“We want to automate the entire back office,” says Sanjay Mahalingam, Founder and CEO of Spacetil, an AI-native ERP platform transforming how multi-location businesses manage their operations.
When Mahalingam found himself frustrated with managing his family’s real estate portfolio in India using scattered PDF files and Excel sheets, he built a solution that would evolve into something much bigger. Today, Spacetil serves franchisees and multi-location businesses worldwide by leveraging artificial intelligence to streamline complex back-office operations.
From Frustration to Innovation
With a background in mobile app development and experience setting up Clari’s India operations, Mahalingam had the technical expertise to tackle a problem that hit close to home.
“I was frustrated with the way we were managing our portfolio,” Mahalingam explains. “We were using legacy accounting tools. We didn’t have a lease management tool. We were just having PDF files and Excel sheets, not even on the cloud, so it was difficult to track key escalation terms.”
This frustration led him to build a prototype that could help understand his current portfolio and forecast revenue. He named it Spacetil, combining “space” (representing real estate) with “till” (like a cash register).
The turning point came unexpectedly when he began sending invoices to tenants using the Spacetil logo. “Interestingly, I got inbound from my tenants, who are large companies in India, like Cult Fit, which is the Equinox equivalent of the US. They wanted a similar solution,” he recalls. “So I registered a company to sign a contract with Cult Fit, and that’s how Spacetil began.”
AI as the Foundation, Not an Afterthought
What distinguishes Spacetil from competitors is its approach to artificial intelligence. Rather than adding AI features to an existing platform, Mahalingam built AI into the core architecture.
“We built AI at the core layer, so it’s not just another bolted-on feature on top of an existing lease management or accounting AP solution,” he emphasizes. This foundational approach gives Spacetil significant advantages in delivering capabilities that provide real value to users.
The platform focuses on three core areas of automation:
- Lease Management: Beyond simply extracting information from uploaded lease documents, Spacetil’s “lease agent” continuously monitors email communications. “If there is any CAM reconciliation email from the landlord, our system automatically updates the core system of record for the leases,” Mahalingam explains.
- Accounting Automation: The platform handles accounts payable automation, data reconciliation, bank feeds, and cash flow management, integrating with existing accounting platforms like QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, SAP, and Sage Intacct.
- Operations Tracking: Spacetil serves as the system of record for energy usage, asset tracking, and maintenance requests. “We’re able to log into Georgia Power, for example, and pull all the past energy usage,” says Mahalingam.
Real-World Impact: Unifying Multi-Location Operations
Spacetil’s primary clients are small private equity groups that focus on multi-unit franchisee brands. One Atlanta-based group operates four different brands across approximately 120 locations.
“Spacetil helped them become a core system of record, so all their information is in one place, including the leases, accounting, and it is also tagged by location,” Mahalingam explains. “If they want to sell a particular location, we are able to provide that entire information for due diligence purposes.”
By consolidating multiple tools into one platform, Spacetil eliminates the need for separate lease management and AP automation solutions, providing users with a unified view that all teams can operate from.
Intelligent Automation in Action
The intelligence built into Spacetil goes beyond simple automation. For accounts payable processing, the system understands the context of leases to validate incoming invoices.
“In the franchisee space, the rents are based on 10% of your sales, or $5,000 minimum,” Mahalingam explains. “Since Spacetil is also connected to the POS system, we know what the sales revenue is for that week or that particular month, and we are able to real-time compute and say this invoice is valid.”
The system then automatically processes multiple approvals before sending to the decision-maker for payment, which can also be processed through Spacetil. This end-to-end automation streamlines what were previously disjointed, manual workflows.
Evolving from Software to Managed Services
Spacetil is now expanding beyond software into managed services. “We can go to our customers and tell them you don’t need an AP person—our system can automate it with human oversight,” says Mahalingam.
The company maintains a back-office team that manually validates AI approvals, but as the technology becomes more robust, they’re increasingly able to confidently approve invoices using data collected from multiple sources. This human oversight also serves as training data to further improve the AI’s capabilities.
One tangible benefit of this AI-powered approach is in bookkeeping services. “We can close the books in the first five days, provided all the expense entries come in, because we are leveraging AI,” Mahalingam notes.
Riding the Wave of AI Advancement
Building an AI-native platform during a period of rapid advancement in artificial intelligence technology has required constant adaptation. “When we started, LLMs were not this robust. So probably three years ago, it didn’t even exist,” Mahalingam reflects.
The company initially used early BERT-type models and even attempted to fine-tune their own LLM model for lease use cases about 18 months ago. However, they pivoted as they realized that frontier models were improving rapidly. “As the space is evolving fast, we are trying to keep pace with it and improve our product,” he says.
The Future of Business Operations
For real estate investors and multi-location business operators, platforms like Spacetil represent the next generation of operational technology, systems that don’t just store information but actively help manage businesses through intelligent automation and data integration.
The days of managing properties through scattered Excel sheets and PDF files are giving way to AI-powered systems that can not only track lease terms and process invoices but also provide valuable business intelligence across entire portfolios. As Mahalingam and his team continue to develop their AI-driven approach to business operations, they’re helping define the future of real estate and multi-location business management.
