Each year, the Aberdeen Group publishes one of the most comprehensive research papers on the state of expense management.  I would encourage all readers of ExpenseMatters to click on the link below and fill out the survey.

Expenses related to travel and entertainment (T&E) account for nearly 7%-to-10% of the average company’s overall budget. Aberdeen’s upcoming research study aims to tackle the expense management category and help organizations implement the necessary strategies and solutions for driving down expense-processing costs and improving corporate policy compliance. The new study will also highlight the benefits of cloud-based solutions and mobile applications, as well as the proper level of analytics and reporting required to drive strategic value from the modern expense management program.

Each respondent who answers the survey will receive a complimentary full copy of the report containing this study’s results (a $399 value). Individual responses will be kept strictly confidential and data will only be used in aggregate.

We greatly appreciate your participation in this research effort and look forward to sharing our findings with you.

Cary Strange

Giving greater span and depth of control to company auditors and budgeting managers

PITTSBURGH, PA, November 9, 2011 – ExpenseAnywhere announced the release of two new modules for 1) Budgeting and 2) Auditing with its ExpenseAnywhere-Enterprise software for corporate travel and expense management automation. These two modules are designed to empower clients to better control and monitor their corporate spending against pre-set budgets and policies.

The Budgeting Module allows corporate CFO’s and cost center managers to easily set and assign travel and expense budgets with varying degrees of granularity across their organization, by employees or expense accounts. Once established, ExpenseAnywhere automatically tracks employee spend, actual vs. budgeted, and keeps employees and cost center managers informed of spending patterns and performances. The ExpenseAnywhere “Expense-O-Meter” keeps employees and their supervisors informed in real-time with automatic notifications to budget directors. The Budgeting module provides a powerful tool for managers to analyze their travel budgets and proactively manage and control their travel-related expenses.

The Auditing Module provides auditors with an enhanced ability to set audits and auditing controls. Auditors can set random audits by employees or organizational hierarchy, select a random percentage of expense reports for audit, trigger an audit on users who frequently submit expense reports that are not in conformance with company policies, etc. The Auditing module provides companies with the ability to seamlessly conform to SOX and other regulatory and company compliances necessary to further mitigate risk and fraud.

As part of a highly intuitive travel and expense management system, ExpenseAnywhere’s newest modules are just as easy to use and can help companies realize even greater ROI. New customers will find them as an integrated section of their ExpenseAnywhere solution, while current customers will enjoy how the new modules seamlessly integrate with their current platform and are easily accessed through their usual login.

Giving customers increased span and depth of control with new and broadening modules is part of ExpenseAnywhere’s mission to provide the best T&E solution possible.

View entire press release Here.

Cary Strange

Orbitz for Business, the corporate travel group of Orbitz Worldwide Inc., today announced that it has added ExpenseAnywhere, a leading provider of powerful and easy-to-use expense automation solutions, to its growing portfolio of expense management and reporting tools. ExpenseAnywhere integrates seamlessly with the Orbitz for Business booking tool and credit card data to give customers a complete, automated end-to-end expense management solution.

According to a recent survey* of travel and expense managers conducted by Business Travel News, the majority (two-thirds) of respondents said their companies have an integrated payment and expense management solution in place. About a third of those surveyed have an expense management solution that also integrates with their online booking tool. When asked to prioritize the most important features of an expense management solution, 77 percent cited customizable reporting, followed by receipt imaging (70 percent), auditing automation (60 percent) and online booking tool integration (53 percent).

ExpenseAnywhere provides easy-to-use, robust, web-based solutions that help businesses automate the entire expense management processes from pre-travel authorization to reimbursement for expenses, consistent with corporate policies and business practices. The solution streamlines the entire process quickly and easily, resulting in further operational efficiencies.

