The document outlines five reasons to avoid using Excel spreadsheets for expense reporting, emphasizing the high processing costs, lack of control over spending, poor policy compliance, limited reporting visibility, and inefficiencies in the process. It highlights the benefits of automation and web-based systems in enhancing employee productivity, ensuring compliance, and improving data accuracy. Overall, the content aims to encourage corporate finance professionals to adopt advanced expense management solutions for better financial oversight.

1. Sponsor

2. Ask, Share, Learn – Within the Largest Community of Corporate Finance Professionals
Five Reasons Not to Use Excel
Spreadsheets for Expense
Reporting

3. • Recognize the expense report processing costs for manual,
semi-automated and fully automated systems
• Identify how to improve control over employee business
travel decisions and T&E spending overall
• Recognize what companies like yours are doing to enforce
policy compliance and reduce fraud
• List ways automation can tame your data and simplify
administrative reporting
• List strategies to streamline the T&E reporting process and
improve productivity
Learning Objectives
After attending this event you will be able to:

4. Proformative Event Notes
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session at the end of the event.
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6. Ask, Share, Learn – Within the Largest Community of Corporate Finance Professionals
Five Reasons Not to Use Excel
Spreadsheets for Expense Reporting
Robert Neveu, President & Co-founder, Certify
Eric C. Newman, Sr. Director, Corporate Controller, Saddle
Creek

7. • Industry-leading with first fully automated expense system
• #2 expense report software providing travel and expense
solutions since 2008
• 64 languages, 140+ currencies, clients in 80 countries
• #1 Highest Rated Expense Management Software on
G2 Crowd, with a 4.8 out of 5 star rating
• Over 25 million expense transactions in 2014
• Processing over $10+ billion/year in expense reports
About Certify
7
7

8. 8
T&E Management Trends:
Manual vs. Automated

9. Polling Question

10. Methods for Managing T&E Reporting
10
Reference: Certify Annual Expense Management Outlook 2015
Manual processes are used by the majority of companies, however
Excel or electronic spreadsheets, pen/paper and homegrown systems
provide little control or visibility.
37%
WEB-BASED
43%
MANUAL
19%
ERP

11. T&E Expense Management Trends
11
T&E Adoption Rates
Manual - 64%
ERP - 11%
Web-Based - 25%
Manual - 19%
ERP - 33%
Web-Based - 48%
Manual - 48%
ERP - 19%
Web-Based - 34%
Small Business Medium Business Large Business
Reference: Certify’s Annual Travel & Expense Management Survey 2015

12. Annual T&E Spend by Company Size
12
$50k – $5mm
Mid-Size Company
101 – 999 employees
> $5,000,000
Large Enterprise
More than 1,000 employees
< $50,000
Small Business
Less than 100 employees
Reference: Certify Annual Expense Management Outlook 2015

13. The Shift to Web-Based Expense Systems
of small businesses have migrated off of
Excel/spreadsheets as their expense
management system within the last 12 months
of small businesses currently use a web-based
expense system, compared to 8% last year.
20%
13
67%
25%
of companies indicated
Excel/spreadsheets as their expense
management system in 2014
Reference: Certify Annual Expense Management Outlook 2015

14. 14
Reason #1 not to use Excel:
Processing Costs

15. Polling Question

16. Expense Report Processing Costs
16
$36−$64 depending upon the degree of
automation used (American Express)
Best-in-class companies: $7.17 Laggard organizations: $41.12
(Aberdeen Group)
$26.63
manual
$17.31
semi-automated
$6.85
fully automated
(PayStream Advisors)

17. 17
• Man hours to create, review and approve reports
• Hard costs for paper, printing and postage
• Time required for reconciliation and reimbursement
• Storage fees to archive expense reports
• Lost productivity
PayStream Advisors 2015
of all companies do not know their
expense report processing costs80%
Expense Report Processing Costs

18. Manual expense reporting process
18
Gather receipts,
itineraries and write
down non-receipt items
Enter expenses in Excel
with category, vendor,
dates, etc.
Print spreadsheets, tape
or staple receipts and
make copies
Sign report/date report
and present or mail to
manager
And then … wait
Receive reports for all
employees at different times
during the month/quarter
Check expenses for
receipts, review for out-
of-policy items, etc.
If errors, return report to
employee to start over;
wait for resubmission
Sign/approve reports
and route to the next
manager or to AP
Receive reports for all
employees at different
times during the
month/quarter
Match receipts with line-
items, verify all charges,
dates and vendors
Check for receipts,
manager approvals, out-
of-policy items, etc.
Manually enter
expense data into
accounting software
Manually enter data
from accounting
software to payroll for
reimbursement
Accountants
Managers
Employees

