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Follow our step-by-step guide to see how one SME has moved across successfully from a paper-based expenses system to online, and accrued savings as a result. Gillian Upton has the lowdown

d’etre is analytical insight and web-based solutions for the retail industry based on customer loyalty card databases. Ironic, then, that up until two years ago, EYC’s Finance Director Nick Dunn was shackled with a paper-based expense system.

“We’re a high-tech company so we needed something other than paper,” says Dunn. “Claims sit in inboxes and don’t get done, whereas, with online, it’s quicker. It’s easy for staff to submit a claim and you can see where everything goes and how each claim is progressing,” he says.

The business case for an online expense system is tantalising and reaches wider than EYC's objectives. Suppliers claim cost savings from capturing data at source and making savings at each step of the process; reduced T&E costs from the visual guilt and transparency of the system; improved tax compliance by the production of VAT and P11D reports by country; and easier re-charging and analysis of spend by supplier.

EYC began its search for a supplier in late 2006 and because it’s a small business, it didn’t bother with an RFP. EYC has 35 staff in the UK and continental Europe, and 18 in the US. Its travel spend is some £20,000 per month, the majority of which is air spend between the UK and US.

Dunn and his assistant spent a month looking for a suitable SME solution, kicking off by researching online expense systems on Google. A shortlist of three was reached and they experienced several live demonstrations by suppliers.

The company settled on a standard product from WebExpenses because “it stood out for its simplicity rather than its functionality, and that’s the way to win over users,” explains Dunn. Additionally, WebExpenses was the only supplier able to give EYC the product then and there.

Explains Dunn: “We could turn it on very quickly as there was no training for staff needed; you learn the system by using it. There was never a question in my mind that it wouldn’t work,” says Dunn. “The cost of implementation was just people’s time.”

WebExpenses is a seven-year-old UK-based company providing fully-featured expense management software targeting both SMEs and mid-size companies of between 100 and 1,000 users generally. It claims its products are easy to implement, use and administer. Credit card data feeds pre-populate the expense forms online and all the user then does is click to submit. Approval is done electronically and the account team then approves it and makes any changes – for example, for VAT payments.

“Bits of information are flowing electronically and no re-keying is necessary and no paper is necessary,” says WebExpenses managing director James Brewis.

Receipts can be dealt with in pre-addressed envelopes to post to the accounts team if users are on the road, while a new-fangled WebExpenses service – currently in beta testing and due to be rolled out imminently – enables users to scan in receipts or photograph them and then submit them.

Read on to discover how EYC successfully implemented an online expense system and find out what benefits the company accrued as a result.

STEP 1: Although Dunn says no training was required as the product is so easy to use, he would, with hindsight, have implemented the product differently. “I would have focussed on nurturing champions,” he says. “I would have put together a group of users in each area to trial the product, train others and endorse it too, rather than launch it across the organisation simultaneously.” There were a few technophobes who resisted the implementation but these individuals struggle with programmes such as Word and Excel and have PAs do their bookings.

STEP 2: Dunn saw the new system as a benefit to staff and promoted it internally that way. “This system brings expenses back to the user. I sold it to staff on the basis that they can do their expenses quicker and that we would pay expenses more frequently than once a month.”

STEP 3: The implementation was painless, except for one glitch with its bank, who was not able to provide an upload file with all the transactional data from the company’s four credit cards. EYC runs four different credit cards in different currencies. Instead, EYC created its own uplink with the data based on a template file WebExpenses provided. “It took a couple of weeks to get it up and running,” says Dunn. The interface with EYC's back office system, Sage, worked seamlessly. WebExpenses claims implementation can be far shorter, citing a 600-user corporate who went live within a week.

STEP 4: Dunn says expenses now require a third of the effort. “Our accounts team is still the same size but they now have time to do other things and can add more value instead, and that was a key reason for doing it. We’ve got rid of an overburdened paper-based system. We’ve basically re-deployed resource and added value to the organisation.”

WebExpenses’ Brewis says the cost of processing expenses online results in a 40 to 50 per cent saving in time and money. “There are real costs and intangible costs. You’re saving the time it takes to write them, approve them and pay them,” he says.

He claims there is another saving, and that is in keeping a lid on T&E spend. “Companies usually see T&E spend fall when they’ve implemented an expense management system, typically by ten to 15 per cent.

“Travel policy is reflected in the system configuration so there are visual reminders on screen, such as ‘We only reimburse taxi fares after 10pm on journeys from the office to home’,“ explains Brewis. “A lot of self-policing will go on as users realise the system is transparent. It eliminates deliberate or accidental double claims and the accounts team can communicate quickly if something is wrong. Recalcitrant behaviour is very quickly modified,” he concludes.

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