- Inn-Flow acquired the Lilo procurement platform.
- The deal adds AI and engineering expertise to accelerate development.
- Lilo co-founders will join Inn-Flow in leadership roles.
INN-FLOW, A back-office software provider, acquired the Lilo procurement platform. The deal expands its platform to let operators manage accounting, labor and procurement in one system.
Integrating purchasing with accounting and labor data enables faster decisions, cost control and consistent execution across properties and portfolios, Inn-Flow said in a statement. The acquisition also adds AI and engineering expertise to accelerate product development.
Inn-Flow also launched Inn-Flow Procurement, which integrates purchasing, vendor management and spend intelligence with its accounting and labor tools. The product will be offered as an add-on for existing customers and initially operate as Lilo by Inn-Flow. Deeper integration, including unified login and real-time financial connectivity, is planned.
Many hotel management companies use separate systems for procurement, accounting and labor, the statement said. Inn-Flow Procurement addresses this by integrating purchasing into a financial platform, with purchase orders, invoices and vendor payments flowing into the general ledger. It also enables vendor search across suppliers, shows remaining budget by GL code at the point of purchase and includes insights on spending and cost savings, along with approval workflows.
“Hotel profitability comes down to two cost levers: labor and procurement. Until now, no single platform has connected both. With the acquisition of Lilo, we’ve done just that,” said John Erhart, Inn-Flow’s founder and CEO. “This isn’t going to be a bolt-on. It’s a strategic category expansion that will unify accounting, labor and procurement into a comprehensive platform built exclusively for hotels. The Lilo team brings the technology and deep hospitality expertise to make procurement as connected and controlled as every other part of our system. And beyond procurement, this team’s AI capabilities will help us accelerate the innovation our customers are counting on across the entire platform.”
Lilo co-founders Nadine ElAshkar and Javier Araya will join Inn-Flow in leadership roles to support product and AI development.
ElAshkar, now Inn-Flow’s head of innovation, said they built Lilo to fix procurement for hotels, but procurement doesn’t operate in isolation.
“Every dollar spent hits the P&L, flows into budgets and forecasts,” she said. “The closer procurement is to accounting, the more powerful both become. Inn-Flow was the right partner because they’re the only platform that already connects accounting and labor for hotels. Adding procurement to that system doesn’t just make sense, it makes Inn-Flow the most unified accounting, labor and procurement platform in hospitality.”
Separately, Uber Technologies Inc. is working with Expedia Group to enable hotel booking in its app for U.S. customers. The partnership will expand globally to more than 700,000 listings.
