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While SAP Acquires Concur, We Renew our Commitment to SMBs

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It’s been a few weeks since SAP agreed to purchase Concur. The deal makes plenty of sense for SAP because of their focus in the ‘enterprise + powered by the cloud’ market. In a similar vein, it has been a few years since SAP purchased Ariba and SuccessFactors. With Concur now folded into the giant SAP umbrella, SAP will have access to an enterprise T&E solution that they can sell to their 200K + enterprise size customers.

But equally important over the next several months, SAP has its work cut out in trying to build an enterprise suite with these cloud acquisitions – a tricky job that will consume plenty of resources and time.

Concur’s focus in the last few years has been primarily in evolving their travel booking solution, investing in travel related apps and setting up of their marketplace. But the next few steps are going to be critical for Concur – they currently have the huge 15 year US government contract that they must deliver, meet additional requirements and opportunities from SAP and evolve their mobile and web mobile expense platforms to keep up with nimble and innovative cloud travel & expense competitors like us.

Above all, supporting all of these initiatives equally well through the choppy seas of a typical M&A process is paramount. While the cloud is very attractive to most customers, SAP must understand that no customer wants to be stuck with segmented cloud applications from different acquired vendors that don’t ‘talk’ to each other.

The marriage of Concur and SAP makes a lot of sense for both companies and the enterprise market. But, what does this mean for SMBs? Would the SAP-Concur nexus consider SMB travel and expense requirements to be mere distractions? Perhaps too small to worry or even care about? Will they even have the resources and time to help the ‘little guys’ out?

SMBs must take a very close look at this situation and understand where they fit in the landscape. There are different aspects to this – how is the Concur service going to be in the future now that they are a small part of a much larger behemoth? Would Concur’s travel & expense solution pricing change? Where do SMBs fit in Concur’s plan as they reach out to larger enterprises with SAP?

These are all big questions. But one thing is guaranteed – Gorilla Expense will continue to service the needs of SMBs at the same economical price and exceptional service that our customers are used to. The SMB market is our sweet spot and we pride ourselves in working with customers like you. If anything, the SAP-acquiring-Concur transaction has redoubled our efforts and renewed our long-term commitment to this space.

Our recent update of our mobile app – Gorilla Expense Pro is proof of that. We evolved the mobile app to the point where users don’t have to get in front of a computer to submit expenses anymore! This is very important and powerful for the typical SMB where employees are increasingly juggling more work and time spent on unproductive tasks is directly related to lost dollars for the company. In our journey through working with several SMBs, we realize that no two companies manage their T&E processes in the same way. Our focal points have always been:

– Make the solution super easy to use (if you have to read our manuals, then it means we are not doing our jobs)

– The solution is flexible and can be configured to meet the customer’s requirements

– Provide exceptional customer support (Wow! the customer all the time)

– Keep the solution economical to own for our customers (less than the price of 3 cups of Starbucks coffee per month)

We really strive to make a difference in our customer’s lives and also be successful in this space. We don’t compromise performance for price. We realize that SMBs frequently operate in a cost control mode and should not have to pay for features that are unnecessary to them.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Gorilla Expense is currently offering an attractive switchover program for current Concur users. As part of this program, you will get access to our entire solution – mobile, web and integration (credit card, travel, accounting and payroll systems). Customers who have made the move typically see savings ranging from 10% to 60% of Concur’s price. To learn more, please contact us at info@gorillaexpense.com.

Corporate Cards for T&E Expenses – See How Your Peers Use Them

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The GBTA did a survey of more than 200 travel managers in the US on which expense types they mandate the usage of corporate card

No surprises that Airfare was the top at 67%. This is mainly to better manage the spend related to airfare and utilize programs and partnership with air travel vendors. Plus, in some cases, if tickets are canceled or modified, corporate cards have discounted change-fees for being part of the air travel vendor program. Closely following the Airfare expense type are Lodging and Rentals both of which maintain a similar philosophy.

