Integrapark – Two Decades of Service
May, 2022
Integrapark was founded in 2001 by two veterans of Central Parking System: Ruth Beaman and Kyle Cashion. The partners had backgrounds both in parking and accounting, and they set out to build applications that were full-featured, reliable, easy to use, and that would be useful to both operations management and accounting.
As the company name indicates, Integrapark built applications that integrate. First they integrated their monthly parker billing system with access control systems, then they integrated it with credit card payment systems, then they integrated it with general ledger systems. Today, their monthly parker billing system (PARIS) integrates with 15 garage access manufacturers and over a dozen general ledger systems. Its leadership says, “We want to be the Switzerland of the parking industry. We work with everyone.”
Integration with an access control system means that PARIS turns cards on for new parkers, blocks cards for customers who don’t pay, and turns the card off when a parker is no longer being billed. This eliminates the duplicate entry to the access system that would otherwise be required.
PARIS was their first product, but Geneva came soon after. As Ruth Beaman said, “Geneva is the spreadsheet killer.” The spreadsheets that parking operators used to track tickets issued versus returned, revenue sources, payment methods, and bank deposits could be replaced by a simple set of input screens, controlled by the corporate office.
All that data could then be accessed and analyzed by management throughout the company, posted to the general ledger or data warehouse, and alerts given for missing or inaccurate information. Per Ruth Beaman, “One of our customers set up a Wall of Shame using Geneva reports to hold their managers accountable. Take too long getting your deposits to the bank, and everyone knows about it.”
Not satisfied with simplifying data entry of revenue information, they then sought to eliminate it. They developed Rome, which gathers ticket-level information from a variety of revenue control systems and can export it to Geneva. When the parking operator arrives in the morning, yesterday’s revenue is already in the system, ready to be reconciled with cash deposits or credit card settlements.
Rome also allows the operator to perform historical analysis, like occupancy over any period of time, or prospective analysis, like repricing existing tickets using new rate structures when deciding on rate changes. With Rome and Geneva working together, revenue information goes from the garage systems to the operator’s P&Ls, without anyone having to manually enter anything. Rome can also consolidate revenue streams.
For example, a location might have revenue from a traditional ticket and gate system and also from a reservation system. Rome can combine information from both so the operator sees all the revenue in one system.
“We’ve always taken the everything and the kitchen sink approach,” says Kyle. “Our customers would suggest new features, we’d build them, other operators would want the applications because of all the cool features, and then the process would start over. Build it and they will come, in other words, and we continue to add new features all the time.”
Four years ago, they felt that they should begin shifting their applications to the cloud. The company built a platform for hosting their applications and added a customer web portal that’s tightly integrated with PARIS.
The web portal is branded for each parking operator and enforces the same restrictions on parkers that PARIS does (the number of parkers allowed in a location for different types of spots, or for certain monthly rates, or who are associated with certain Tenants or Accounts, etc.)
New parkers pay prorated first month charges through the web site, so all that’s left for the parking operator’s staff is to get the credential to the parker. If the location is using license plate recognition, they may not even have to do that and having the system hosted by Integrapark removes the monthly parker billing system from the operator’s PCI scope.
The hosted platform also allows the applications to automate many jobs. For instance, the operator can schedule PARIS to block cards for non-payment and send an email to the affected customers on a certain day each month. If the customer then pays online, PARIS will update the access system and their card will begin working without the operator having to do anything. Monthly invoices, past due notices, late fee invoices, and credit card payments can all be scheduled to run automatically each month.
In February of 2022, Integrapark was acquired by Fullsteam, which means that Integrapark can now offer payments processing and settlement reconciliation integrated with PARIS. Ruth is retiring from the company, but Kyle is staying on. Both founders are excited about the company’s future. Per Kyle, “We see tons of opportunity ahead for the company, not only for growth but also in our ability to deliver great customer service and to continue to enhance our applications.”
Kyle Cashion is one of the founders of Integrapark. He can be reached at kyle.cashion@integrapark.com
