Start from Merrowfield's operating reality - not from discovery.
You have been selected for AP Automation & Invoice Workflow. This brief carries what we already know about Merrowfield Residential Group so your first call can begin with the operating model, requirements, dependencies, and change sequence already in view.
Know the portfolio, operating model, and decision seats before the first call.
Merrowfield is a 71-property owner-operator and fee manager with centralized AP, a mixed ownership model, and four distinct decision seats around this change.
Conventional first, with two exceptions
Conventional market-rate majority, an affordable segment, and one student asset.
Owner-operator + fee manager
Roughly two thirds of the portfolio is owned; the balance is managed for third-party owners. Portfolio-wide vendors on fee-managed assets require owner approval in addition to Merrowfield's own.
Centralized at corporate
Invoice coding is performed by an offshore support function, not by site teams.
Scale context & portfolio direction
Corporate and regional headcount sits in the 90 to 120 band. On-site headcount sits in the 400 to 500 band. Site-team turnover is a live consideration, so training burden and time-to-competence on any new interface will be weighed.
The portfolio is stable, with selective acquisition. Two properties acquired in the last two quarters are still being brought onto standard corporate processes, and that transition intersects this change directly.
Who decides what
Technology decisions are owned by a dedicated function, with department heads holding an effective veto over tools touching their own workflow. Corporate approves; the field evaluates.
Standing requirements
SOC 2 Type II
Required for any vendor deployed portfolio-wide. There is no waiver path.
Best-of-breed
Merrowfield is anchored on its property management system rather than a single-platform strategy and weighs native connections heavily.
Receptive, with a human in the loop
AI and automation are welcome where they remove manual steps and treated cautiously where they make decisions without a person in the loop.
The change sits inside a best-of-breed stack anchored on Corevantage.
Merrowfield runs Corevantage for property management, accounting, leasing, resident portal, and maintenance. One legacy instance remains for the affordable segment and is pending migration.
| Capability | Current state | Vendor / note |
|---|---|---|
| Data, systems, infrastructure & enablement | ||
| Property management system | In place | Corevantage |
| Document management | In place | Verity Docs |
| Business intelligence and reporting | In place | Vendor not recorded |
| Data warehouse | Not run | - |
| Connections and workflow automation | Not run | - |
| Demand, marketing & leasing | ||
| CRM and leasing operations | In place | Corevantage native |
| Listings and syndication | In place | Vendor not recorded |
| AI leasing and conversion automation | Not run | - |
| Call intelligence | Not run | - |
| Development, construction & creative services | ||
| Construction and capital project management | In place | Brightspan PM |
| Renovation procurement and materials logistics | Not run | - |
| Finance, revenue, risk & asset strategy | ||
| Accounting and financial system of record | In place | Corevantage |
| AP automation and invoice workflow | This capability | Cadenwell AP |
| Procure-to-pay and purchasing | In place | Latchford Supply |
| Payments infrastructure | In place | Kestrel Pay |
| Budgeting and forecasting | In place | Vendor not recorded |
| Collections and delinquency management | Not run | - |
| Property operations & physical infrastructure | ||
| Maintenance management and work orders | In place | Corevantage native |
| Utility billing and cost recovery | In place | Meridian Utility |
| Turn execution and make-ready | In place | Vendor not recorded |
| Smart building platform and IoT | Not run | - |
| Resident experience & retention | ||
| Resident portal and community app | In place | Corevantage native |
| Resident feedback and sentiment | In place | Vendor not recorded |
| Package management | Not run | - |
| Cross-cutting infrastructure & governance | ||
| eSignature and agreement execution | In place | Signory |
| Security awareness training | In place | Vendor not recorded |
| Compliance automation and regulatory intelligence | Not run | - |
Where this product sits today
- Invoices arrive on two paths - by email to a central mailbox and through a supplier-facing portal.
- Coding is performed by the offshore support function against a shared chart of accounts held in the accounting system.
- Approval routes through a two-step chain, site level then regional.
- Payment execution happens outside the AP tool, in Kestrel Pay.
Connection posture
Two connections are contractually required in this area: the property management system and the payments processor. Both must be live for the capability to function.
Merrowfield builds and maintains custom work against its core platform and has the internal capability to do so. Plan for a client who will ask precise questions about your API surface and will likely want to extend it.
Ten requirements define what Merrowfield expects next.
These are forward specifications, not a description of the old system. Every requirement is something you can build, staff, evidence, or price.
Configuration and access
Invoice approval routing must be configurable at property and regional grain by Merrowfield administrators, without a vendor professional-services engagement.
Role-based access control must distinguish site-level invoice entry from regional approval authority.
Reporting and data access
Per-property and per-portfolio spend reporting must be exportable on demand in a structured format, without a report-build request.
Connections and evidence
Bi-directional connection with the property management system must be documented and tested, evidenced before contracting rather than committed to during implementation.
Maintenance invoices must match to work orders without manual re-entry.
Proposal form
Connection and implementation cost must be quantified line by line in the proposal, not scoped after signature.
Pricing must be presented on a per-unit basis, which is how Merrowfield budgets this capability.
Service and escalation
A named account contact and a defined escalation path are required, and the escalation path must be documented in the proposal.
Measurement
Invoice-to-payment cycle time must be measurable from go-live, with the baseline established during implementation.
Constraints
The change must not disturb the bundled services named in section 03.
The implementation touches three upstream inputs, four downstream consumers, and one changing target state.
The brief stays intentionally narrow: adjacent systems appear only where this capability touches them directly.
What feeds this capability
General ledger and chart of accounts in Corevantage; procure-to-pay approval chain in Latchford Supply; and the property/unit roster that drives cost allocation and per-unit budgeting.
What consumes its output
Payments execution in Kestrel Pay; general-ledger posting and period close; work-order invoice matching in Corevantage maintenance; and owner reporting for fee-managed assets.
StackSmart analysis
Deployment scope
Phase one covers 58 of the 71 properties. The affordable segment - 13 properties - is not yet confirmed as in or out of phase one.
Scope boundary
Merrowfield's wider technology roadmap, plans in other capability areas, and sequencing decisions outside this change are not included here. If your conversation moves in that direction, it moves with Merrowfield and not with us.
The selection is made. The work now is sequencing, proof, and closure of three open items.
Merrowfield selected Nordhaven AP for this capability, replacing an existing system. This is not an evaluation and you are not in a competitive set.
First half of 2027
Implementation cannot begin before Merrowfield's fiscal Q2, and cutover must sit outside a period-close window.
Early in the planned work
Expect momentum rather than a long internal queue.
Process-ready, capacity-constrained
Merrowfield describes itself as strong on process readiness and constrained on internal technical capacity during the window.
Dependency order
What to expect on the first call
Firm with open items
The requirements are confirmed. Three specific items remain to close. Come prepared to answer them.
Chart-of-accounts mapping
Mapping for the two recently acquired properties is not finalised on Merrowfield's side.
Utility-invoice routing
Whether utility invoices route through this capability or stay on a separate path is unconfirmed.
Affordable phase-one scope
Whether the affordable segment is in phase one remains undecided.
This brief carries context. It does not carry influence.
VMIP independence. A VMIP subscription has no influence on PMC-client assessment outcomes.
Decision ownership. This brief is produced after Merrowfield recorded its selection. StackSmart provides Merrowfield with structured information so it can make a better-informed decision; it does not make decisions on Merrowfield's behalf, and it did not make this one.
Prepared by. Multifamily Consortium.
Confidentiality. Contents are confidential to the named recipient and to Merrowfield Residential Group.
Sample status. Fictional client, fictional vendors · not for distribution as a live brief.