Atlanta OAUG

Internet Expenses Key to speedy processing

Chetan Manjarekar
chetan.manjarekar@patni.com

Agenda

Business Objectives

UnOptimized Process Characteristics

Objectives Focus

Requirements for speedy processing

Internet Expenses Overview

Objectives Focus

As is process

To Be process

Challenges

Best Practices

Process comparison

Questions

Business Objectives

Establish centralized Travel & Expense Management Function

Reduce expense processing time and transaction costs

Establish and Enforce Company wide policies

Eliminate manual process and increase productivity

Automate and Simplify Expense Report submission, approval and tracking

Enhance reporting

Enable alerts and notifications

Unoptimized process characteristics

Delayed processing and approval

Policies not enforced

No visibility of Expense Reports status

No tracking of Expense Reports

Extensively manual process ER generation, Matching, Accounting

Error prone - Difficult to reconcile

Corporate Pay not a suitable policy for such a system

Requirements for speedy processing

User Friendly system that encourages employees to report on time.

ER Templates, Copy feature, re-usability productivity enabling features

Credit Card integration to ease Expense Report filling and submission

Support for Rules and Policies approval becomes easy

Online checks for violations at data entry reduces rework, shortens cycle time

Simplified and workflow driven approval mechanism

Notifications to concerned employees and approvers

Automatic updates on employee information

Online ER tracking and status availability

Payables integration

Integration with payroll

Internet Expenses Overview

Internet Expenses Features

Paperless expense reporting with workflow based approval process Key to speedy processing
Automatically enforced business policies - support staff can focus on more value added activities
Enforce itemization for certain expense types using Itemization Rules
Reminder and Policy Violation Notifications
Authorized delegation Entry as well as Approval
Context sensitive configurable fields for capturing additional information
Integration Oracle Payables, Projects, Time & Labor, Grants Accounting
Highly secure transaction environment SSL, access limits, encryption
AME Enhancements
Contingent worker expense reports
Approver can request information w/o rejection
Future dated expense business rules
Cash usage (versus credit card) policies
Personal Lines only expense reports
Automatically itemize hotel charges
DBI includes T&E top spenders

Inter-modular integration

Integrating with Oracle Projects

Add project-related information
Expenditure Type - derived from the Expense Type
Projects Expenditure Organization - derived from the employees organization assignment
Expenditure Date from receipt date.
Quantity from receipt amount.

Oracle Approvals Management (AME)

Build routing and approval rules
Establish rules based on header or lines information.
Automatically route expense approvals to cost center owners, cost center business managers etc.
Control the escalation of expense reports for policy violations.

Oracle Grants Accounting

Grants management solution for organizations that rely on grants funding
Introduces an Award field in Internet Expenses.

Meet Key Objectives

Objectives Focus
Lower Your Expense Processing Costs
Business pressures on Margin Improvement
Process all expenses fast, at lower costs by using automation

Improve Control
Avoid illegitimate expenses payments
Enforce common travel policy to reduce T&E spend

Enhance Employee Productivity & Satisfaction

Bring in a process that is quick, easy, and hassle-free
Improve employee productivity
Encourage reporting

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Internet Expense Objectives

Lower Your Expense Processing Costs

Improve Control

Enhance Employee Productivity & Satisfaction

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Lower Cost

Dramatically reduce the amount of time and effort required to submit,

approve, process, and pay expense reports.

Employees can enter and submit expense reports quickly and easily from
anywhere in the world just using a Browser.

Workflow automatically routes expense reports for approval.

Frees accounts payable staff from data entry and moves them into an auditing
role where they can monitor compliance with policy.

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Eliminate rework and correction of errors

Exceptions and adjustments are processed automatically.

Internet Expense Objectives

Lower Your Expense Processing Costs

Improve Control

Enhance Employee Productivity & Satisfaction

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Policy Setup Business Owner

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Rules to Define Corporate Policies

Meal allowances

Hotel allowances

Per Diem Rules

Mileage Reimbursement Calculation Rules

Exchange Rate Verification

Maximum Cash Expense rule

Enforce Compliance

Timeliness

iExpense Credit Card usage policy

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iExpense Configure Expense Fields

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Policy Violations Management

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Policy Violations Management

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Enforce Transaction Submission

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Audit Features

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Oracle Workflow routes expense reports for approval and enforces company policy, and any
deviations from policy are highlighted for manager review.

Expenses and violations reports provide top management a multi-dimensional view of employee
expenses.

Decision makers use information in forming new policies or evaluating employees.

Dimensions: management hierarchy, expense category, time period, violation types.

Drill down to the details of expense receipts and expense policy violations.

Paperless audit process flow.

Automatic selection of expense reports for both audit flows, so the auditors do not review 100% of
all expense reports.

Process owner can setup rules that control what type of expense reports are selected for audit.

