The Evolution and Revolution of Expense Management Automation Cost Control

Executive Brief
The Evolution and Revolution of Expense Management Automation Cost Control

A Complete Guide to Justifying and Buying an EMA Solution
Executive Summary
The end of another day is fast approaching when a last minute meeting is called, at which you learn you have been appointed to lead a high-priority formalized and budgeted project with tight timelines. Expense Management Automation, better known as EMA, is recognized as the key to substantially reducing and establishing control over your companys second largest cost. This project to select and implement an EMA solution will significantly impact the organization both financially and operationally - as well as your personal career - if executed successfully. A great deal is at stake. This is not a typical vendor evaluation with dedicated resources and formalized committees. So what exactly is the mission? To find the best vendor to meet the expense management automation needs of your organization in the shortest amount of time. Sound familiar? Whether youre a vice president, a director or manager of finance, operations, IT, corporate travel, procurement, accounts payable or even a CEO reporting to a board of directors, you have inevitably faced this situation at some point. Chances are you have been provided limited direction and even less support to find the vendor with the best fit for your organizations requirements. To help get you started, we have compiled a step-by-step guide on selecting an EMA vendor. This executive brief has been designed to assist you in understanding how automated expense reporting, when implemented as a cost reduction measure, can save your company far more than just money. This paper, published by SumTotal Systems, Inc., is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of best practices in selecting an Expense Management Automation (EMA) vendor. SumTotal Expense Management is a global leader in the EMA market. As part of SumTotals Human Capital Management Suite, SumTotal helps you manage your top two controllable business costs: employeerelated expenses and your employees. We encourage you to read on and learn how to select an EMA vendor from specialists in the field. Included are essential tips on evaluating and selecting the right vendor that best fits your company, as well as strategies for gaining critical buy-in after the EMA selection process. Find out how to make a meaningful impact on the bottom line throughout the pages of this brief.
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Getting Up to Speed on EMA An Important Investment...

Without a doubt, times have been tough for companies everywhere. A precarious economy, combined with the decline of prominent business institutions, has scarred the psyche of skeptical investors and clients. As a result, organizations have been placed under a microscope and forced to adhere to unprecedented levels of fiscal responsibility. From this accountability, tighter controls have emerged, mandating transparency and visibility and leaving companies scrambling to ensure that their spending practices are in order. One strategy that businesses have employed to achieve greater compliance and accountability is to enact cost reduction programs. Although cost reduction has become a commonplace term, the concept is still quite misunderstood. Not all projects aimed at cutting costs are truly successful in doing so within a short period of time, or even at all. Hidden Opportunities Companies have quickly realized that expense management is a relatively untapped area where tangible, consistent returns are possible simply by automating the policies and procedures associated with expense reporting. Automation has proven quite successful in dealing with reporting flaws and loopholes by managing employee business expenses through a quick, accurate and easy claim submission. The end result is greater control over costs, improved compliance and increased visibility with better expense data capture - potentially translating into a significant reduction in costs and a direct impact on the bottom line. EMA Defined Since the devil is in the details, it is important to fully understand the difference between expense processing and expense management. MasterCard offers a humorous, yet insightful, comparison of these two concepts. The first, expense processing, a term from days gone by, is defined as: (ca. 1872) 1: one of those fruitless endeavors engaged by the American corporation to reimburse an employees costs incurred on behalf of daily business, satisfying precisely no one individual in the process despite costing a bundle. Expense management, on the other hand, is a contemporary term used to describe a modern, revolutionary practice defined as: (ca. 1995) 1: the act or art of perfecting the expense process within a corporation through the adoption of a card program and automation tools designed to make everyones life much easier and saving the corporation a bundle in the process. Traditional manual expense reporting, characterized by excel spreadsheets or photocopied pieces of paper with receipts is often a tedious and time-consuming practice, resulting in costly processing cycles for employees, managers and accounts payable personnel.
In a Web-based world, this entire method is streamlined - from submission to approval to audit to reimbursement. Expense reimbursement is expedited by eliminating the re-keying of data, which may significantly decrease costly administrative errors and duplicative tasks. Through EMA, an average company can realize savings within 6 to 12 months and reduce processing time and costs by 40 to 60 percent. Beyond these immediate savings, companies are also benefiting from the capture of hidden discretionary spending that can remove yet another 10 percent in unseen costs. EMA enables businesses to strategically control expenses by providing valuable spend data to leverage vendor negotiations, preferred rates, spend analysis and other business intelligence. This additional control allows management to implement, communicate and enforce compliance with employee expense policies. With EMA, organizations can take advantage of savings through Value-Added Tax (VAT) recoveries for expenses incurred in the UK and Europe, timely and accurate expense re-billing to clients, corporate card rebates and income tax recovery. Later, this brief will explain how to extend the benefits of EMA to these hidden areas of cost savings. Basic Expense Metrics To help assess the value of EMA within your organization, lets analyze the cost of an average expense report, starting with some basic statistics. Many studies have shown that on the low end, a typical expense report costs about $28 to process manually, with certain cases costing $75 or more. These same studies also demonstrate the impact EMA has on shrinking the time and cost associated with processing expenses. According to studies by Aberdeen Group, a leading North American analyst firm, EMA can:
Reduce expense report completion time from 35 to 18 minutes Reduce accounts payable processing time from 22 to 5 minutes Reduce days required to process and reimburse expenses from 14 to 3 Reduce overall processing costs from a low of $27.86 to $6.54 per report Reduce overall time to create an expense report by 75 percent
EMA emerges as a truly important investment and a strategic opportunity to create dollar-for-dollar improvements in profits.
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Why EMA for Cost Reduction? - Simple, It Works.

