Evolve Your Business with Gorilla Expense for Microsoft Dynamics NAV
A mid-sized organization has its share of challenges especially in this era of technology and globalization. Particularly in business travel and expense management, finance managers in these organizations can find several pain points that eventually trickle its way to company operations, and finally the bottom line. Therefore, it goes without saying that an effective expense management tool is necessary for any organization if they want to succeed in what they do and find this success reflected in their financials.
Enter Gorilla Expense. Read more
Painless Way to Gain More Visibility into Employee Spend
Technology has changed the way we do things–and this includes how we buy. For your organization, you may feel this change as your own employees exhibit a shift in their buying behaviors, which affect spending, expenses, and visibility.
When it comes to employee-initiated spend that occurs as they perform their jobs, things have changed. Like travel and expenses, employee initiated spend also contribute to business operations, and the bottom line. However, due to the changes and technological advances we are experiencing today, visibility becomes a more pressing concern, on top of course of timely recognition and reporting of expenses. Read more
Looking for a robust T&E expense reporting solution for Oracle ERP? Well, look no further.
So you have invested in Oracle ERP but you are having challenges with the T&E solution to meet your unique travel requirements. What do you do? Well, Gorilla Expense is here to help.
Companies nowadays want to leverage the latest and most advanced technologies to make work much easier. And ease, of course, should always come with timeliness and accuracy, especially in expense management.
From executives to employees, everyone demands agility and reliability when it comes to their ERP systems. They require solutions that are not only configured to their company’s unique needs but also systems that can be up and running quickly so that they can operate immediately. So, when it comes to T&E for Oracle EBS, Gorilla Expense fulfils these needs elegantly and economically.
With Gorilla Expense, companies can easily automate their T&E expense reporting process. Gorilla Expense seamlessly integrates with Oracle EBS so you not only minimize all the frustrating manual work, but also get financial data that is important to decision makers in almost real-time, while the travelers receive the benefit of a system that is tuned to meet their needs.
Leveraging the latest mobile and cloud based technologies
Whether you are a mid-sized business or a large organization, the Gorilla Expense solution brings together the convenience of mobile, web, corporate credit card, and email functions that are crucial especially for traveling employees, all without the hassle of having to install a separate software or app. It is also great for managers because they can find all the information they need in one place. Reporting and analytics are a breeze since all the data has already been captured and can be sliced and diced from one comprehensive and simple to use interface. Meanwhile, accounting also gets benefits through compliant and complete expense reports, timely approvals, and overall visibility – the three main areas that most accounting/finance departments struggle with.
The Gorilla Expense cutting-edge mobile app that includes OCR and maps feature for mileage, empowers travelers to increase efficiency, work smarter, reduce errors, and eliminate late submissions. Functions such as credit card import, data entry, reporting, and approvals are all comprehensively streamlined into Oracle EBS, allowing your whole organization to get a shot in the arm for efficiency.
Very economical to own
The Gorilla Expense cloud solution for Oracle ERP is typically 15% to 40% more economical than the competitors and even the native T&E solution offered by Oracle. Our price includes free upgrades and enhancements. Plus, you don’t have to purchase separate additional software or equipment. This means you can put money back into the company’s pocket.
More performance, less downtime, less frustration
Since Gorilla Expense seamlessly integrates with Oracle EBS, you enjoy less downtime, especially because Gorilla Expense can be configured to fit your specific requirements. You also eliminate the need to do complicated coding, which may require IT expertise. You also eliminate the need for ongoing upgrades and maintenance that can add up on hours that are better spent on core business operations.
With the Gorilla Expense T&E solution for Oracle ERP, you have access to robust and the latest technology that provides great benefits to your organization. The end result – Cut costs, improve compliance and provide greater visibility to decision maker. That’s something you can’t beat!
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Gorilla Expense offer an innovate spend management solution for companies of all sizes. The three main components of this solution are T&E Expense Reporting, Timesheets and P-card Reconciliation for Oracle ERP. While the solution is typically deployed as SaaS, Gorilla Expense also supports On-Premise deployments. If you would like to see a live demo or have any questions, please contact us at sales@gorillaexpense.com.
Make T&E Expense Reporting for SAGE X3 Painless and Paperless using Gorilla Expense
Making the T&E expense tracking process for Sage X3 efficient and timely is increasingly becoming important to several mid-sized and large clients. The benefits are huge – in terms of cost savings, compliance to the IRS, visibility of T&E spend for decision makers like CFOs and of course improvements in productivity for travelers. Businesses invest in a robust ERP system like Sage X3 primarily to realize such benefits.
Automating T&E Expense Reporting for Sage ERP
The ERP solutions provided by Sage are comprehensive management and planning solutions that allow businesses to track their performance closely. Travel and expense reporting by its very nature is a tricky area to control and monitor. That’s where a system like Gorilla Expense makes a huge difference.
Gorilla Expense extends the capabilities of Sage X3 by providing a robust mobile + web platform for travelers to capture both, out of pocket and corporate credit card expenses. Once these expenses have been compiled and approved the expense data can be sent to various ‘pages’ in SAGE X3 (like Payables as an Invoice or as a GL entry etc.) depending on the client’s requirements.
