How Fink Group, one of Australia's most celebrated hospitality groups, stopped drowning in manual work and started growing with the same team using iVvy Event & Venue Management Software.
Fink Group runs some of Sydney's most respected restaurants, including Quay, Bennelong, and Firedoor. Events and private dining are woven into the identity of the business. Which meant enquiry volumes were high, expectations were higher, and the team was spending a disproportionate amount of their time on tasks that had nothing to do with hospitality.
Every enquiry that came into Fink Group's events team set off a chain of manual steps: availability checks, booking confirmations, contract generation, invoices, event orders. Each one required someone to enter the same information again into a different system, at a different stage, with a different risk of getting it wrong.
"Our previous system relied heavily on manual processes across every stage of the event lifecycle. It required repetitive data entry, lacked flexibility, and had not evolved in line with modern event management technology."
Sarah Barker, Head of Reservations, Events & Relationships, Fink Group
As enquiry volumes grew, the gap between what the system could handle and what the business needed became impossible to ignore.
Fink Group implemented iVvy Event & Venue Management Software in 2019. The decision came down to two things: usability and integration. A system only some of the team felt comfortable using just moved the bottleneck, and a system that didn't talk to the tools they already relied on would create new manual work to replace the old.
iVvy's ability to integrate with Xero was a deciding factor. For years, the events and accounting teams had been reconciling separately, with information leaving one system and needing to be re-entered into another. Connecting them removed a step nobody had wanted to be doing in the first place. Integration with SevenRooms and Stripe brought reservations and payments into the same workflow, so an event's journey from enquiry to invoice lived in one place.
E-contracts replaced the paper confirmation process. Clients could sign off faster. Instant payment links meant the team spent less time chasing outstanding invoices and more time on work that moved the business forward.
"What stood out about iVvy was its intuitive, user-friendly interface combined with features that addressed all our operational needs. Its integration capabilities, particularly with Xero, were a major factor in our decision."
Sarah Barker, Head of Reservations, Events & Relationships
The clearest measure of what changed isn't a single metric. With iVvy Event & Venue Management Software, enquiry volumes went up, and headcount didn't have to. When you free a team from repetitive admin, you get capacity back without adding cost. The team could take on more because they weren't spending their days entering the same data into the same fields for the tenth time that week.
Higher enquiry volume, | Faster booking confirmations with | Connected systems across events, finance, & reservations |
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Booking confirmations moved faster. Payment delays dropped. The guest experience improved, not because the team was doing something different, but because they finally had enough time to do it properly.
Staff feedback has been consistent: the biggest day-to-day difference is how much less repetitive the work feels. A team that isn't worn down by unnecessary process is a team that shows up for the things that can't be automated.
For a group built on the belief that hospitality is a craft, getting the back-of-house right isn't a secondary concern. The events team at Fink Group handles the detail, the care, the relationships that make the experience worth having. They needed a system that would get out of their way and let them do it.
Now it does.
"I would highly recommend iVvy as a platform that will create efficiencies, improve guest experience and ultimately generate revenue."
Sarah Barker, Head of Reservations, Events & Relationships
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