Softjourn

Case Study: How Automated Expenses Take Customization & Convenience to the Limit

We created an ingenious solution for our Expense Management client that automates their users' employee expense approvals.
ABOUT THE CLIENT:
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Project:Automation functionality for travel & business expense approvals testing full length of block
Date_iconClient since:
2011
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Headquarters:United States
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Technologies:
Challenge:

Manual expense reporting is time-consuming and inefficient, costing companies valuable resources since human errors often have expensive consequences. 

Our client wanted to build up their automated reimbursement and approval offerings, to offer a convenient service to their users.
 

Solution:

The client’s automated expense review tool allows users to create customized rules for their employees’ reimbursable spending. 

Rules for auto-approval can be based on the category of the expense, the amount of money, from what source, and even who submitted it.
 

Result:

The expense auto-approval functionality is extremely flexible and allows for many different rules to be added. The solution:

  • Allows users to automate any type of condition
  • Saves time for managers
  • Informs employees
  • Provides a great user experience
  • Will retain and attract users

 

The Need

Our client is a US-based global leader in expense management and AP automation solutions. They are trusted by millions of businesses and users due to their offerings of automating and streamlining the accounts payable processes, increasing productivity by automating expense control, and enforcing compliance.

This client has worked with Softjourn on several past projects since 2011, such as designing and developing a white-label mobile app, building a custom Autobot, integrating multiple services, and helping them perform upgrades and migrations, among many other projects. 

Most recently, they came to Softjourn seeking a solution to automate their expense reviewing services, which are physical and virtual corporate cards and reimbursements, targeted at small businesses.

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Like many expense management companies, our client has hundreds of users who are mainly managers, accountants, and admins, who need to manually review and approve numerous employee expenses each month. 

Not only is this process time-consuming and inefficient, but it costs many companies valuable resources since human errors often have expensive consequences. 

Our client asked us for guidance in maintaining and building up their automated reimbursement approvals of employee spending, which offer a convenient service to their users. 

The client knew through our past work together that Softjourn has the technical skills and domain expertise to build upon their expense automation solution. Plus, our client has always appreciated the open communication and dedication of our IT professionals, so they knew to expect a friendly and talented team.

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The Solution

The client’s platform featured an automated expense review and reimbursement process where users can create rules for their employees’ reimbursable spending. We helped them by creating additional automation rules and features, which can be customized by each of our client’s users.

The client’s platform allows users to see active, inactive, suspended, and canceled cards of past and present employees and review reimbursable expenses which were created manually or by card payment in the platform which can be sorted by date, category, employee, project type, and so on.

The managing user can configure a set of rules to the platform for auto-approval or auto-denial of their employees’ submitted expenses. These rules can be based on the category of the expense, the amount of money, from what source (physical or virtual card, or manually added), and even who it was submitted by (certain people or departments can be automatically approved or denied).

For example, a manager could decide that their employees will be automatically reimbursed for up to $50 per day for the month of November, with transactions only allowed to be submitted manually, and the money must be used in a certain location by members of the marketing department, on any category of purchases except for transportation.

 

The Benefits

 

The expense auto-approval functionality that Softjourn’s team helped expand for the client’s platform is extremely flexible and allows for many different rules to be added. These include rules for different groups of employees, types of expenses, the project type, date, location, activity type, and so on - the possibilities are endless. The platform is built to ensure that no matter what type of condition a user wants to have as an automated field in their expense reports, it can be created with a customizable tagging feature. Here are some of the examples of those benefits: 

  • Users can create rules that their employees must fill in required fields on the platform’s reimbursement forms, submit a picture of the receipt, include a flight number, or have their report approved by a certain manager(s).
  • Employees also have the ability to add other colleagues manually to the expense report they submit, whenever necessary.
  • Even when an expense falls outside of the set rules and is not auto-approved, the platform makes it easy for both the manager and their employee to clearly see what the employee still needs to submit or adjust in order to be auto-reimbursed.
  • Users can set up warnings for employees’ expense reports, such as a “needs receipt” notification.

These settings help not just managers save time, but with clear warnings and rules, employees will be informed of exactly how much they can spend and what information they need to submit, such as receipts. This helps employees budget expenses better and have the knowledge to receive reimbursements quickly and in full.

The client’s in-house team and Softjourn’s expert development team worked together on developing and maintaining this cool and customizable automation feature. The teams shared responsibilities and often rotated between tasks to gain fresh insights and learn about all parts of the project. Softjourn’s team performed deep research and diligent planning prior to each implementation of the project.

The platform’s convenience and personalization will help the client retain and attract users due to their excellent user experience, which propels them above the competition.

 

Conclusion

With the help of Softjourn, our client is saving their users time, energy, and resources due to their customizable automated expenses functionality. The client can rest assured knowing that they have the features that users look for in an expense management platform.

We were happy to lend our expertise in expense management and experience in adding automation to our clients’ products. Curious about automating parts of your platform or app?

Don’t hesitate to be in touch!

Partnership & Recognition

Softjourn's IAOP 100 award
Intix Member
Microsoft Gold Partner
Xamarin Authorized Consulting Partner
Monax Parntership
Softjourn in the Inc. 5000 list

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