Most businesses today are challenged to maintain or grow revenues, but instead shift the focus to cost cutting as a way to demonstrate value -- a logical move since employee business expenses (like travel and entertainment) account for an organizations second largest cost after payroll. Getting expenses under control has become critical for businesses of all sizes to survive in todays environment.
Before delving into the specifics of EMA, we should pose some important questions that are answered in the sections below: Despite EMAs ability to produce immediate returns, what is the long-term impact on costs and the bottom line? Does EMA have fiscal longevity in the world of cost reduction projects? How does it compare with other similar projects? Consistent Financial Performance When put to the test, the hard cost savings derived from EMA implementation have proven consistent over time. In fact, these savings tend to increase with maturity when applied to other expense areas. For instance, take a company with revenues of $700 million, $50 million in EBITDA and $20 million in annual employee business expenses.
If automation reduces these expenses by only 5 percent in the first year (and thats just half of the potential 10 percent), the savings alone have the same impact on the bottom line as $12 million in new revenue! The Gartner Group supports this finding in a study that notes, ... a 5 percent reduction in operating costs in the expense management process has the same impact as a 30 percent increase in sales.
To address the long-term financial benefits of automation, when compared with other cost reduction projects, investing in EMA is extremely low risk and high reward. By streamlining the expense reporting process, companies can achieve the above-hard-costs savings within a short period of time by simply managing expenses. Companies can extend these results year over year through opportunistic savings at the optimized stage. Organizations at the optimized stage go beyond transaction processing to more strategic functions by deploying EMA to restructure corporate card programs, prevent fraudulent activities and secure preferred rates on vendor contracts. The hallmark of a mature, EMA solution is its robust functionality. Through its ability to handle complex requirements, an EMA produces greater savings through compounded benefits. As savings build up over time, companies can easily achieve fiscal and operational excellence in all areas that EMA impacts. EMA is a cost reduction initiative that prevails over revenue-generating projects because it requires a minimal investment for implementation and realizes quicker returns. While revenue-generating projects usually require a significant up-front investment, EMA solutions offer more flexible, attractive pricing models with minimal IT and licensing issues. Today most organizations are licensing their EMA solution through the cloud. In this model, organizations typically license the service while the provider hosts it on its own infrastructure. This significantly reduces and eliminates upfront commitments seen with traditional software licensing. Simply put, EMA allows companies to dramatically cut maintenance, technology and IT costs while protecting financial performance.
The Magic Word: Control - at the Point of Spend While the value of EMA to hard costs is straightforward, there are many other less obvious expense areas where companies can get more from this investment. EMA is more than just automation - its about bringing all the pieces together to realign an organizations business processes and overall approach to employee business expenses. Beyond process improvements and expedited approval cycles, EMA extends its ROI by offering a holistic source of expense data not possible within a manual system. Through automation, companies have the unique ability to capture history and trends relating to purchasing and corporate card programs. This valuable information can amount to additional, ongoing discounts and rebates if properly leveraged and managed. In fact, indirect, discretionary spending can represent as much as 30 percent of total expenditures, with travel and entertainment comprising only 1/5 of that amount. This offers a compelling reason to pay closer attention to discretionary employee business expenses. Change Employee Behavior Perhaps one of the most significant and enduring aspects of EMA is how it helps shape habits by instilling control at the employees point of spend. By creating spending rules and business policies within an EMA solution, companies can establish mechanisms to quickly educate users on what they can or cannot spend and with whom. This control automatically reduces maverick and offcontract purchasing with non-preferred vendors. Users who attempt to submit an expense line item or report outside of these internal rules and business polices, will receive instant notification of the violation. For example, this functionality immediately notifies users that spending on hotel mini-bar items is outside of company policy and not permitted. Organizations are in control of their own coffers. For companies operating in industries such as professional services, EMA can secure timely and accurate re-billings to their clients, contributing to improved allocation of expenses to profit centers. Capturing information becomes easier as employees are enabled to correctly categorize expenses and support them with relevant information such as business purpose and other pertinent details. Achieve Compliance - Internally and Externally Equipped with an EMA solution, management is empowered to implement, communicate and enforce compliance with employee expense policies. In addition to these corporate policies, EMA also helps organizations achieve full compliance with IRS and Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. Through improved communication and visibility into expenses, employees and managers become liable and responsible for expense claims, which assists the organization in ensuring external legislative requirements are met in a transparent fashion.
Claim Taxable Expenses Since certain tax agencies, such as the IRS, allow for entertainment and meals to be treated as tax shields, employees who frequently travel for business should always claim these expenses for corporate income tax purposes. While a manual system cannot identify this type of expenditure, an EMA solution will flag eligible expenses and separate them from those that do not meet the qualifications for tax shelter, further adding to savings compounded through direct and indirect spend areas. Recover International Business Taxes Automation provides opportunities to recapture previously unavailable savings in the areas of value-added taxes (VAT) and receipts management. A mature EMA solution has the ability to operate in multiple currencies and tax structures with ease, facilitating the VAT recovery process with a third party partner. Many companies dont realize that up to 20 percent of total international employee business expenses are incurred as value-added taxes. These amounts can either be fully or partially reclaimed using an EMA solution in a timely fashion, saving precious days in a billing cycle and directly contributing to the bottom line. Eliminate Costly Receipts Receipts digital filing (RDF) allows the travelers to upload images of their receipts. This process dramatically reduces the costs of receipt storage and processing. For example, rather than sifting through mountains of paper to find a particular item, the finance department can easily conduct all audits by instantly recalling electronic files of the receipt images.
Case Studies Examples That It Pays To Automate...

