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Mobile Expense Reporting for Oracle EBS

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Oracle EBS is famous for being one of the more robust ERPs to configure for customer unique needs. With more configurations come more challenges in getting users to enter the relevant data. This is especially true for T&E expense reporting, which is compounded by department needs, business unit needs, projects needs and other dimensions.

As far as T&E is concerned, we have solved these challenges by building a bolt-on mobile app for expense reporting into Oracle EBS. It can be integrated into Oracle’s iExpense module. While the traditional integration of sending the data into Payables in Oracle EBS is still available, integrating the mobile expense data into iExpense is also a convenient option for many of our clients, since the follow on steps of approval workflows, coding and posting into Payables are already setup within iExpense.

Take a look at a demo of the mobile app here. It is designed to be easy to use and configurable with all the key components towards allowing users to complete expenses on-the-fly.

 

The app can be configured to include several fields that are relevant to the company, business unit, department and other cost centers. Additionally, fields like expense type, merchant, amount, comments etc. are also available within the mobile app.

The main goal of our ‘Oracle EBS iExpense mobile app’ is to make the data capture quick and immediate while including all the additional supporting data such as receipts, comments, customer name, projects etc.

If you would like to discuss this in more detail or need help with specific questions, contact us at sales@gorillaexpense.com.

 

The Grand Vision: 100% AP Automation

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The recent economic downturn, difficult credit situation, and increasing costs have all arrived together. For many companies, this has forced them to take a closer look at their internal processes as they seek ways to cut costs, improve efficiencies and increase bottom lines.

One area we are seeing a lot of interest in is Accounts Payable (AP) automation, with many companies striving to make it 100% automation.

100%-AP-Automation

For these companies, cutting costs associated with the AP process, automating it, making it less time consuming and providing panoramic visibility to decision makers in Finance is a no-brainer. Take the example of Zappos – restructuring their financial processes reduced their month-end closing process by 10 days. For a $1Billion company, that is huge!

So what are some of the key areas that CFOs, Controllers, AP Managers, Purchasing Managers are looking to improve their internal processes with relative ease while contributing to the organization’s overall mission to streamline costs?

Automation is the key to efficiency (and success)

Consider the inefficiencies in a non-automated, manual, paper-based process:

  • An Aberdeen Group study found that it can take anywhere from 3.5 to 15 days to process a single invoice. (The industry average for 50% of companies is 11 days to process a single invoice. Yikes!). The cost of processing can range from $5 to $25 for a single invoice
  • On the T&E expense report side of things, another Aberdeen report found that it can take anywhere from 3 to 22 days to reconcile and reimburse a expense report. The cost of processing an expense report manually is $35.28 versus $10.75 for companies that have an automated process
  • This includes the costs associated with manual processing, shuffling paper between individuals and departments, exceptions processing, missing data/receipts, accrual delays, failed audits, duplicates, and late payment fees

On the other hand, the efficiencies gained by automating these AP processes produce results that are definitely dramatic. These include a:

  • 92-96% reduction in paperwork
  • Greater than 29% improvement in labor productivity

Another way to look at this comparison is even if you have dedicated data entry staff and devices to help with managing the manual process, you can typically process 1,000 documents (invoices & expense reports) a month per full-time employee (FTE). By contrast, automated and rules-based matching increases that number to 6,500-9,000 documents a month per FTE.

Conclusion: Automation not only brings significant efficiencies to the AP process, but also helps grow the business with existing staff. Basically, you can do more with less.

Control – at your fingertips

By automating as much of the AP process as possible, you get greater control and better visibility into spend. And this applies to invoices and expenses. While rules, routing, policies can be configured to unique company configurations, the biggest advantage is being able to review spend on an expense report or invoice in a timely manner. Not having to review every single transaction means there is more time to focus on important violations that require attention.

Automating the process also captures the document and additional data so that AP Managers have full visibility into the process. No more expense receipts or invoices hiding on individual desks. AP and Finance can now maintain a more real-time view of their corporate spend at any point in time, thereby providing more control.

Conclusion: Automation results in greater, not less, control over your internal Accounts Payable process.

