Investment firm Raymond James & Associates in the past seven years has transformed its travel and expense reporting methods into an automated, nearly paperless process for its travelers using Alpharetta, Ga.-based software provider Infor's financial management system. Through continual adjustment of Infor's modules, St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Raymond James realized the financial benefits to automation quickly, said Elizabeth Eriksen, the firm's assistant vice president of accounting.
"We had anticipated an ROI that would have us break even basically in two years," Eriksen said. "With the compliance tools that we've been able to take advantage of, we've been able to do so much more rapidly than that."
Raymond James, which spends more than $12 million annually on air travel, first switched to Infor's expense reporting module in 2001, replacing a cumbersome, mail-based reporting process, Eriksen said. The firm added Infor's payment module to tie in the company's American Express corporate card. "Because of the success of those, we've attempted to become even more best-practice-oriented," she said.
One such step was the implementation of an imaging module in April 2007, she said. Receipt imaging has become prevalent among companies with automated expense reporting systems in the past few years, particularly to comply with the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act
(BTN, Aug. 15, 2005).Raymond James also has revved up the use of the Infor pre-trip approval tool it purchased in 2001. It had garnered little use—only about 30 documents had been submitted since its purchase—because Raymond James employees "don't always have that opportunity," Eriksen said, "because if an investment banker needs to go to a meeting, then he needs to go to a meeting."
Instead, Raymond James now uses the approval tool for brokers to request an upfront amount of money for business purposes, Eriksen said. "It ties into the expense side, but it's money that is pre-tax," she said. "The system has really strong compliance tools, so it follows the same approval flows and all the policies are validated."
Overall, using Infor's expense tools has decreased processing time, particularly because Raymond James has many branch locations, Eriksen said, and managers save time formerly spent approving expense reports.
"They still have to look at every exception, but the system does so much compliance checking, they no longer have to be aware of travel and expense reimbursement rules in the company," she said. "The same applies for the auditing area in accounts payable."
The payment module also has cut travelers' data entry, and, along with the imaging tool, reduced the need for receipts. Eriksen said the next version of the expense tool would have electronic hotel folio data processing capabilities, which the firm would explore through American Express.