Catholic Diocese of Dallas scales accounting 5x with AP automation

“BILL has been a game changer.” 

When Mark Lawrence joined the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas, the math just didn't add up.

As Director of School Accounting and Shared Accounting Services, Mark manages an accounting team that provides services to separately incorporated parishes and schools in the Diocese. This includes 77 parishes, 26 elementary schools, and three high schools; with each of these entities as a separately incorporated ministry.

His small team was supporting just eight entities at a 1:2 staff-to-client ratio, and the diocese of 1.4 million Catholics across North Texas was growing fast. Many of the parishes and schools are too small or under-resourced to manage full accounting teams on their own.

Growth for the diocese brought opportunity, but also strain. In Dallas’ competitive job market, expanding headcount at the same pace as demand wasn’t realistic. Without a new approach, the shared services model risked burning out staff and slowing support for the very communities it existed to serve.

Mark’s team needed a way to scale his team’s work without sacrificing service. That meant moving away from paper, manual approvals, and fragmented systems. Also, moving towards automation built for complex and multi-entity organizations.

By partnering with BILL, the parishes and schools didn't just survive the growth; they thrived. Today, Mark’s team has grown to ten staff members, but they now serve over 50 individual entities in the Diocese. They successfully scaled their capacity by 5x, improving their efficiency ratio from 1:2 to 1:5.

The challenge: Battling traffic and a paper chase 

Before adopting automation, the shared services model was struggling under the weight of geography and paper. “We were doing things with paper. It was very manual and very inefficient,” Mark recalls. To process their accounts payable (AP), staff would physically drive to parishes to print and sign checks on-site, or they would FedEx checks to distant clients. In the traffic-clogged Dallas metro area, this meant hours of lost productivity.

Furthermore, banking requirements like “Positive Pay” were a daily burden. Staff members had to log in daily to approve checks, a responsibility that followed them even when they were on vacation or out sick.

Expense management at each separate entity was equally fragmented. Relying on traditional bank-issued credit cards meant dealing with monthly paper statements for each parish, school, or the seminary, and a 30-day lag in visibility. Receipts were often lost in drawers or inboxes, making reconciliation a nightmare and increasing the risk of fraud.

“We knew we needed to get more out of a very limited labor pool,” Mark explains. “The growth was a problem, labor was a problem, and we just couldn’t keep doing everything by hand.”

The solution: A unified financial platform 

Mark  turned to BILL Accounts Payable (AP) and BILL Spend and Expense to streamline the operations  of his team. .

Automating AP to beat the traffic: The diocese moved the entities’ Accounts Payable processes to the cloud. Now, instead of driving across the city to parishes and schools, the team manages approvals and payments remotely through their console. BILL ensures that each of the over 50 entities have their vendor payments and monthly employee expenses processed efficiently.

“By taking these processes and putting them on BILL, it really doesn’t matter if a ministry is far away,” Mark says. “The parishes and schools can get the approvals, and BILL sends out the payment.”

The impact on volume has been tremendous. Over a recent 30-day period, the team processed approximately 2,000 bills, something that would have been impossible under their old manual workflows.

Empowering staff and volunteers with Spend & Expense. The shift to BILL Spend & Expense transformed how Mark’s team works with the entities to manage credit cards. Gone are the days of waiting for monthly statements. Now, Mark's team has live visibility into spending for each of the 50 entities he oversees.

The solution also solved a specific pain point regarding volunteers. Mark shares a favorite use case: “A school ad an eighth-grade graduation going on, and a parent volunteer needed to run out and purchase some things." In the past, that parent would use personal funds and wait weeks for a reimbursement check. With BILL, the staff issued a virtual school card to the parent for the specific amount needed. The parent bought the supplies and uploaded the receipt instantly.

“The school principal approved it, and then the card was shut down,” Mark says. “Nothing is safer than a card that’s turned off.”

The impact: Security, satisfaction, and strategy

Adopting BILL has had a ripple effect across the diocese, touching everything from fraud prevention to employee morale.

Stronger internal controls

Financial stewardship is paramount for the diocese and all of its parishes and schools. External firms perform Agreed-Upon Procedures (AUPs) to audit parishes, often flagging missing receipts or approvals. BILL helps solve this by building the rules directly into the software. “The nice thing about BILL is the approval controls are built in,” Mark notes. “AUP testing results have improved dramatically.”

Staff satisfaction

The transition has been a hit with parishioners, school staff, and the wider diocesan community. Principals can now approve bills from their phones while on field trips, and staff vastly prefer the speed of direct deposit reimbursements over paper checks. Mark jokes about the enthusiasm at one specific school: “If you were going to try to go there and take [BILL] away, I’d suggest bringing security with you. It’s been a real game changer there.”

Focus on mission

Most importantly, automation has freed the Shared Accounting Services team to focus on what matters. Instead of being inundated with “busy work” like stuffing envelopes or chasing receipts, they can focus on strategic priorities.

Looking ahead

Mark’s team is steadily onboarding more parishes and schools, as the diocese includes over 110 entities. The success adopting and implementing BILL has even spread by word of mouth to other dioceses like Oklahoma City, San Diego, and Austin. 

By leveraging BILL, entities across the Diocese of Dallas proven that even in a centuries-old institution, modern financial technology is the key to scaling the mission.

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“BILL keeps us from being inundated with busy work so we can focus on larger things and serving our parishioners and community members.”