But what if this is too expensive

There are many solutions that offer end-to-end AP automation using the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model that require no upfront purchases. Choosing an AP solution that is offered as a service allows the company to truly pay-as-they-go! And with a typical SaaS model, the company can expect periodic upgrades and new features that add more value. This means companies can now reach their ROI much faster than before.

Conclusion: Automating the Accounts Payable process is more than ever available to a wider range of budgets.

Does company size matter?

Cloud-based solutions coupled with a SaaS business model offer a very low marginal cost to get started. With economies of scale and best practices, everyone benefits from automation. And, as discussed earlier, automation enables AP to focus on more strategic activities, such as, sourcing, reporting, spend analytics and vendor management.

Conclusion: Even small companies can save significant $$. Some research reports suggest annual savings can range from 4 to 17% of annual spend. Even for a small company, that can be big bucks!

How can analytics help?

Imagine now, you have all of this automation and data at your fingertips. How about a quick report on outstanding invoices for vendor ABC, LLC? How about a ‘spend to-date’ report on the AMEX corp. card for T&E expenses? Being able to massage the data and use it to arrive at meaningful conclusions is the key aspect of Analytics and Reporting modules. Providing such data to decision makers like AP Managers or CFOs provides tremendous value for the company to plan better, conserve money and be very strategic about growth. Several cloud-based solutions for Invoices & Expenses provide out of the box reporting and analytics that companies should definitely consider and incorporate.

Conclusion: With the amount of data churned out today, intelligent analytics is really a no-brainer. Smart companies utilize this data, make sense out of it and provide it to decision makers to really boost growth or drastically cut costs for companies. By paying attention to this, companies can put money back in their pockets.

Summary

It is very obvious to see that the benefits of AP automation are huge and cannot be ignored for the typical 21st century company. Let’s take a quick look at them again:

  • Huge labor savings across the company
  • Efficiency boost while processing Invoices & Expenses
  • Reduced delays
  • Improved transparency
  • Panoramic visibility for decision makers

Whether the architecture is cloud-based and delivered as SaaS or an On-Premise Hosted solution, the move will get a company closer to becoming paperless. Automating and streamlining Invoices & Expenses will also provide a secure and serviceable archive for data.

Finally, process improvements can be realized in days, rather than months, resulting in a rapid ROI. This will leave the company with an end-to-end 100% automated AP solution that increases compliance, cuts costs, and reduces cycle times.

Now that’s a grand vision. But very much achievable!

Make Expense Tracking for Dynamics ERP Painless in 2015

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Take the pain out of year end expenses!

It’s December, it’s cold and it’s time to hibernate. Yet, finance and AP departments are busy closing the books, reconciling data and checking receipts. And guess what – this process is a last minute rush every year for employees, managers and AP.

But there are better ways to manage this work at the end of the year. And we’ve got the expense claims + receipts side of things taken care of for you. How do we do this? By being creative and smart with technology.

Smartphones are for more than Instagram

Most travelers own a smartphone and this is a very convenient medium for travelers to submit expenses in a few clicks. Receipt capture is the most common feature used on Gorilla Expense’s mobile app. We make it easy to also attach those pesky multi-page PDF receipts from our mobile app by syncing with Dropbox.

The magical cloud

Web based, accessible anywhere, data at your fingertips…..That’s how the Gorilla Expense web application works. Companies are increasingly looking towards web based solutions to tackle their expenses including getting manager approvals done sooner. The availability of analytics and reporting modules makes it super convenient to analyze the entire year’s data and review trends.

No joy in manual data entry

Finally, once all the expenses are submitted and approved, AP has to key in the data manually into Dynamics ERP (GP / NAV / AX / SL). Not anymore! We make the process seamless and as automated as possible. Click a button on our integration app, grab some egg nog and 5 minutes later all the data is in the ERP. Simple right? (well, we recommend egg nog after 5pm)

In conclusion….

December can be a very busy time for most finance and AP departments with plenty of things to juggle already. To ease the workload when it comes to expenses, receipts and mainly to reimburse employee sooner, look at automating T&E in your company. This could be one of the best investments in 2015!

New Feature: FWD Receipts Over Email

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On the heels of our recent and popular ‘track mileage expenses with Google maps integration’ feature we have come out with another zinger of a feature (currently in beta mode). This is the ReceiptFWD feature that is available on the web application AND on our mobile app (in the Email tab).

