Aiming to further streamline its already automated expense reimbursement process, The Advisory Board Company later this month plans to equip frequent travelers with a new corporate payment solution that matches travel itineraries to charges and feeds those, along with Level 3 data, to its existing Rearden Expense system.
The enriched data is designed to make it easier for the healthcare consulting firm's 400 or so travelers to reconcile charges and submit them for payment on the new corporate liability and pay cards issued by BMO Spend & Payment Solutions, a unit of the Bank of Montreal, according to Advisory Board Co. information systems managing director Steven Mandelbaum.
Mandelbaum is optimistic that the richer data could help him better manage the Washington, D.C.-based company's estimated $25 million in annual travel and entertainment spend and more readily identify ancillary fees as airlines provide more detail on various charges.
"Sometimes you get what the charge is for on credit card feeds. That's one of the reasons" the company opted to link data to and from BMO, he added.
While the enriched data should be a welcome change for travelers, Mandelbaum recognized that the new process would necessitate "some sort of stick" to encourage travelers to promptly submit charges for payment. For that, Mandelbaum will send a new weekly email to each cardholder of unsubmitted charges. To create the email, the company will compare a data feed from BMO of all charges against one from Rearden Expense of all submitted charges. The Advisory Board Co. is the first joint client of BMO and Rearden, he noted.
"I knew what I wanted," Mandelbaum said to explain why he opted to create the weekly statement rather than rely on BMO or Rearden Expense to create it. "I'm not vendor heavy in solutions. I use vendors where I can," but he can build custom developments. "I'm in a unique position. A lot of technology issues that others might have are more streamlined because the developers work for me, and I am technical by nature."
Internal and external testing of the data feeds has taken weeks but is in the "final stages," Mandelbaum told Management.travelthis week.
As a further incentive to prompt employees to reconcile expense charges, Mandelbaum said the company established credit limits for each corporate cardholder and plans to reduce available spending by the total of unsubmitted charges.
The company, which reported revenues of $239 million in its 2010 fiscal year, currently reimburses employees once expense reports are approved for the individual liability and pay corporate or personal cards that employees use for company travel.
Advisory Board has used a credit card link feature of Rearden Expense that allows employees to download data from personal credit cards they used for business travel to the expense reporting system.
"We actually didn't intend to leave that open," Mandelbaum said of the functionality. "But it really sped our adoption on the expense tool. It took away a big barrier to use and adoption. I have 100 percent adoption on my expense tool. I can easily say that because if they want their money, they must use the expense tool."
But the various card feeds often lacked critical data--such as an itinerary for air travel or guest name on the hotel feed. BMO will get the itinerary from Level 3 data, supplemented with agency data provided to BMO to match.
Mandelbaum asked 10 card providers to bid on the business, reviewed half a dozen bids and "spoke to three suppliers seriously," before awarding the business to BMO.
The Advisory Board Co. in mid-2008 switched to ExpenseWire, now marketed as Rearden Expense and also introduced the Rearden Commerce travel booking, mobile and restaurant functionality. Previously, it used the Vinnet expense system, which was acquired by Concur as part of the Outtask deal.
"We use ExpenseWire to the extreme," Mandelbaum said. The great thing about it is that it's very simple: what you see is what you get, and it's priced accordingly. It works for what it is intended to work for, but it's no bells and whistles. It's a very simple data collection tool. The sole purpose of an expense tool is to collect data and then get the data out."
Advisory Board uses a Web services feature of Rearden Expense to "load user [data] on a nightly basis from a human resources feed," pull data out and load all project codes from its accounts receivable and payable systems. "It took only three days to code" the integrations, Mandelbaum said.
The company also has enabled travel policy, spending limits and other automated controls within Rearden Expense to better manage travel spending, he added. And it integrated a single sign on within the Rearden booking and expense systems.
"It works like a charm," Mandelbaum said of the expense tool.