Geac Tying T&E Mgmt. To Biz Processes

Geac is leveraging components of recent acquisitions to offer customers a solution that ties T&E expense management with other business processes and higher corporate goals. Geac is joining its expense management application from last year's Extensity buy with the business process management functionality of this year's Comshare acquisition, as well as other Geac offerings, to monitor how individual business processes, such as expense management, affect overall corporate strategy.

"The goal is to extend expense management beyond just operational processing and efficiency to something that ties it back to measurements and key performance indicators that you're running your business by," said Scott Berg, Geac vice president of sales operations.

The module also ties T&E expense management with budgeting applications to monitor how budgetary goals are met. Geac said the product could change how travel is perceived within an organization.

"When companies can tie travel back to the budget, to corporate plans and to key metrics that are driving an organization, then travel becomes a strategic function and not just a cost management function," Berg said. "There's an aspect that's important to the travel manager."

While Geac said companies can purchase an entire suite of products, it is keeping individual options available for companies that just want an expense management module. "There are multiple modules, and customers can choose to buy one or all or any subset," Berg said. "They can buy the modules together and use them in conjunction."