Gorilla Expense Extends Capabilities within Sage ERP
As our company’s name suggests, we are the experts when it comes to T&E tracking and reporting. And businesses that use Sage ERP (all the way from Sage 100 to Sage 500) can benefit from and leverage our expertise and thought leadership in this space. Our automated solution for Sage ERP greatly benefits travelers, approving managers, and Accounting. In addition, Gorilla Expense now also integrates with Sage 300 and Sage 300 Construction & Real Estate
Here are some of our cool features:
- Mobile solution with e-Receipts, including a new and OCR add-on feature
- Web application that can be accessed anywhere anytime!
- AMEX, VISA & MasterCard Corporate Card Reconciliation
- Multi-Currency functionality including GST/VAT capture
- Multi-level manager approvals
And more at – Gorilla Expense Features
Besides the features we also specialize in dedicated and personalized support which is one of the main reasons client love working with Gorilla Expense!
So, embrace the technologies of the 21st century and say goodbye to frustrating and manual expense reporting processes that use Excel and Scotch tape. Let Gorilla Expense make this painless and paperless for you! Contact us at sales@gorillaexpense.com to learn more.
The Grand Vision: 100% AP Automation
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!
Expense Tracking for Dynamics GP and Goodbye Business Portal in GP 2015
Microsoft officially announced that Business Portal and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 runtime will be discontinued in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015. They plan to focus instead on including most of the functionalities directly into the core code base of Dynamics GP 2015.
“The plan is to basically phase out Business Portal as we release apps or modules inside Dynamics GP that replace the same functionality”, said Microsoft’s Kelly Obach, Manager of the Executive Business Center.
Business Portal has been an important and integral part of Dynamics GP for many years. Users could gain a quick peek into a company’s data and run graphical reports quickly. Of course all the goodness did not come without challenges, ranging from software requirements, tricky admin functionality of the module and proprietary architecture. Business Portal also provided a basic non-mobile solution for capturing project related expenses.
GP 2015 Features (Click on Image)
For customers looking to upgrade to Dynamics GP 2015 from older versions or for customers looking to migrate to GP 2015 from other systems, Business Portal will no longer be available. If T&E Expense Management in Dynamics GP is an important requirement for your business, what do you do?
That’s where ISVs like Gorilla Expense fill the gap with our expense reporting software for GP, which integrates with various versions (GP 10, GP 2010, GP 2013). While Microsoft Dynamics brings great features to the core ERP product, we bring the robust expense related pieces which include Mobile Apps, Web Application, Credit Card Integration and seamless + fully Automated Integration into Dynamics GP using our proprietary Integration App.
Not only does it solve the challenges and pain points for the customer, it also enhances capabilities within GP. Check out the video of our automated integration with GP (VIDEO)
Our solution is not only powerful but also very easy to use and intuitive. And most importantly, we pride ourselves in providing the best support you have ever seen from an ISV. Our goal is to ‘Wow!’ the customer every time. Don’t believe us? See what our customers are saying about us (TESTIMONIALS)
As a Premium GPUG member, you can also view the webinar we did with GPUG on ‘Make T&E Expense Reporting for Dynamics GP Painless & Paperless’ here (WEBINAR)
GPUG Premium Member
If you are interested in a personalized demo of our expense management software for Dynamics GP, contact us at sales@gorillaexpense.com
New Feature: FWD Receipts Over Email
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
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
Different Flavors of T&E Expense Integration with Dynamics GP – Series (Intro)
Dynamics-GP-Expense-Tracking
As we all know Dynamics GP provides an organization with solid agility and flexibility in meeting their business needs today and also into the future. With such flexibility, comes the ability to configure GP in many different ways to meet unique requirements of the organization – and this extends to expense reporting as well.
Gorilla Expense offers a fully automated and seamless integration with GP. We refer to this as ‘1-click’ integration’. We do this by using web services and eConnect, depending on the customer’s preference. While we can do a flat-file based integration, our customers love the way our integration app sends the data from several expense reports to GP with just a click! When it comes to expense reporting, there are multiple ways to integrate the data from our system to GP. In this series, we will be exploring the different flavors of our integration with GP.
Integration with Payables in GP – Series (1 of 3)
This is the standard and most common format of our integration with GP. Here, we send the expense data as a Payable Transaction Entry within the Purchasing module in GP. Expenses sent from our system will show up as invoices. Depending on the payment method defined in our system and the setup of vendors, the invoice will be issued for the employee or the corporate credit card.
Integration with Project Accounting in GP – Series (2 of 3)
Here, we send the expense data from our system to the Project Accounting module in GP, where expenses will be captured against different cost categories and tied to specific open projects. The project workflow is also mapped within our system such that the respective project owner(s) will be approving the expense reports before they are sent to GP.
Integration with Receivings in GP – Series (3 of 3)
Here, we will send the data as a Receivings Transaction Entry within the Purchasing module. The expenses are allocated to different cost categories and the PO number is referenced. Since these expenses will show up as Receivables once posted, this integration is used when the customer is planning to bill back their clients. The customer name /PO number is referenced in our application so that the expenses are tied to it.
Besides these, we can also configure our Integration App to do other forms of integration as needed. In the next article, we will showcase our integration with Payables in GP. Stay tuned!