Extensity, Others Update Tools

Extensity today plans to release version six of its expense management software. Vice president of marketing Elizabeth Ireland in the announcement earlier this month said it is "probably the most significant release we have ever done."

Enhancements in Extensity 6 are the products of a step forward in Extensity's underlying Java technology to a Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE). They include e-mail document approval that automates rerouting for approvers who are not in the office; support for more detailed corporate and purchasing card data, known as level two and level three data; real-time reporting of credit card charges; bar coding for document management; and a newly streamlined upgrade process. Extensity also planned to announce today a sort of consulting service to help clients with calculating return on investment, implementation and benchmarking.

Hotel e-folio data would be an example of level two or three data. Ireland said "limited chains" are sending along some level three data, but, "We're challenging vendors to send it. As the end recipient, we can take as deep data as vendors can send."

More detailed data capture particularly is important for purchasing card users, said consultant David Hillman of Hillman & Associates in New York. "Expense systems can only capture what the cards capture at the point of sale," he said. "A small but important percentage of merchants are equipped that way. Other best of breed expense management vendors have it as well."

Meanwhile, Concur Technologies earlier this month made good on a previous commitment to offer receipt imaging that allows clients to reduce the number of receipts and invoices they keep in storage. Concur also is integrating with imaging systems clients already have. The service "promises to make expense reporting the first truly paperless business process to hit the enterprise," Concur said. The service works by "instantly" displaying receipts in the Concur Expense and Concur payment applications after employees fax them to a designated number. "According to our estimates," said Michael Hilton, Concur CTO, "a customer that generates 120,000 expense reports per year will save approximately $3 per expense report processed through our imaging service, representing a per annum savings of $360,000." While there is no specific language in Concur's imaging agreement regarding what happens to the receipts if a client switches expense vendors, there is a clause in the agreement indicating that if Concur cancels its imaging service, it will archive all client receipt images on a CD-ROM.

Gelco Expense Management in late May also announced the release of a new offline client solution, allowing travelers to enter expense data while offline and then upload the information to Gelco Expenselink.