Look at the expense areas below to grasp quickly these and other unforeseen costs can add up to a significant amount. When combining the potential hard and soft cost savings of EMA, top-performing organizations can even achieve a reduction in headcount of staff previously assigned to deal with manual expense reporting processes. With better intelligence and accountability, EMA alleviates employee and management frustration by providing enhanced support for vendor negotiations and compliance. Above all, EMA forms favorable employee spending habits that facilitate greater control over expense management procedures, adding to your organizations competitive edge. Case Study 1 A leading utility realized an 8 percent reduction in travel and entertainment spending using EMA for the following:
Dissemination of information to line managers Enforcement of existing negotiated rates Comparison of spending trends quarter-by-quarter Access to an exhaustive set of spending information Access to spend data during the year, not just after
year end
Case Study 2 A leading financial services organization realized a 12 percent reduction in average daily meal spending through enforced compliance across entire organization. Case Study 3 A leading manufacturing company realized a 10 percent reduction in overall spend through proactive policy and business rule compliance. Case Study 4 A leading printing company realized a $400,000 yearly income tax return simply from the correct application of the IRS 50 percent Limit Deduction rule. Case Study 5 A leading utility realized a $500,000 annual corporate card rebate through improved practices associated with EMA. Case Study 6 A leading manufacturing company realized $100,000 annual cash flow benefit through better management of payments to charge card vendors. Case Study 7 A leading financial services company realized $630,000 in annual expense report processing cost savings alone through:
Reduction in costs in the back office processing