Let’s discuss the current challenge:

 

Users receive receipts in emails from Airline or Hotel vendors that they have to download and then attach -OR- have to save the email as a PDF and attach it to the expense transaction

Our solution:

Our new email feature (in beta mode) allows users to FWD an email that has a single PDF receipt attachment to a fixed email account (example: receipts@abc-inc.com). If there is an attachment in the email, the application will automatically insert that into the receipt box within Gorilla Expense.

The user can also enter keywords in the body of the email (like: ‘Expense Type Meals’, ‘Total $200’) and the application will enter those values in the expense transaction within Gorilla Expense. This way when the user logs in to the application, the transaction in complete. See below for an email example, where the user is FWDing an email with a PDF receipt and has inserted keywords for the application to complete the transaction.

Painless-Receipt-Scanning-and-Expense-Tracking

If the email does not have a PDF receipt attached and if the email itself functions as a receipt, then the user simple needs to FWD the email for the application to create a PDF of the body of the email and attach it to the receipt box in Gorilla Expense. Similar to above, the user can use keywords to fill in the other details of the transaction. This is especially useful since many airline companies no longer provide attachments. Below is an example of a user FWDing the email itself.

Submit-receipts-and-expenses-using-email

The benefit of this feature is that solves the pain of having to manage expense related data that can come in from another source, namely email. We expect this to make traveler’s lives a lot easier.

So, the next time you get ready to do your expense report, these transactions along with receipts are waiting in the mobile app or the web app, ready to be dropped into an expense report. Click – Click – 4 seconds and your expense report is done!

As always we love hearing from you. If you have any questions, we are here – info@gorillaexpense.com

The 10 Commandments of T&E Expense Reporting for the 21st Century

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According to the Aberdeen Group research, surveys based on millions of expense reports submitted by 3,000 companies reveal that U.S. T&E costs are constantly rising. The largest increases were in airfare (up 5.7%), hotels (up 4.5%), and meetings (up 7.7%).

With T&E spend ranging from 7% to 15% percent of the total budget for the average mid-market company ($50 million to $800 million in revenue), the challenge facing CFOs and Controllers in this area is dramatic with millions of dollars at stake! For most companies, travel related expenses remain a significant area of spend – second only to payroll.

Scope of challenge

Fundamentally, most companies struggle to tackle these challenges because of not knowing where to start, when it comes to managing their T&E Expense reporting process, resulting in thousands of dollars of reckless spending and waste. Aberdeen’s report (Expense Management for a New Decade and The Mid-Market Expense Management Program) says that:

* 56% of mid-market companies have limited visibility into T&E spending

* Less than 45% track their expenses via analytics and business intelligence in real time

* Only 33% leverage cloud-based expense reporting solutions and 28% integrate corporate cards

* Just 15% provide T&E data to C-level executives for financial forecasting purposes

Solutions for a new decade

The good news is that cloud-based solutions have significantly brought down the cost of automating T&E expense reporting. These solutions have been shown to deliver huge reductions in expense processing costs. But the big questions is – where do you start?

The Best-In-Class corporations (a term used by the Aberdeen Group to classify the top 20% of companies that manage their expense related processes by creatively blending technology & strategy) combine strategy, core capabilities, technology, a culture that embraces change and a desire to optimize. The objectives of most Best-In-Class programs include cost savings, enhanced productivity, improved efficiencies and better compliance. This is usually achieved by unifying the different processes in the lifecycle.

By advocating a culture that fosters Best-In-Class programs and by investing in a system that ensures achievement of this status, Best-In-Class companies constantly reap gains and realize immediate ROIs.

Here are the 10 Commandments of Expense Reporting that Best-In-Class companies consistently execute on:

1. Centralize the control and operation of T&E expense management programs

2. Automate the process to greatly reduce unproductive manual work and eliminate errors

3. Integrate the front-end expense reporting system to the ERP system to minimize manual data entries and errors (here is a video of automated integration with Dynamics GP)

4. Establish generally accepted corporate-wide policies and processes

5. Educate employees regularly on expense report related policies and processes and appoint a designee for any questions from employees

6. Encourage usage of corporate cards for better accuracy and mobile device applications for convenience to users (read our blog on Credit Card Integration)

7. Leverage and close the loop on expense management data to fine-tune the system and also provide better deals with travel vendors for the company

8. Develop audit mechanisms that capture errant data and provide real-time visibility into spend

9. Invest in the latest technology to maximize efficiency, provide long term ROI and reduce paper usage

10. Provide flexibility and convenience to the end users to improve productivity, reduce inherent delays and to capture expense data immediately after incurred

For some companies, executing on all 10 steps immediately might prove to be a challenge. In those cases, it would be beneficial to select a few and to focus on those, till the desired results are obtained.