Charging meals to the corporate card provides greater visibility from a compliance perspective. This is especially true if meals are related to Entertainment type expenses. Companies are also increasingly asking employees to charge misc. business expenses like internet, phone calls, faxes etc. to the corporate card to prevent potential frauds. For sales people on the road all the time, the corporate card is a big convenience for mileage and gas related expenses as well.

So, how do your company stack up compared to this? Which expense types do you mandate your users to use the corporate card for? Let us know in the comments below.

Reference: GBTA April 2014 survey. Chart provided by Travel Procurement, part of BTN Newsletter

On-Premise Expense Software or SaaS Expense Software – The Big Debate

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When it comes to T&E expense management, the cloud has inspired a new and quick way of thinking about mobile and online expense tracking with integration to various accounting and ERP systems. Of course the ‘old’ model of companies having to purchase licenses to own the software and have the ability to deploy it on their servers still exists but faces solid competition from cloud solutions.

The Gorilla Expense software can be delivered as a SaaS or on-premise when it comes to our online T&E solution. Of course, when the SaaS solution is purchased, it comes as a complete turnkey package that includes software and the entire delivery mechanism.

The inter-webs is ripe with discussions on the pros and cons of on-premise vs SaaS when it comes to expense reporting and several topics on how best to assess the costs. With SaaS, the business pays less upfront while on-premise requires higher initial costs because you buy the software in terms of licenses and maintenance. However, the details lurk below this cursory assessment – the often heard concept of ‘Total Cost of Ownership’ a.k.a TCO. Let us explore this in more detail by segmenting the comparisons by company size relative to our customer base.

Expense Reporting for Small Business

With small businesses, the initial cost of licensing the expense reporting software on-premise is usually several orders higher than a SaaS expense solution. Plus the on-premise solution will require additional internal infrastructure and may incur personnel costs to maintain the solution. So, for small businesses SaaS cloud based expense reporting may offer better ROI and quicker value than on-premise.

Mid-Market Expense Management

For mid-sized businesses, the comparison between the two approaches can be closer to break-even. The costs usually level out because the cost of the fixed license and recurring SaaS payments typically increase proportionately while the infrastructure cost remains fixed. However, the big difference is labor costs – the standard assumption is that mid-sized business would have the cost of paying for 1/2rd to 1/4th of an IT team’s (consisting of anywhere from one to ten people) salary to maintain the server, OS and ancillary software applications; so these costs may mean that the on-premise deployment could potentially be more expensive.

When is SaaS Better?

The biggest benefit of going the SaaS route is when companies cannot dedicate IT resources and personnel to install and manage the applications. The general rule of thumb for on-premise is that upgrades are needed at least four times in a year and require several hours to install and manage up-time.

In addition, with SaaS, the expenses are deferred (the classic CAPEX vs OPEX debate), so, from a cash flow standpoint, the model becomes attractive for cash strapped small businesses.

Conclusion

While we have reviewed the key piece of the equation which is related to cost, note that this is just one part of the puzzle. The other factors to consider when you compare Saas vs on-premise expense reporting solutions are:

– Level of internal IT expertise and talent to manage on-premise solutions

– Comfort level with outsourcing the work, if not possible in house

– Tolerance for downtime and risk mitigation

– Capability to support requirements from an evolving and growing business operations

– Level of engagement with the solution (SaaS gives you a ‘rent and forget’ approach whereas on-premise requires constant monitoring)

– Cash flow management

At Gorilla Expense, we provide both options and work with the customer to closely understand which format will benefit their business and employees the most. We advise and support our customer’s rapidly changing requirements when it comes to deployment options, since we have seen all the combinations and the respective challenges. If you would like to learn more or would like for us to review your requirements, please send an email to 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

Gorilla Expense – Our Story

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We get asked about ‘our story’ at different times by different folks – customers, prospects, partners, new employees and even competitors! What is our story? Why are we doing this? Why now? Well, it is very simple:

Our team has been in the Travel + Expense Reporting space for many years with a combined experience of several decades. The backgrounds of our management team comes from working with / implementing / developing other T&E expense reporting systems like Concur, SAP, Oracle’s iExpense and other Goliaths in the past.
These are large companies with big legacy systems. And we fully understand what works and what doesn’t work with the solutions provided by these companies, which not only includes products but also support.