of expense reports
Reduction in costs surrounding document retention,

courier/mail and other tangible costs
Reduction in the number of hands touching a report Increased accuracy and level of detail to the
general ledger Now that you understand how to make the business case for an EMA solution, we encourage you to read on for suggestions on how to select the best EMA vendor for your organization.
Go to Market Selecting a Vendor in Six Simple Steps

Now that you have made the business case for a formalized project, its time to put the wheels in motion. Before venturing out into the vast, complex world of EMA solutions, you must prepare a roadmap of all the business requirements a potential vendor should meet at minimum, along with some wish list items. Specifically, you should conduct an analysis of your organization to avoid buying software you dont need, or even worse, wont end up using. The following steps outline an ideal vendor evaluation for an EMA solution: STEP 1: Assess Your Options Suite or Silohed? Any organization looking to automate their expense management function or migrate from their current EMA vendor onto another solution has two basic choices in the market they can implement a solution from a company who makes expense management their sole focus (i.e., a siloed solution), or they can select an expense management module as part of an overall suite of financial applications that can easily integrate to provide more data and control options.
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Before getting involved in demos and vendor presentations, first understand the argument for and against the suite and siloed approaches. Determining which approach best fits your organizations strategic direction may save your team weeks in the evaluation process.
STEP 2: Assemble Your Evaluation Team One of the most critical steps in your evaluation of EMA vendors is ensuring the right people are on your evaluation team. This team will help you first determine the requirements for an EMA solution and then help analyze which solution best meets the requirements of your organization. You need to have the right balance on your evaluation team of all parties that will be affected by the EMA solution. These people should represent all levels of your organization. You need to ensure that this team is not too small, but yet not too big and unwieldy. The key to the evaluation team is having an empowered group that has the knowledge of the business requirements and can make decisions on a go-forward basis with the vendor that best fits your criteria. An effective evaluation team should include representation from the following departments:
1. Finance - typically Accounts Payable 2. Corporate Travel 3. Corporate Card Vendor Management 4. Purchasing 5. IT
In addition, to gain critical buy-in from your executive management and endusers, this team should also include:
6. Senior level Executive Sponsor 7. Representation from your Human Resources

group
8. Representation from your end-users
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Most of the people on your evaluation committee should also be on the implementation team. Failing to move forward in this way often results in a steeper learning curve when its time to actually begin the implementation because all of the knowledge gained during the evaluation process can be lost without continuity.
STEP 3: Know Your Business Do a Self-Assessment To ensure a successful selection and implementation process, first take stock of your organizations current situation, capabilities, resources and characteristics. This will help you identify the functionality, support and, most importantly, the solution that best fits your companys needs. We have identified key areas below to get you started. Here are some important questions to ask when establishing your EMA strategy: Technology Systems and Integration
What is the breadth and scope of IT What kind of IT support will you
resources available to manage the solution?
Does the vendor offer offline client Do you currently recover VAT paid
capabilities when users dont have online access? on expenses occurred in the UK and Europe? Current Reporting Processes reports created monthly and annually? Remote and Mobile Users
Are you interested in maintaining
require to implement and maintain the EMA solution? the solution in-house or hosting it externally? platform?
What is the volume of expense If a corporate card is deployed, what
Do you have employees who travel Do traveling employees complete

