Software provider DataBasics this month embedded an expense reporting tool with consulting firm Runzheimer International's travel and entertainment benchmarking data, including previously unavailable vehicle reimbursement information.
The partnership, known as Runzheimer T&E Services, is a software and service offering that combines DataBasics' ExpenSite expense reporting product with Runzheimer's data. The product enables business travel buyers to implement policies based on geographic cost information. It allows businesses to remove the subjectivity that often comes with creating travel policies, said Alan Tyson, CEO of Reston, Va.-based Databasics. This helps validate policies and keep them in compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, he said.
"It takes this process really outside of the area of the discretion of the accounting department," Tyson said. "You are creating these rules based on external criteria, not just whatever comes into your head or what you think is proper."
While the Rochester, Wis.-based Runzheimer's data has been used in benchmarking tools before, such as the Concur Benchmarking Service launched in 2004
(BTN, Aug. 2, 2004), Runzheimer vice president Heidi Skatrud said this is the first true partnership in which the company is offering expense management service to clients.
"We're really delighted to be able to offer this service," she said. "We're delighted with the relationship with DataBasics, and we have a strong offering with strong capabilities. We feel we've got a good match."
Besides giving an objective basis to spending, the solution could allow companies savings within travel policies, particularly in vehicle reimbursement. According to BTN's Expense/Payment Manager Survey
(BTN, Oct. 31, 2005), a majority of businesses still use the Internal Revenue Service's annual mileage rate, which is based on Runzheimer data, to repay drivers.
The new Runzheimer T&E Services regularly updates rates, and corporations can tie in such criteria as the type of vehicle used to make it more accurate, Tyson said. Such companies as Xerox have used Runzheimer data to calculate vehicle operation expenses and reported up to 20 percent savings compared with prior practices
(BTN, June 7, 2005).Skatrud said she already sees a great deal of interest in the product from prospective clients. Databasics largely has targeted its expense reporting tools to businesses with small to midsize levels of T&E spending, Tyson said. However, this latest offering targets a wider group of clients.
"The solution can definitely scale," Skatrud said. "It's not something that's just tailored to a certain size of company."