Key ExpenseAnywhere capabilities include:

• Pre-travel authorization with expense approval management
• Total integration with back-end ERP systems to eliminate manual data input
• Total integration with corporate cards, travel cards and personal cards
• Receipt imaging with Enhanced Automated Receipt Matching Technology to substantially increase the automated audit capability
• Mobile Apps for Android, iPhone and Blackberry for enhanced user interaction
• Extensive reporting and online analytics

“The integration of ExpenseAnywhere with the Orbitz for Business booking tool is a natural fit,” said Dr. Ashok Dhar, president and CEO, ExpenseAnywhere. “Our customers appreciate the logical flow of booking travel and managing expenses through an integrated platform utilizing the convenience of single-sign-on. The tight integration between the two well recognized and user friendly tools simplifies the process of managing travel and expense reporting and those efficiencies radiate through the entire spectrum of the organization from travelers, to travel managers and accounts payable teams,” Dr. Dhar added. “ExpenseAnywhere and Orbitz for Business bring to market significant leadership around complete end-to-end automation of travel and expense management.”

“We’re excited to work with ExpenseAnywhere to bring an automated, world-class, end-to-end expense management solution to Orbitz for Business customers,” said Frank Petito, president, Orbitz for Business. “A common theme we hear from our travel and expense managers, CFOs and procurement officers is the importance of building expense management tools that integrate across the booking environment, from pre-travel approvals to end of trip reporting and reimbursement. ExpenseAnywhere delivers all of those capabilities and more, including mobile support for travelers looking to manage more of their expenses from the road.”

ExpenseAnywhere integrated solutions are now available to all existing clients and prospective Orbitz for Business customers.

Cary Strange

Two weeks ago, Concur announced another industry-leading move that could blur the lines of traditional travel & expense management systems with the one of the most commonly used tools in a sales professional’s day-to-day routine.  While many expense vendors (Expensify, ExpenseWire & others) have solid integrations between their solutions and Salesforce.com, the Concur solution appears to be the first truly blended product.  Here are some excerpts from Concur’s press release from two weeks ago:

Concur and salesforce.com join forces to deliver Concur travel and expense management in Salesforce

 Dreamforce 2011, the cloud computing event of the year, will showcase how businesses can tap into the power of social, mobile and open technologies to become social enterprises

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1, 2011 — Salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference –Concur (Nasdaq:CNQR) today announced a new Concur travel and expense management offering, Concurforce, built on Force.com, salesforce.com’s (NYSE:CRM) social enterprise platform for employee facing apps.

…Concurforce is built on the Force.com platform and leverages Concur’s market-leading travel and expense management services. The application delivers a simple and familiar experience for Salesforce users, saving them time and improving productivity. Concurforce allows users to:

* Collaborate on business trip details in Salesforce Chatter, the employee social network;

* Use itineraries from TripIt, a leading mobile trip organizer, to create and submit accurate, in-policy expense reports from within Salesforce CRM;

* Review and approve expense reports right from their Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPad devices or from the Web; and

* Gain real-time visibility into T&E spend and instant insight into costs associated with sales opportunities and service engagements, helping them improve margins and manage the cost of sales.

…Additional notable features of Concurforce include:

* TripIt Pro integration – Gives users the freedom and flexibility to turn reservations from any travel vendor into a single organized itinerary that can automatically be turned into an expense report. Concurforce matches itinerary details from TripIt Pro with auto-imported credit card charges to create a “one click” expense report.

* Salesforce Chatter integration –TripIt Pro itineraries and Concurforce notifications are automatically posted to Chatter, increasing collaboration on business trips, agendas and content to save time and help employees work more efficiently with colleagues.

Read Press Release Here

Cary Strange

There hasn’t been near as much activity from the expense space as in years past, as there have been no major announcements of acquisitions, earth shattering partnerships or major new functionality releases.  However, there has been a little movement and I have posted a couple of press releases below to highlight these events.

TRX Continues Innovation Streak with Latest Enhancements to TRUEXPENSE

Tuesday, 23 August 2011

TRX, Inc. (www.trx.com) (OTCQB: TRXI), a world-leading provider of travel technology, process automation, consulting and data services, today announced enhancements to TRX’s expense solution, TRUEXPENSE®. The enhancements include improved user communication tools, corporate compliance with new regulatory requirements, and updates to the user interface which further streamline the expense management process for the user.