19. Cost and process inefficiency drive change
19
48%
28%
20%
32%
24%
13%
Need to reduce expense
processing costs
Need to eliminate
manual/paper-based
processes
Lack of business traveler
productivitiy
Best-in-Class Laggards
Top Pressures Driving
T&E Improvements
Aberdeen Group Travel and Expense Management: Spend and Save

20. 20
Reason #2 not to use Excel:
Spending Controls

21. Spending Controls
21
Excel has its limitations:
• Does not integrate with electronic
systems for travel booking, corporate
payments, AP, ERP, HRIS, etc.
• Inefficient and redundant manual data
entry negatively affects employee
productivity and leads to reporting errors
• Requires employees to make the right
choices or “best guess” when planning
travel and making business purchases

22. T&E Strategies and Tools Used by
Best in Class Companies
22
Aberdeen Group: Travel and Expense Management: Spend and Save Maybe …?
88%
58%
87%
77%
68%
63%
34%
63%
50%
35%
Expense reports audited
regularly
Automatic linkage between
expense mgt. and back-end
systems
Online travel booking
system
Commercial card
system/program
End-to-end expense mgt.
solution
Best-in-Class Industry Average

23. Corporate Credit Card Integration
23
• Direct control over T&E expenses
through policy restrictions, spending
caps, reduced fees and more
• Full view into traveler data for tracking
compliance and leveraging supplier
negotiation
• Value-added services including fraud
protection, travel-related insurance,
global support, etc.
77%
50%
Commercial card system/program
Best-in-Class
Industry Average

24. Integrated Corporate Travel
24
Open Booking
(through direct
provider)
Online Travel
Sites/Agencies
(i.e. Expedia,
Orbitz, Kayak)
Online
Booking Tool
(OBT)
(i.e. Carlson,
Get There)
Travel Agency
(through a
travel agent)
PRO: Flexibility
CON: No control
over policy
enforcement
PRO: Flexibility
CON: No control
over policy
enforcement
PRO: Policy
enforcement
CONS: Contracts and
systems; minimum
transactions. Best for
organizations
spending over $2mm
on T&E.
PRO: Full-service policy
enforcement
CONS: Cost; $40-50 fee
in addition to booking
fees. Best for
organizations spending
over $4mm on T&E.
Online Travel Sites
Travel Agency
Online Booking Tool
68%
21%
11%
48%
42%
10%
How companies
are booking travel:
Manual process
Web-based process

25. T&E Control = Real Savings
25
Mileage reimbursement before and after using an
automated system with integrated mapping
Oct. '13 - Mar '14 Oct. '14 - Mar. '15
$362,000
SAVED
Certify enterprise client:
• 12,000+ retail locations
• 100,000 employees
• 58,000 users creating
and submitting expense
reports annually
in mileage

26. 26
Reason #3 not to use Excel:
Policy Compliance

27. 27
Policy Enforcement Trends
Manual policy review is
inefficient and creates
room for error and fraud
78%
Of companies indicate
they have a T&E policy
65%Of those companies are
manually
reviewing for policy violations

28. Expense Report Fraud
28
• Expense fraud accounted for nearly 14% of all occupational fraud in 2014
with a median loss of more than $30,000
• Businesses with fewer than 100 employees have a 28% higher median
fraud loss than those 100+
• Organizations that monitor compliance experience a 70% decrease in
fraudulent spending
Association of Certified Fraud Examiners
Oversight Systems
82%

29. Automate Policy Compliance
29
1. Establish a corporate travel and entertainment expense policy
• Clearly defined for all employees with ongoing training
• Executive support for T&E policy is essential
2. Integrate your policy into the expense system, setting both:
• Hard Policies (decline expense exceeding X amount)
• Soft Policies (manager’s discretion for approval)
3. Allow technology to enforce policies, notifying employees and
managers of violations, including:
• Missing receipts
• Duplicate expenses
• Items exceeding spend limits
Flagged violation, notifying manager amount exceeded policy limit

