Voice of the Customer: How Multi-Location Organizations Power Events and Operations with Instacart Business

In the Voice of the Customer series, we sit down with real Instacart Business users to understand what they do and how the Instacart Business platform supports their business ordering needs.

At Instacart Business, we help deliver the supplies your business needs exactly when you need them. We work alongside teams of every kind - from faith-based nonprofits to national retail brands - who need a fast, reliable, and accountable way to get the right products to the right locations, every time.

Today, we're highlighting Ann Cone, an accounting team member at Real Life Ministries, a mega-church with four campuses serving 8,000–9,000 people every weekend. Managing high-volume purchasing across many locations with a lean team is no small feat - let's explore how Instacart Business has become the operational backbone that keeps her organization running.

Consistency & Control: Instacart Business for Multi-Location Operations

FFor organizations spread across multiple locations, procurement can quickly spiral into a logistical challenge. Receipts go missing, spending becomes opaque, and keeping every team on the same tools feels like a full-time job in itself.

Ann joined Real Life Ministries' accounting team with a clear mandate: consolidate purchasing across all four campuses. When she arrived, different teams were running their own subscriptions and, as she discovered, some were even using personal Instacart accounts for business purchases - a practice that created compliance and visibility gaps. With campuses spanning Idaho and teams ranging from youth ministry to café operations to sports and outdoor programs, she needed a solution that could keep everyone aligned. "I did a deep dive," Ann recalls, "and that's when I found Instacart Business — and it has made a world of difference for us and our purchasing."

After exploring solutions that could match the complexity of her operations, Ann found that Instacart Business offered exactly what her organization needed to scale with confidence. The platform transformed her workflow through a comprehensive set of tools:

• Pay by Invoice, streamlining accounts payable and eliminating manual receipt collection
• Custom Fields to tag every order by ministry, department, budget line, or event type
• Order Guides for building repeatable, standardized ordering workflows across locations
• Team Management to onboard and offboard staff as needs evolve
• Centralized Dashboard for full visibility across all accounts and locations

Scaling Smarter: Transforming Workflows for Organizational Success

The transformation Ann has achieved goes far beyond a more convenient checkout experience - it's about fundamentally changing how her organization operates, and reclaiming the time and clarity that her team needs to do their best work.

The biggest win has been in accounting efficiency. Real Life Ministries uses a co-payables system, and Instacart receipts now flow directly into it, eliminating the hours Ann used to spend tracking down documentation from across campuses. Custom Fields have been especially impactful: every order is tagged with the relevant ministry, budget line item, and expense category, giving leadership clear visibility into how resources are being allocated across the organization. Team management has also proved invaluable for an organization with a younger, rotating workforce. "It's super easy to train somebody on," Ann says. "The invoicing goes right into our system so they can process the payment — it's cut down on time a lot for accounting."

Built for Growing Return-to-Office Needs

As organizations formalize return-to-office schedules, workplace teams need more visibility and flexibility. This organization continues to rely on Instacart Business to maintain consistent hospitality standards across smaller regional offices without increasing administrative lift.

Instacart Business delivers:

• Connection to reliable same-day delivery

• Broad retail coverage across metro and regional markets

• Centralized billing and visibility

• Multi-user collaboration

• Operational simplicity at scale

Get Every Location Covered with Instacart Business

Whether you're managing purchasing across a multi-campus organization or coordinating operations across multiple locations, Instacart Business provides the tools your team needs to operate with confidence, visibility, and control — so you can focus on what matters most. Our customers receive:

• Delivery in as fast as one hour from 1,800+ retail brands nationwide in North America
• Centralized visibility across teams and locations with individual account control
• One-click bulk receipt exporting for transparent financial tracking
• Scheduled delivery slots that work around your team's schedules and events
• Custom Fields to tag receipts and track expenses across each location, department, or event

Visit us at www.instacart.com/busniess and get started by creating your free Instacart Business account today.