Automating T&E processes does more than just reduce costs. It makes it harder for employees to inflate expenses — and far easier for companies to detect fraud. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, up to 13% of company fraud arises in this area, so that’s a huge advantage. Expense reporting time is reduced and employees are reimbursed faster which is a major boost to morale. Automation results in an average 28% reduction in expense approval times and 27% reduction in employee expense report creation times according to the latest Aberdeen reports.

To read the complete white paper on ’10 steps towards best-in-class status for expense management’, click HERE

If you have any specific questions that we can help with or need more information, contact us at questions@gorillaexpense.com

Additional resource:

To calculate savings from automating the T&E Expense Reporting Process, click HERE

New Feature – Mobile App Dropbox Integration!

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We recently updated our mobile app to offer a very cool new feature from within the mobile app for receipt management. Users can now attach receipts from their Dropbox account to transactions on the mobile app! (If you don’t have a Dropbox account yet, don’t worry – we won’t judge you. We will however make fun of you :). Sign up is very easy.)

The attached receipts can be standard .jpg or .png receipts taken with a camera. But the great thing about it is that now you can also attach multi-page PDF receipts! Super convenient is what we are shooting for with this feature and it delivers. Here is what it looks like:

Mobile-App

During the 1st-time login, the app will ask the user for permission to link to their Dropbox account. Once the user approves, the user can attach anything from their Dropbox account.

We recommend users to create a ‘Receipts’ folder within their Dropbox and access that from our mobile app. That way everything is organized better and data management becomes easier.

From a process standpoint it is easy as Apple Pie (or cake; we forget). Simply click on ‘Add Photo’, select ‘Dropbox’ and pick the respective receipt from there. Finito!

Hope you find this feature to be useful while crossing the Seven Seas. As always, contact us at info@gorillaexpense.com if you have any questions or would like to discuss in more detail!

Automated T&E Expense Reporting for the 21st Century

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Are you still filing expense reports in Excel sheets and attaching paper receipts with Scotch tape? Then it is time to change that and officially enter the 21st century. Using smartphones and web based applications, the modern day business traveler utilizes the latest technology to efficiently complete expense reports and also make sure that the company’s dollars are spent wisely.

This Dilbert cartoon says it all – Manual old school expense reporting is just painful!

Expense Reporting is painful! The time for change is now! Rather than taking large risky steps, many businesses are turning to the cloud for cost-effective T&E expense management tools that automate and streamline the creation, review and approval of expense reports. Using smartphones, travelers can track expenses as they happen, take photos of receipts, and submit expenses all from the palm of their hand in seconds!

Some of the key areas to look for while evaluating expense reporting solutions are:

1) The ability for employees to photograph , attach or email electronic receipts and easily assign them to line-item expenses

2) Expense reporting systems where credit card transactions can be imported

3) The ability to send T&E expense data into any accounting system like QuickBooks, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle etc. through automation

Gorilla Expense offers all of the above, and is fully integrated with various corporate credit cards and Accounting systems, which means manual data entry is reduced in multiple places, accounting errors are eliminated, employees are reimbursed faster and billable expenses can be tracked easier. In conclusion, whether on the road or back at the office, businesses and employees can now easily manage their T&E expenses – online, or on a smartphone with just a few clicks! So jump in to the 21st century with us!

The Big Debate – SaaS vs Licensing for T&E Expense Reporting

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Saas vs On-Premise

In the last few months we have received several questions from our prospects and customers related to deploying our T&E expense reporting application in a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model versus a licensing model. We are one of very few vendors that provide both options to customers.

While SaaS is quickly becoming the model of choice for many, there are good reasons to evaluate the licensing model as well. So how does SaaS really compare to the more traditional licensing model? Well, let’s review some of the typical questions and comments we have seen.