for business purposes and require remote access?
Do you want to leverage an existing Does your IT department lock Do you currently use an ERP
solution? down user workstations preventing installation of applications or third party plug-ins?
What is the process by which
is your annual spending on travel? Specifically, can you break out spending by air, hotel and rental car? employees currently fill out expense reports? or electronic?
Do they consistently work with spe Do employees make purchases on Does your organization supply
mobile devices? cific vendors; i.e., booking rooms with the same hotel, rental car, car service or restaurant chain?
expenses while on the road? What sorts of items do these road warriors complete expense reports for?
Is the current process paper-based
For what items do employees typical Are there other employee business How does your organization deal
with receipts?
Does the ERP have an EMA mod What other software/systems will an
EMA solution need to integrate with? ule? If so, whats the modules depth or breadth of functionality and time to implementation?
ly submit expense reports? Is a certain item reported more frequently?
behalf of the company while traveling? Are there corporate discounts with specific vendors?
expenses beyond travel and entertainment that could be better identified and tracked through EMA?
Will the EMA solution be required to Would you like managers to have
leverage your mobile platform? access to approve expense reports while they travel?
Current/Future User Profile the EMA solution?
How many users will initially use How many expense reports does
your AP group process monthly and annually? Finance and Administration
Do you have multiple office locations? How do you see your expense management needs evolving? How many languages and/or curren Do you have plans to expand your
user base to other departments, locations or countries? cies does your company operate in?
Cost Reduction reduction?
What are your objectives for cost What kind of returns are you expect What budget do you have to invest What are your risks for implementing EMA? in EMA? ing and within what timeframe?
How efficiently can you identify,
What types of expenses are usually

accepted and/or rejected? Vendor/supplier relationships
allocate and monitor expenses by projects or clients?
How do you monitor and control
Is your companys expense reporting

fully transparent and compliant with legislative requirements of taxation authorities? Sarbanes-Oxley? And other industry-specific regulations?
employee purchases of non-essential upgrades (rental car class, additional insurance and hotel extras)?
Does your company use a corpo-
Administrative
How long does it currently take How many days does an expense How long is it to process an
expense report? report sit in a queue while going through the approval chain? for an employee to fill out an expense report?
How does your company purchase Do you have preferred vendors? Do you receive vendor discounts Have vendors not presently on Do you have a mandated
or rebates? contract been identified through expense report submissions? items like office supplies/furniture and field equipment?
rate card program? If so, what type of program is deployed and are changes pending? If not, do you intend to offer a corporate card program as part of the deployment of the EMA solution?
Do you have a corporate rate with
the firms your business travelers frequently use? Could you realize cost savings by requiring employees to use specific vendors and/or making the selection of the approved vendors easier through EMA?
How user-friendly is the Do employees frequently complain If employees encounter difficulty

current system? about filling out expense reports or time to reimbursement?
Productivity
How many people in AP are
How much does an expense report

typically cost from submission to reimbursement? Financial
assigned to processing expenses and what are their tasks?
What type of GL and/or AP
Do you have multiple cost and/or Do you bill and charge expenses Do your employees use a time
entry system? to clients? profit centers?
systems do you use and how do these operate?
Online Booking Tool and Travel Management Company (TMC) for travel? If not, do you plan to select one?
Does a manual or designated sup-
with an expense claim, is it easy to obtain help? port desk exist to deal with inquiries? Or is there a person available during business hours to answer questions about expense reporting? help with an expense claim?
What internal expense reporting Are these policies documented and How closely do employees follow
tor unused airline tickets exist? readily accessible for employees to refer to? policies exist?
Policy compliance
How long must a user wait to receive
How would you rate overall employ What improvements are required
ee satisfaction with expense reporting processes?
Does a system or process to moni-
these policies on a day-to-day basis?
to boost employee satisfaction with expense reporting?
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Once you know what you need, youll be in a position to effectively evaluate potential vendors. Understanding your requirements according to the answers you provide to the above questions will also ensure that a vendor can properly meet your EMA requirements today and in the future. Starting off on the right foot through a mutual exchange of information will set the tone for the entire process. Step 4: Whos Worthy, Whos Not - Evaluating Vendors EMA vendors, like businesses, do not come in a one-size-fits-all package. Whats right for your organization may not be right for another. In acknowledging how one company differs from the next, potential EMA vendors should be prepared to answer all of your questions. To help you determine your approach, here are a few questions you should ask when assessing the right vendor for your business. Vendor Profile in business?
How long has the vendor been What is its management What are the qualifications of your How is the vendors
company funded? companys assigned sales and implementation teams? teams background?
Solutions and Service
Does the vendors EMA solution
What is the vendors level of
Does the EMA solution require
meet all of your business and cost reduction requirements? What is the expected timeframe to produce results?
If you are considering a hosted
responsiveness in an emergency situation? Is there a contingency plan in place for disaster scenarios?
Has the vendor shown growth