Learning from the mistakes of our competitors, we wanted to offer a solution that was nimble yet powerful in being able to handle all requirements ranging from a 20 user application to one used by our large multi-national customers. (And this caught the attention of Microsoft for their Dynamics ERP product line, when they sponsored us to attend DEMO – read more here)

But our focus is more than just the product – we also pride ourselves in providing exceptional support, where our competitors don’t do the best job. Every customer that signs up with us becomes THE customer for us while they may be A customer for our competitors, which is a big difference.

Our customers don’t just subscribe to our solution or buy our products – they approach us for advice and guidance to solve their challenges with expense reporting and support our mission. And we love solving their problems while putting a smile on the faces of their Travelers and Finance teams.

So, that’s our raison d’etre. As far as we know the T&E pain point hasn’t been solved yet. And that’s why we are here today – to finally fix it for customers like you and have fun while doing it! Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for your support….

SMBs and the Big Push Towards Travel & Expense Control in 2014

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Controlling-Travel-Expenses

As part of a recent research, most managers and travel budget owners for small and medium businesses cited managing costs as the primary goal for 2014. The methods companies use to achieve this goal, vary widely within the SMB segment. The travel spend for companies in this group range from less than $2MM in annual US booked travel to $12MM on the high end.

Most SMBs struggle with the same challenges – lack of internal resources to manage T&E, no dedicated travel manager, missed supplier relationships and a general cookie-cutter travel management program setup by the travel agency, if one exists at all. The best of breed companies may have better control on travel spend with elaborate procurement strategies and internal resources that manage the company’s travel program and spend carefully. These resources typically report to the CFO, thus offering the finance office full visibility into spend.

Visibility-of-travel-expenses

The reason that travel management as a concept is a challenge for SMBs is because there are many factors that drive a company’s travel strategy: travel patterns, international vs domestic, company culture, senior management’s support, business focus and others. Regardless of the status quo, it is never too late for a company to manage its travel and T&E processes more efficiently.

“I don’t believe there’s a company out there that can’t benefit from some level of a managed program,” said Directravel president Sam DeFranco. “When a company feels like there’s a lack of control of their spending and they only have basic expense processes in place, their antenna should be up.”

Several SMBs were focused on getting the right tools and processes in place in 2014. One was in the midst of “designing and implementing a full-scale travel management program,” while others were planning to implement a robust automated expense-reporting system as soon as possible in 2014.

In the various SMBs, even with senior management support, a planned travel policy, TMC relationship and T&E expense reporting solutions in place, companies reported ongoing challenges with compliance. Several of the companies reported their greatest travel management challenge today was to get travelers to comply.

“At larger companies, you’re dealing with a multitude of people that touch T&E,” said DeFranco. “At one company alone, you could have a travel manager, a director of procurement, a director of purchasing, expense management, HR and a risk manager. Inherently, the SMBs simply do not have the same infrastructure, so to compensate for that, the travel management company account manager essentially becomes an extension of the customer.” One company highlighted the biggest travel management challenge as “achieving objectives with limited resources.” It’s a position in which many managers in the small and midsize segments find themselves.

What are your challenges when it comes to managing travel and travel related expenses? What are your goals for 2014? Let us know in the comments below.

Reference: BTN, "BTN's 2014 Small & Medium Enterprise Report, Apr 15, 2014"

Savings From Secondary Travel Spend Categories

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Carlson Wagonlit did a survey in November 2013 of 970 travel managers worldwide including 270 in North America. From the respondents, they found the top secondary spend categories that were critical to additional cost savings. Here are the results, with the top being ‘Roaming fees’ and the lowest cost savings coming from ‘Public transportation’ & ‘Parking’.

Spend Categories

How does this compare to your company’s cost savings on secondary travel spend categories? Send us your comments….

What does ‘T&E’ stand for anyway?

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When it comes to corporate finance parlance and CFO-talk, T&E is an acronym that is commonly thrown around. And most people assume it is something that is commonly understood; which might not be the case. Well, what does it stand for anyway?