30. 30
1. An end-to-end expense management
system allows administrators to automate
policy controls across a single platform for
improved employee compliance
2. Pre-trip approvals using an integrated
online travel booking system can stop out-
of-policy expenses before they occur (used
by 87% of all best-in-class companies)
3. Mobile applications encourage policy
compliance by making it easier for
employees; mobile also reduces expense
report processing costs by up to 65%
Adopt a Unified Platform

31. 31
Reason #4 not to use Excel:
Reporting Visibility

32. Reporting Visibility
32
Excel can’t keep up in the digital age:
• Inability to link receipts or images with expense line items; you can email
spreadsheet expense reports but can’t link receipts
• Lack of integration with corporate and accounting systems limits availability
and accessibility of expense data
• Inefficient, labor-intensive manual administrative reporting process subject to
human error affecting accuracy of information
• Auditing expense reporting via a manual process is ineffective, often relies
on sampling due to sheer volume

33. Use Technology to Improve Visibility
33
• 55% of all organizations’ main
priority for 2014 was to enhance
visibility into overall T&E spend
• Manual processes provide only
30% visibility vs. 61%+ visibility
with web-based expense systems
• 74% companies using cloud/web-
based systems regularly audit
expense reports vs. 44% of
companies on manual system
61%
57%
74%
57%
30%
40%
44%
29%
Visibility into
T&E Spend
Regular
Reporting
Regular Audits
of Expenses
Automated Data
Analytics
Web-Based Expense System Manual Expense Process
Reference: Certify’s Annual Travel & Expense Management Survey 2015

34. • Documented path of approvals—Has each
expense report been reviewed and approved
by the right person at the appropriate time?
• Expense reports by employee—Which
individual employees (or departments) are
expensing the most? Are they managing the
budget responsibly?
• Expense spend by category—Which areas
are costing the company the most? Can we
add controls, negotiate preferred rates, etc.?
Insight into Process and Spending
36

35. Reports Available with Automation
35
Additional analytics for GL dimensions, pending reports, approval
actions, processed reports, multiple input parameters and more
Expenses By Category
shows totals for expense
categories and employees
simultaneously
Meals Attendees
displays group meals
expenses with detailed and
free text attendee information
Mileage By Employee
captures personal automobile
usage including subtotals by
employee
Expense Policy Review
shows processed and in-progress
expenses with policy violations
and other potential issues

36. 36
Reason #5 not to use Excel:
Process Automation

37. Top Pain Points in 2014
37
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
Reviewing for policy violations
Reconciling the data
Errors on the report
Employees losing receipts
Time it takes to reconcile, review, and
approve
Employee's failure to submit reports on time
Inefficiency tops the list:
Reference: Certify’s Annual Travel & Expense Management Survey 2015

38. Top Areas to Improve in 2015
38
Reference: Certify’s Annual Travel & Expense Management Survey 2015
Process is an opportunity:
36%
25%
21%
14%
4%
Expense Management
Process
Integration Between
Systems
Travel Booking Mobility Software Deployment

39. Saddle Creek Automation Benefits
39
• Transition from manual to automated expense management process with
500 company employees using the system
• Streamlined processes for expense report creation, plus mobile access with
automatic receipt capture
• $40,000 first year savings from avoiding duplicate/out of policy expenses
and reduced paper postage costs
• Increased visibility from extensive integrated reporting capabilities also used
to help with annual budget planning
• Reduced overhead—the full-time accountant for expense auditing was
reassigned to a higher-value function within the company

40. Embrace the Future of T&E Automation
40
• Automated approval workflow: Managers instantly
notified of reports pending approval, decreasing
lifecycles and reimbursement times
• Online expense report creation: create, submit and
approve expense reports online; no more time-
consuming spreadsheets
• Mobile receipt capture: employees take a photo of a
receipt with their smartphone instantly turning it into an
electronic receipt
• Direct feeds: automated feeds sync data with
accounting, credit card and HR systems to simplify
reporting and eliminate redundant manual data entry

41. Automate Workflow Inside and Out
41
Adopt an end-to-end T&E system:
• Take guesswork out of T&E policy compliance
• Expedite spend capture and expense reporting
• Eliminate manual processes, redundant data entry
• Provide a single, familiar platform for all users
Give travelers the power of mobile apps:
• Automate receipt capture
• Reduce paper usage and storage
• Streamline report creation and review
• Approve reports anywhere, anytime (managers)

42. Thank You

43. Q & A

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A Few Final Items

45. Sponsor

46. Polling Question