Audit rules enable automatically routing selected expense reports either to the traditional
receipt-based audit process or to an online audit queue.

System then balances the work queue between the auditors based on setup definition.

Internet Expense Objectives

Lower Your Expense Processing Costs

Improve Control

Enhance Employee Productivity & Satisfaction

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Productivity improving features

Easy to use process means faster entry of Expense Reports

Online policy violation checks reduce rework & iterations

Faster processing means faster payments

Create, edit, and submit expense reports using a wireless Web-enabled mobile device

Managers can even approve or reject expense reports from their mobile devices.

Automatically pre-populate expense reports with transactions from your corporate credit card increase efficiency, reduce errors

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System-provided and user-defined default values speed up the completion of the expense report.

Copy saved or submitted expense reports to expedite the entry process for repeating expenses

Withdraw expense reports from the approvals process if they need to make corrections.

Default expense preferences data from prior expense reports.

Enter expenses offline using Excel Template and upload later.

Excel Template includes all validations for lookups like expense type, currency codes etc

iExpense Home One screen view

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Add CC transactions

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Review & Submit Expense Report

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Implementation Overview

As is Process
Employee downloads
Expenses Report
template from Quick
Expenses system

Is
Expense Report
in order ?

Yes

No
Employee fills the form
submits for
Supervisor's approval
with original Receipts

Supervisor approves
the Expenses Report
Sends the approved
report to AP

AP Manager
approves
Expenses Report
in legacy system

Travel Accountant
clarifies the issues
with the Employee

Import approved Expenses

Reports as Standard Invoices in
Oracle Accounts Payable
Employee/Travel
Accountant makes
necessary changes
to the Expenses
Report

Apply
prepayment if
any

Travel Accountant
verifies the approved
expenses report with
Company Travel Policy
End

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Enter Expenses
Report into
Legacy system

Payment to /
Refund from
Employee

Approve
Invoices

Validate the
Invoices

To Be Process
Approved Travel
advance request in
Form 801

Employee makes
an expense

AP executes
Expense Report
Import

Employee enters
expense report for
OPE and Credit
Card Transactions

Credit Card
Transactions

Expense Report
Invoice is Created
AP runs Credit
Card Invoice
Interface program

System finds
approver

Approver
verifies report.
and takes
action

Rejected/
More Info

AP performs
Invoice Validation

Approved
No

Approver
has signing
limit?

AP Manager runs
Payment batch to
clear expense
reports

Yes
Outbound
Interface

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More Info
required

AP audits and
takes action

Approved/
Adjusted

T&E, travel
premium,
excess per
diem data
extract

AP Manager
processes
prepayment in
Oracle AP

AP Manager
applies
prepayment

Implementation Challenges

Employee data had to be cleaned and synchronized with PeopleSoft master as part of this
implementation.

Controls it is all in the setup

Signing limit updates in case of shared HRMS

Supervisor Changes modifying supervisor assignment for an employee whose DoJ is earlier than that
of new supervisor

Reimbursement through PeopleSoft Payroll required Interface to be developed

Custom solution to split the allowance amounts into taxable and non-taxable buckets based on
location.

Cancellation of invoices having AMEX corporate pay credit card transactions wouldnt release those
credit card transactions to be used in new expense reports.

Custom reports were developed to identify such transactions and help reconciliation process.

For security reasons Employee number display on various Internet Expenses screen had to be removed

Approval hierarchy modifications

Attachments

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Best Practices

Custom solution developed to reconcile cc charges, travel advances and employee

payment

Accurate and updated employee information maintained

Reusable code components were deployed for loading employee data into Oracle HR.

Mapping model developed for mapping between AMEX transactions folio type and MIC
codes

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Execution of payments accelerated as well to complete the cycle quickly

Extensive QA Dedicated teams for QA only

Multiple CRPs

Intense UAT

Use Individual Pay Policy

Process Comparison
Pre Implementation

Post Implementation

Paper based system involving lot of manual

efforts, errors and delays.

User friendly web based system available to every

employee, accessible from anywhere

AP bogged down with calls requesting status of

expense reports

Employees can track and find up to date status

online

Turnaround time for a typical expense report t

around 15 days

Automated policy verification, approval and

payment turnaround time reduces to 3 days.

Manual and error prone process to check for policy

violations poses financial burden in terms of
administrative costs and unauthorized
reimbursements.

Policies defined at the system level get enforced

automatically reducing substantial manual
effort and errors.

Approval process manual and paper based

Totally automated approval process supporting

vacation handling and delegation

Corporate Pay program increases Corporate

responsibility and diminished control over the
entire process.

Individual Pay program brings in efficiency and

timely reporting allowing greater control

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Questions

THANK YOU
Chetan Manjarekar
Patni Computer Systems, Inc.
One Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02142
617 - 914 - 8000

chetan.manjarekar@patni.com

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