K. Hovnanian used to miss discounts. Now they move with intelligence.

Offline processes, lost discounts, and zero spend visibility

K. Hovnanian Homes, one of the nation's most respected homebuilders, was operating in a finance environment stuck in the past. With paper-based invoices, Excel spreadsheets, and manual routing for signatures and approvals, the company struggled with delays, human errors, and limited oversight.

Key challenges included:

• Disjointed, manual workflows across invoice, expense, and purchasing card processing.
• Late vendor payments due to a lack of real-time visibility into approval status.
• Difficult-to-enforce policies and poor audit trails, especially concerning receipts and coding accuracy.

“If everything is offline, you don’t know what’s pending approval or where it is. That means you’re going to miss vendor discounts. That’s a lot of money lost and a big risk,” said Stelios Kyprianou, Senior Principal Business System Analyst, K. Hovnanian Homes.

The solution: Real-time visibility and embedded policy controls

To modernize its approach, K. Hovnanian Homes turned to Emburse Enterprise to digitize, streamline, and embed intelligence into its financial operations.

“We left the paper-based, offline email process with signatures. Now everything is digitalized. We have visibility, compliance rules, and we know exactly what’s happening in real time," said Stelios.

Emburse Enterprise replaced guesswork with guided workflows and background coding to improve accuracy and ease of use. Also, by embedding compliance rules directly into the tool, K. Hovnanian's policies were now enforced automatically.

“Now the tool validates your policies,” Stelios explained. “You can build hard stops or warnings — and that improves accuracy and control without slowing us down”.

A new layer of intelligence with Emburse Cards

K. Hovnanian has also begun piloting Emburse Cards in selected divisions, expanding the company’s finance infrastructure.

Previously, the organization's national accounting teams had to manually key every credit-card transaction into the ERP system—a time-consuming and error-prone process that slowed month-end close and obscured real-time visibility into spend.

“K. Hovnanian chose Emburse Cards over a traditional corporate card program, even though it meant foregoing a 30-day cash-flow float benefit," said Stelios. "The decision was driven primarily by the need for enhanced visibility and control over spending, seamless ERP integration, and real-time transaction monitoring and policy enforcement."

With Emburse Cards now implemented, transactions now flow automatically into the ERP, eliminating manual entry while enforcing compliance at the point of spend. Finance leaders gain a live, unified view of liabilities and spend behavior across projects and divisions; insights that support smarter, faster decisions.

“Since the pilot rollout, we’ve seen a significant reduction in manual reconciliation efforts, improved spend compliance, and faster month-end close processes, which are all clear indicators of operational efficiency gains," said Stelios.

Results: From paper to planning power

By eliminating paper, embedding policy, and gaining real-time visibility, K. Hovnanian Homes was able to move from reactive processing to proactive financial strategy.

“Before, our process was offline and manual. Now we’ve digitalized everything. No paper. No boxes. Just better visibility and speed,” Stelios said.

What began as an effort to reduce paperwork has become a platform for smarter finance. With Emburse Enterprise and Emburse Cards, K. Hovnanian Homes has embraced a new strategic layer of control — and a modern model of Emburse Expense Intelligence.

“Emburse is easy to configure, very user-friendly, and the people are excellent. Every time there’s an issue, they’re on it," said Stelios. "It’s not just a great system — it’s great support."

For K. Hovnanian Homes, Emburse helped transform the role of finance from a reactive function into a real-time, insight-driven operation.