Tips for Presenting an Automated Expense Management Business Case

The ideal expense report should write itself. To be able to do that, it should be mobile and your data should be easily accessed through the cloud. Makes sense in today’s world, right? Not to everyone.

Many business and finance leaders don’t understand the benefits cloud-based automated expense management can bring to all corners of the business and, perhaps most importantly, the bottom line. In this blog we’ll explore what should be included in a business case to get automated expense over the line.

It’s human nature to be nervous about change if things already seem to be “working OK”. Fears about the time it might take to implement automation, or a perceived lack of technological know-how, can create a barrier to expense automation. A business case is a great way to get things moving. 

It’s important to plan your business case wisely. Today’s leaders face increasing internal pressure to show due diligence before purchase and rely on feedback from a variety of stakeholders in the business before deciding to invest in new technology. The best route is to get a groundswell of support, starting with the employees who have to compile and submit expense reports. Employees are tired of cumbersome, manual processes that eat into their valuable time, and frustrated by reimbursement delays, so they could be an easy win.

Once you’ve got employees on board, schedule meetings with:

• Finance managers who review and approve expenses
• Accounts payable (AP) personnel who process them and reconcile budgets
• The IT department who manage and compute all the data
• The senior executives who need to understand the big picture to make the final decision

Identifying and securing your internal champions who have the influence to gain buy-in isn’t easy, but by focusing on shared business outcomes, you’ll get there faster.

 

How To Secure Buy-In for Expense Reports That Write Themselves 

Automating your finance processes can be a pivotal move for your company’s financial and overall health, but change takes time and buy-in. Check out the talking points on the benefits of expense management automation.

Find out more

So, what should be included in a business case for each of these stakeholders?

Get Finance in Your Pocket

Finance leaders are all about cashflow, risk and compliance. Their first question is bound to be “Does automation reduce cost?” so it’s important to keep your business case focused on all the ways automated expense management cuts costs. Emphasise the link between automation and efficiency, with employees freed up to focus on more value-added tasks. 

There are a few things worth including in your business case: improved visibility across the organisation, electronic receipts, automatic expense reimbursement, proactive fraud prevention and thorough checks of expense submissions and corporate card changes.

Calculate the time it takes for back-office to check accuracy, and for managers to review, approve and reimburse employees. Multiply that time by the yearly number of expense reports and finance leaders will begin to see the cost efficiencies. If they’re worried about set up costs, emphasise that cloud automation software makes it easy and inexpensive to get started. Don’t forget to mention that ongoing costs are low. 

Integrate With IT

IT leaders are going to want to hear how an automated expense management solution will reduce integration headaches and not blow their budget. Focus on the fact that upgrades, software updates and seamless data integrations are included with Concur Expense at no additional cost. Security will also be front of mind, so reassure customers that with SAP Concur solutions their business financial data remains secure and protected within the cloud. End-user training, resources and administration are also included. 

You might hear “We don’t have the resources to switch to automation” or “It’s not a good time to change our process”. Change can be challenging but so can continuing with frustrating, costly expense processes. Encourage IT leaders to fast forward to a cloud-based solution without software or hardware to buy, install, maintain or upgrade, where employees can be trained and up and running in no time.

Make It Accountable for AP Teams

This might be an easier win, because AP teams know all about the frustration of a fragmented process – they deal with it every day. They’ll want to hear about how automated expense management gives greater visibility into all sources of spend, including purchase orders, e-invoices, p-card spending and supplier networks. Being able to analyse spend by department, supplier, spending trend and expense type and automate their entire AP process by leveraging digital, OCR technology data-entry points will also appeal. Don’t forget to include faster reimbursement, maximisation of discount opportunities and stronger compliance as key benefits.

Take It to the Top

With senior leadership, take things up a notch, bringing together the positive feedback from all the other leaders in your organisation to form the ‘Big Picture’ business case. If possible, ensure the key points align with your organisation’s strategy and targets. Of course, you’ll need to talk about total value, KPIs and ROI but it’s good to drill down to specific wins for the business. Often leaders will want to know what a “year from now” looks like – stop them right there by telling them that they’ll see changes within weeks of moving from manual to automated expense reporting. 

And a year from now? Knock them out with key benefits such as higher productivity, better morale, operational efficiency, improved supplier negotiations, mobile expenses, increased compliance, cost savings, clearer visibility, cash flow improvements, consistency, data insight and more time for strategic decision-making. The list goes on!

How SAP Concur Solutions Can Help

Once you’re got your key internal champions on board, offer them a demo of Concur Expense. Explain how it helps businesses manage employee spend by providing them with automation to simplify and speed up the expense process and insight to make informed decisions about spending and spend policy across every corner of their business. 

To find out more about how to build a business case for automated expense management, read the eBook: How to Build a Business Case for Expense Management Automation