The term T&E can mean either ‘Travel & Expense’ or ‘Travel & Entertainment’ Expenses. These definitions which are both valid and frequently interchanged are used to address the second largest operational cost for a business, after payroll. Except this cost is controllable through automation and careful analysis of a business’s expense reporting process.

So the next time you hear a CFO say ‘Our T&E is out of control’ or ‘When was the last review of our T&E plan’ you know exactly what is being discussed. And voila!

(Friendly tip – Just don’t expense that speeding ticket)

Detecting and Controlling T&E Expense Fraud

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T&E Expense Fraud

When you think of expense reports, you also think about its vulnerability to fraud. While there are tools and systems to better tackle fraud, consistent auditing still plays a vital role.

Last year, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) reported that nearly 15% of all fraud in the workplace was related to T&E expense reporting. According to the same report, the median financial loss to an organization for a single instance of expense fraud is $26,000, and the median duration of the fraudulent activity is two years. That is a lot of money and a long duration.

Earlier this year, AirPlus International fielded a survey to corporate travel managers to explore how they manage expense fraud in the travel category. 35% of the respondents reported that they manage both travel and T&E within their organizations. Another 15% of the respondents identified their official role as a travel manager but were closely involved in creating T&E expense policy as it relates to travel. On the other side, only 30% of travel managers said their company’s travel policy had any guidelines for T&E expenses. 7% of the respondents said they were not involved at all with T&E expenses.

Of the 119 surveyed, 8% of the respondents reported that their companies had uncovered significant fraud in T&E expense reporting over the last two years while 19% said that they didn’t know of any significant fraud. For the 8% of respondents, the most common behavior was falsifying or altering receipts to inflate reimbursements. Additional common fraudulent behaviors include submitting too many “below-the-line” expenses (expenses below a certain $ value that do not require receipts per a corporation’s T&E policy), exchanging premium-class tickets and reclaiming receipts.

The survey respondents utilized safeguards in place at their organizations for preventing and detecting fraud. The most common prevention tactic, cited by 81% of the respondents, was to include direct manager approval for all T&E expenses. 67% of respondents said their companies required receipts for all expenses incurred during travel, while 59% required the use of a corporate card for T&E expenses.

To read the full report by AirPlus International click here

Maintaining compliance and increasing visibility are the key factors in prevention of T&E fraud. Surprisingly, the ACFE reports that most workplace fraud is initially discovered from a tip provided by a co-worker. However, to take action, the tip must be backed up by facts and data.

Here is a video on T&E expense fraud which you may find useful –

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

Airline Fees on the Rise – Study by TravelNerd

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CFOs across various businesses are increasingly paying more and more attention to the rising airline fees. Amadeus and Ideaworks estimate 2012 worldwide airline fee revenue at $36.1 billion which is estimated to be a 11% increase over 2011! TravelNerd put together a report and found that U.S. airlines changed more than 50 different fees since January 2012, in some cases fairly large changes. Here is a quick summary of the analysis by them –

  • 36 out of the 52 fee changes are direct fee increases, with the remaining changes predominantly a result of:
    • Bundling / unbundling of fees (e.g. instituting 1 fee for priority boarding and seating or instituting 2 separate fees for priority boarding and seating that were previously bundled into 1 fee)
    • Increasing fee price ranges (e.g. Spirit changed its premium seat fees from $25-$75 to $12-$199)
    • Redefining fee policies (e.g. Allegiant kept the same fee price of $50 for overweight bags 51-70 pounds but changed the fee policy to apply for bags 41-70 pounds)
  • 28 out of the 52 fee changes are related to baggage fees, 19 changes are related to service fees, and 5 changes are related to in-flight fees
  • Despite Spirit’s infamous $100 per carry-on bag fee, the majority of fee increases were within $5-$10
  • 18 out the 52 fee changes are attributed to Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air, ultra low cost carriers (ULCCs) notorious for charging fees
  • Lastly, a small ray of hope comes from United Airlines, who reduced its overweight bag fees from $200 to $100 for bags 51-70 pounds and from $400 to $200 for bags 71-100 pounds

For the full report, see the original article here. (Thank you TravelNerd for this research!)