leagues or franchise organizations?

Yes. LOVB operates a large and growing number of legal entities, with plans for substantial further expansion by the end of the decade, and Tipalti’s multi-entity platform handles the complexity of shared payees, bulk non-invoice payments, and rapid entity onboarding.  The one-time payee onboarding feature is especially valuable for organizations where workers, such as referees or coaches, serve across multiple entities and would otherwise have to register repeatedly in a legacy system.

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