Client Profile
Is the EMA vendor willing to work
customization to integrate with your current systems?
How many upgrades are required
solution, who owns the data? Is this clearly in the contract? per year if using the vendors hosting environment? outsource services such as audit and payment?
through increased market share, acquisitions or mergers?
Who are the vendors clients? What is the vendors client
Is the EMA solution

easily upgradable?
with your organization to help you understand the cost savings? Will they work with you to produce a business case to internally justify EMA?
Can the vendor provide additional Does the vendor give you options
Pricing
What experience has the vendor

Partnerships and Affiliations
retention rate? And can you speak to client references?
Does the vendor allow you to decide What is the vendors

service philosophy?
whether you want an on demand or in-house hosted solution?
What is the total cost of ownership What is included in the price and If something is free, is it really
what is not? free, or is there a cost associated with maintenance or licensing this feature? for the EMA solution and various modules?
for licensing the solution?
had with companies of similar size, type and location?
Does the vendor offer a flexible
Does the vendor take a partnering
What strategic partners is the ven What value-added services are

dor affiliated with that complement its EMA solutions?
approach to non-core ancillary EMA functionality? Or does it build or buy non-core ancillary functionality?
Does the vendor have a published
implementation approach tailored to your objectives for quick knowledge transfer or services addressing complex requirements? Implementation Methodology? One that outlines the project plan steps from planning through testing, training and roll out? beyond implementation and to what degree?
If you review the contract, how will-
ing is the vendor to modify the contract to your terms?
available through these partnerships for items such as VAT recovery, travel booking, receipts imaging and business process consulting?
Does the vendor offer support
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Which vendors technology best Does the vendor have experience

fits the requirements of your organization?
Technology
Is the vendors solution based on Is the vendor SAS70

or CICA 5970 certified?
leading technology, or is it dated?
Does the vendor concentrate on Does the vendor treat you like a
small fish?
Does the vendor have different solu Is the vendors solution scalable to
meet your requirements today and in the future?
in deploying the solutions to clients similar in size and scope to your organization? tions based on the size of its client? Does the vendor have different solutions based on cloud or in-house?
If you conduct business overseas,

is the vendor US/EU Safe Harbor Compliant? Overall Rapport ing questions?
selling its solution? Or does it spend more time on selling against their competitors?
Do you feel you would like to enter How quickly does the vendor
Is the vendor comfortable answer Has the vendor demonstrated a