‘We are interested in subscribing to your SaaS model because it is cheaper than licensing it. Is this a valid statement?’

Short answer: Yes.

Generally speaking, an on-premise deployment through licensing requires greater upfront capital investment (CFOs typically amortize this cost as Capex) compared to the SaaS model. And there are several reasons for this – installing expensive hardware & software on-site, requiring resources and personnel to manage the hardware and software, ongoing maintenance expenses, upgrades, support fees and license fees. However with SaaS the company doesn’t have to allocate resources and personnel to manage the application. The additional charges for upgrades, hardware and administration fees are avoided and included in the monthly subscription. Customers simply have to login and go!

What are the benefits of SaaS and Licensing?

The SaaS model gives the buyer immediate business benefits with frequent updates, shorter deployment times and independence from having to maintain an IT team to support the application. There is also an easier adoption and more flexibility for end-users because SaaS vendors typically utilize the latest technology to include mobile apps, web based applications etc. compared to internal IT teams in end-user companies that cannot keep pace with vendors.

Licensing with On-premise deployments have typically provided more integration with existing IT and operational systems. But many SaaS solution providers (including us) now provide seamless integration with several systems. Also, there is always the risk  with management of data which might be easier to accomplish in an On-premise model vs SaaS. But then again, vendors like us provide customers with the option of sending them backed-up data periodically to alleviate any concerns.

SaaS or Licensing: which one is more flexible?

That depends – on the company, their operations, availability of resources and personnel and their goals in choosing between the two. Both hosted (through SaaS) and On-premise are scalable, easy to configure and have technical flexibility. However, SaaS is probably more flexible for the end user as there are no limitations in accessing it from anywhere with an internet connection through multiple mechanisms (web, mobile phone, tablet etc.)

Is SaaS still a risky proposition?

Licensing has always been the de-facto model compared to SaaS over the last several decades, at least. Hence SaaS is perceived to be more risky. And the main areas of risk revolve around impact risks such as loss of control, integration challenges and data storage being off-site. The risks with licensing a solution are more related to implementation such as deployment, support and training. And the risk can vary a lot and depends on the company’s operations and structure.

In conclusion, which model is better? Sorry, but there is no one single answer. It really comes down to the business objectives, goals and culture of the company. Some of our customers that have small IT teams have opted for our expense reporting solution in the SaaS model because it is much easier for them to manage. Other customers have opted for the licensing model because they wanted more control and some of them were bound by corporate policies to retain all technology applications and data within the company which is managed On-Premise. So the question really becomes – ‘SaaS vs Licensing: which size fits your company best?’

Additional resources:

* Very nice white paper on ‘On-Premise’ VS. Cloud-based solutions provided by GFI software – Link

* Educational video on Cloud Computing vs. On-Premise Solutions



Contact us for more information or if you have any specific questions we can help answer info@gorillaexpense.com

Automated Expense Reporting Integration with ERP & Accounting Systems

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In the last few months, we have been receiving inquiries regarding our integration with ERP & Accounting systems in relation to some of the other expense reporting solutions out there. I think the key difference can be summarized as – Full Automation

Most of the other systems out there say that they can ‘integrate’ but what they really mean is that they provide a flat-file that can then be imported into the ERP system. Nothing wrong with this and it may actually work better for some companies. But when we refer to integration, we mean full 100% automated integration, which means – the Accounting person pushes a button and the expenses are available in the ERP system as GL entries or into AP. This makes a huge difference for our customers.

Using our integration manager utility, they are able to pick and choose expense reports they want to send. After that, they click on a button to push the expense data. Simple as that! We have heard from our customers that With this approach, there is lesser chances of errors, much fewer manual steps that need to be taken and it can be performed by anyone in Accounting or AP without any expert training. Plus, the mapping of parameters can be tweaked very easily within the integration manager by the Admin without having to redesign the flat file format. Thus the Accounting folks will have lot more flexibility in how the data is pushed to the ERP or Accounting systems. We guarantee that this approach is 21st century proof! 🙂

So, come take a look at this and some of the other advancements we are making in the expense reporting space. To see a list of some of the systems we integrate with, go to the ‘Advanced Functions’ tab here. If you’d like to learn more or have any questions, as always, send us an email – info@gorillaexpense.com