In evaluating expense management solutions, "ease of
use" was the most important criteria for more than a third of 130 surveyed
finance professionals. Conducted in the winter of 2011-12, the poll by the
Institute of Financial Operations found that another 18 percent cited
integration with enterprise resource planning systems as the key. Corporate
card integration and "lowest cost" each were selected by 17 percent
of respondents.
Card integration is important; nearly six of 10 respondents
said their companies electronically feed corporate card data into expense reporting
systems. Nearly 29 percent said they don't integrate card data and 12 percent
said their companies don't have a corporate card program.
Among represented companies with corporate card programs, 71
percent said they receive a rebate based on spending or file turn (the average
number of days between the time charges are posted and payment is received). "A
year ago, only 65 percent reported rebates," noted the study's authors. "So
it would appear that more companies are benefitting from the competitive
corporate card market," or better managing file turns to maximize rebates.
Meanwhile, 12 percent of respondents said their
organizations prepopulate reservation data in expense reporting systems. Nearly
seven in 10 don't plan to increase integration of travel and expense systems in
the coming year.
Nearly 30 percent of respondents said their organizations
still used paper-based expense management processes, while 3 percent said they
use electronic spreadsheets and 6 percent cited internally developed technology.
The remaining 60 percent identified a variety of third-party expense brands,
ERP options or card company-provided software systems.
Regardless of the process or system in use, more than half
of respondents said it has been in place in their organizations for more than
five years. Nearly 29 percent said their expense process had been deployed
within the past three years.
The vast majority (66 percent) had no plans to change their
expense management program. About 30 percent said they planned changes within
the next 18 months and 5 percent cited longer-term projects to update or
replace systems.
Mobile Expense Use
Low
Despite the growth of smartphones and introduction of mobile
functionality to create, approve and submit expense records and complete
reports, no respondents cited "mobile device capabilities" as an
important buying factor.
Ninety-eight percent of respondents indicated that less than
25 percent of employees in their organizations use smartphones to enter or
approve expenses. "Only 2 percent of respondents reported smartphone use
for expenses beyond 10 percent," according to IFO's 2012 Trends in T&E
Expense Management report, sponsored by InterplX Expense Management.
More than one-third (36.1 percent) of respondents were from
small to midsize companies with less than $250 million in annual revenue. More
than 20 percent said that figure was $250 million to $1 billion. About a third
represented organizations with annual revenue of $1 billion to $10 billion, and
9 percent said it was more than $10 billion. Respondents reported T&E
budgets of less than $1 million (44 percent) to more than $100 million (4
percent).
Survey results also confirmed the movement toward a more
restricted travel buying environment. More than 60 percent of respondents—up
from 51 percent in the same study in 2010—said their companies require
travelers to find the lowest-price coach-class fare on any airline. Nearly 6
percent (down from 15 percent in 2010) said their companies restrict travelers
to the lowest price in coach for domestic travel and lowest price in a premium
class for international travel. More than 13 percent said travelers can fly
business or first class if their flights exceed a certain number of hours.
This report
originally appeared in the August 2012 issue of Travel Procurement.