level of knowledge of your industry and business needs?
into a business relationship with the vendor? Do you think it will aid you in unexpected issues? respond back to your e-mail and phone inquiries?
Does the vendor understand your
needs and provide solutions rather than point out problems?
Obtaining answers to the above questions puts you in excellent shape to make your final decision. Remember that service is key - a vendor should be reliable, responsive, knowledgeable and competent. When interviewing references, keep in mind that happy customers are satisfied ones. The information you receive will also tell you a great deal about the vendors team, level of professionalism and long-term financial viability. The last thing you want or need is a vendor that is not focused on your needs because it is distracted by other priorities or isnt committed to maintaining the solution one implementation is complete.
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Understanding which vendors to invite to the evaluation table may be one of the most important decisions of this process. Aside from searching the Web, there are several analysts covering this space that can help you narrow your list. Also, do not discount the knowledge each vendor possesses about each other. Sometimes a simple question such as, Who do you feel you compete with for businesses of our size? may yield some interesting results.
Step 5: Schedule Demonstrations Based on Your Requirements As part of your initial research and evaluation process, you should have seen an online overview demo of the different EMA vendors solutions. These demonstrations give you a basic understanding of the look and feel of the different solutions in the market. Now that you have your business requirements identified and you have narrowed down your search to a limited number of vendors, it is time to schedule the detailed demonstration.
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This EMA solution demonstration should focus on what you want to see and what is critical for your business - not what the vendor wants to show you. This is a mistake that many companies make when they go into an evaluation unprepared. They buy the solution that looks the best from the vendors demonstration driven from the vendors point of view. To truly determine the best fit for your organization, you need to move the demonstration from a feature/functionality review to a workshop concept that concentrates on showing the vendors solution within the framework of your organizations business requirements. Be prepared to invest more time in a workshop as compared to a typical demonstration. This time will be spent to ensure that the vendor fully understands your requirements and is able to address the requirements in their solution. Below is a sample workshop agenda that you can use as a template: Time 9:00 10:00 10:00 10:30 10:45 11:15 11:15 11:45 11:45 12:30 12:30 1:00 1:00 1:30 Agenda Item Building and Reviewing the EMA Solution Submit and Approve Expenses Back Office Receipts and Audit Function Reporting and Analytics Technology Review Implementation Executive Summary Participants Project Champion User Representative(s) Application Administrator/ Auditor Application Administrator/ Purchasing It Resource IT Resource/ Application Administrator Executive Decision Maker(s)
Step 6: Making the most out of the Reference Process Now that you have narrowed your list of potential vendors, you will want to conduct reference calls and/or site visits with the vendors existing clients. This process can bring much value to your evaluation, yet many organizations treat it simply as a checkbox they need to mark off in the buying process. It is no longer enough to simply ask for a reference in a similar industry, or with a similar back office system. Instead, it is highly recommended that you identify a mix of desired discussion points so the vendor can pull together the right mix of references to satisfy those points. Some recommended areas of evaluation include:
Vendors track record of support Overall experience with the solution and vendor Cost savings attained Lessons learned during the evaluation Operational questions about implementation Why they selected who they did
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On demand or in-house hosted Challenges faced during the implementation
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Be sure to manage your teams expectations for each reference call. A discussion on cost saving attained, for example, may mean the client is operating on a previous version of the software and that specific implementation experiences may not be as relevant. Be sure to understand these tradeoffs before undertaking this process. Become an Expert...Knowledge Is Power
Now that you have gone through the process of selecting the most appropriate EMA solution, the more you know about EMA, the more credible you will be when explaining it. If youve learned everything you possibly can know about the solution and its advantages for your company, you can easily convey it to the people who will benefit most and encourage them to use it. Furthermore, you will play a high profile role in training others on how to maximize the potential of EMA to achieve best practices. Such a diverse audience inevitably produces unique viewpoints and biases about expense management. While you may find a receptive audience in the finance department, you could quickly find out that IT, for example, is not as enthusiastic about this new addition to its systems lineup. Find out what those biases are, why they exist and how you can overcome them. Here are some suggestions for marketing EMA to your internal audiences to get the buy-in you need for an effective company-wide rollout: Form an Internal EMA Roll-out Committee Getting the right people to work together on the internal team is