The introduction of mobile device technology has had a big impact on all of us. By eliminating the need for a separate watch, GPS device, scanner, or camera, mobile devices have changed the world. Because of their unique capabilities, in addition to being pretty decent mobile telephones, it’s no surprise that mobile devices have made […]
Centralizing travel expense report processing as part of Shared Services requires a more sophisticated approach, with travelers and reviewing managers located hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from the processing center. Yes, placing responsibility and accountability with the department manager responsible for the expense is necessary, but that does not fully excuse Shared Services […]
Whether you are implementing a new Purchasing Card program or expanding one that is already in operation, one of the greatest challenges is getting the balance right between necessary business controls and the associated cost and complication of compliance, ease of use issues, and expanding penetration to cover a greater percentage of low-dollar purchases. The […]
The risk of fraudulent transactions continues to limit the ability of companies to expand the distribution and allowable usage of both the purchasing card (PCard) and the travel card. While the appropriate use of merchant category codes (MCCs) and monetary limits is a key cornerstone of any card fraud prevention structure, in recent years new […]
The shiny silver bullet for reducing cost and complexity via a robust purchasing card (PCard) program can be tarnished significantly with a purchasing card implementation that requires onerous cardholder record keeping and poorly designed transaction review processes. While the benefit of implementing purchasing cards is widely accepted, the best approach to creating a controlled environment […]
With the move to control discretionary spending in recent years, many companies have significantly reduced their travel budgets. One opportunity to secure large gains in this space is by restricting business class travel, where the price difference for a single trip can be $4,000 or more. Given that the most powerful executives are often frequent […]
The Travel Expense Reporting process is typically an insignificant component of the overall shared services effort from a complexity, headcount, or cost perspective; however, because corporate travelers are most often senior-level employees or staff with direct roles in the sales effort when it comes to image, the T&E process gets a lot of attention. For […]
Introduced 30 years ago, and achieving widespread acceptance during the past decade, purchasing cards have become commonplace as a method to reduce the cost and complexity associated with purchasing low price expense items. While the impact of reducing processing costs has been significant, for many companies the purchasing card process is years behind the travel […]
For the end-to-end Travel Process, Shared Services often has responsibility for the Expense Reporting portion. The Corporate Travel function, where activities such as travel bookings and negotiating travel discounts take place, doesn’t necessarily align with the Expense Reporting process and often does not report into Shared Services. Recently, a Peeriosity member representing a $50B+ global […]
When designing the Travel Expense Reporting process, it is important to consider the proper balance of business controls, potential fraud risks, and the effort required to both process expense reports and for travelers and their managers to submit them. When it comes to process improvement, the one thing consistently better than automation is the elimination, […]