Leveraging real-time feedback gathered from users, TRX’s automated expense solution, TRUEXPENSE, was quickly modified to include a more intuitive drag and drop expense management interface and a new home page display of personal action items for both travelers and approvers. These and other innovations make TRUEXPENSE one of the easiest expense solutions to use in the marketplace. Enhancements include:

· Improved support documentation queue which allows users to upload supporting documentations from their mobile device or desktop, pre-loading travelers’ documentation and accelerating the expense approval process.

· Advanced per diem handling which allows administrators to use published government per diem rates or choose to upload their own per diem rates to ensure compliance with T&E policies.

· Support for pharmaceutical and medical companies’ compliance with the “Sunshine Act” legislation introduced in HR3590 for 2012. Companies can now track participants at the level required for compliance, and TRUEXPENSE is able to synchronize its library of health care providers with each company’s internal health care provider database.

“We believe our clients and users are the best source of qualitative research for TRX products and services,” said Shane Hammond, President and CEO, TRX. “They know their business better than anyone else. We constantly hold focus groups and leverage the feedback to create state of the art products like TRUEXPENSE, which in turn helps our clients cut costs, find efficiencies, and improve visibility into their travel spend.”

View Press Release at GBTA

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ExpenseAnywhere Unveils Enhanced Recognition Technology (OCR) for Receipt Validation

Monday, 22 August 2011

In the field of travel and expense management automation, new technology is central to generating increased ROI for client companies. The management and automatic linking of receipts, whether scanned or faxed, to specific expense reports in automated expense management systems has gained significant acceptance as it helps to maintain a paperless environment and further streamline the traditional processes associated with the submission of expense receipts.

ExpenseAnywhere is a company making significant technological advancements in the field of Travel and Expense Management automation. The firm recently introduced Enhanced Recognition Technology, OCR software, as part of their automatic receipt imaging service that takes receipt imaging and verification to an entirely new level. ExpenseAnywhere solution with its OCR functionality now allows auditors, approvers, and users to easily and instantly view the specific receipt associated with each expense item entered into an expense report. No more frustration and countless wasted hours in finding the right receipt from pages and pages of digital receipts that may be attached to an expense report. ExpenseAnywhere solution automatically identifies and validates receipts so the reviewers can speed through their verification process.

ExpenseAnywhere, with its intelligent OCR capability, is the first to offer such distinguishing functionality. It can help companies achieve an even higher-level of accuracy in review and audit of expenses at only a fraction of the cost. This feature alone provides companies with increased ROI and phenomenally improved operational efficiency, resulting in speedier processing of expense claims. Clients utilizing the OCR capability of ExpenseAnywhere solution have claimed upwards of 80% automatic matching of receipts to expense items. ExpenseAnywhere continues to invest in R&D to increase the accuracy of its OCR matching algorithms.

In addition to the new OCR capability, ExpenseAnywhere continues to give their users the ability to quickly upload receipt images directly to their expense reports via fax, e-mail, mobile and scanners. Mobile users also have the distinct ability to capture and upload images of receipts using their camera phone while on the go….perfect for any business traveler.

ExpenseAnywhere OCR is available in all three of the expense management solutions offered by the company (ExpenseAnywhere-Lite, ExpenseAnywhere-Enterprise, and ExpenseAnywhere-Gov) and can be tailored according to each customer’s specified requirements.

In addition to newer developments with receipt imaging, ExpenseAnywhere users are now empowered to use mobile apps for Blackberry, iPhone, and Android to enter, submit and approve expense reports. Furthermore, the company has recently introduced two new modules for Budgeting, and Auditing with its ExpenseAnywhere solution – to help customers better control their corporate spend. The Budgeting Module allows CFOs and cost center managers to set and assign expense budgets and monitor expenses against the budget, while the Auditing Module provides auditors with an enhanced ability to set audits and auditing controls for conformity with SOX and other regulatory compliances to further mitigate risk and fraud.

View Press Release at GBTA

Cary Strange