important. Select members from each department and designate them as EMA Team Leaders. Involve them in every step of the implementation process and teach them all there is to know about the new EMA solution. Collect their ideas and insights and have them act as ambassadors for their respective departments. Give them credit through acknowledgment in internal communications vehicles. Create Training Seminars to Introduce the EMA Solution Depending upon the logistics of your user community, you may want to set up a series of dates for when you officially introduce the EMA solution to your organization. Keep seminar attendees at manageable numbers to ensure maximum engagement and retention. Put together a comprehensive, step-by-step presentation to deliver to your audience and create an open dialogue for concerns and feedback. Be sure to incorporate a question-and-answer period at the end and provide contact information for post-seminar follow-up.
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Make Regular Contributions to the Employee Newsletter Once you have selected a vendor, start early in promoting your new initiative by contributing informative articles about EMA to your companys newsletter. Keep your articles to a few paragraphs and consider formatting information in a tips column on EMA. You can even use your creativity to establish a contest surrounding the upcoming EMA solution, soliciting feedback from readers and offering incentives in return. Since an EMA solution has the potential to be used by many, if not all, employees in the organization at some time, clear communications are key to helping them understand the importance of the solution to the company and to ensure adoption. Provide Regular Updates via E-mail to Create Interest Again, start early in educating and informing your user community on EMA by keeping them updated on the details and developments surrounding its implementation, training, benefits and other areas of interest. Use your marketing/ communications staff to help create effective messages and send these via a formal communications email. Hold Training and Refresher Sessions Once youve formed your alliance of champions, utilize their knowledge to share in the challenge of training users on the system. Hold quarterly refresher sessions in the first year, if possible, and once a year thereafter to remind employees of the value of the EMA investment made possible through your efforts. Conducting an internal stakeholder outreach is extremely important, along with understanding your audience and what they want out of an EMA system. By marketing the benefits of EMA to your entire organization through a group of internal experts, you will achieve the buy-in you require to smoothly integrate the solution and gain acceptance across all departments. Benchmark your EMA Success Your job doesnt end once the solution has been rolled out, so keep a close eye on how EMA is transforming your organizations processes. Take stock of this transformation by documenting process improvements, frequently measuring returns and demonstrating progress through updates to your peers and superiors. Take the time to network with others who have also gone through an EMA implementation and compare different approaches and results. Always benchmark and analyze your results to understand what worked, where and why. Lastly, dont forget to reap the rewards and tout your successes - publish these results so that others can note your achievements.
Final Thoughts
EMA is a strategic compliance and spend management tool that has emerged as a valuable investment in todays business environment. Companies that have adopted EMA now have visibility into their second largest controllable business cost and are able to convey what they understand into business improvements and better decision making, previously impossible with manual expense reporting processes.
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More Information
For more information, send an email to connect@sumtotalsystems.com
About SumTotal
SumTotal Systems, Inc. is the global leader in complete expense, learning and talent management software that enables organizations to more effectively drive business strategy and growth. Recognized by industry analysts as the most comprehensive solution, SumTotal provides full employee lifecycle management, including a core system of record, from a single provider for improved business intelligence. The company offers customers of all sizes and in all industries the most flexibility and choice with multiple purchase, configuration, and deployment options. We have increased the performance of the worlds largest organizations including Sony Electronics (NYSE: SNE), AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN [ADR]; London: AZN), Amway, GKN (London: GKN), and Seagate (NYSE: STX). For more information, or to request a demo, please call +1 (866) 768-6825 (US / Canada), +1 (352) 264-2800 (international) or visit www.sumtotalsystems.com
Corporate Headquarters
SumTotal Systems, Inc. 2850 NW 43rd Street Suite #150 Gainesville, FL 32606 USA Phone: +1 352 264 2800 Fax: +1 352 264 2801
EMEA
SumTotal Systems, UK 59-60 Thames Street Windsor, Berkshire United Kingdom, SL4 1TX Phone: +44 (0) 1753 211 900 Fax: +44 (0) 1753 211 901
APAC
SumTotal Systems India Pvt. Ltd. 7th Floor Maximus Towers Building 2B, Mind Space Raheja IT Park, Cyberabad Hyderabad, AP-500081, India Phone: +91 (0) 40 6695 0000 Fax: +91 (0) 40 2311 2727 2012 SumTotal Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. SumTotal, and the SumTotal logo, are registered trademarks or trademarks of SumTotal Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 12_0628_WP_LS
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The Evolution and Revolution of Expense Management Automation Cost Control

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