An Effective Management Tool
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Automated Expense and Timesheet Management
Automated Expense and Timesheet Management
The pressure on companies to become ever 'leaner' and optimize the business processes is higher than ever. Investors demanding higher profits, customer's demands for lower prices and greater quality and regulators demand for better controls and more transparency force organizations to improve, optimize and streamline their entire business process. The benefit of streamlining these processes has an immediate positive impact on the bottom line. The Improvements within manufacturing, including just in time production and material management have dramatically improved the bottom line.
While the focus on optimizing the logistic and production processes remains strong, optimization of administrative costs need similar attention. Companies actually realize productivity levels in their administrative sections today that are lower than before the introduction of IT solutions. The higher use of IT systems, while improving the amount and availability of information, is not being strategically used to lower costs associated with the administrative function.
The vision of a 'Real Time Enterprise' allows companies to instantly utilize available information from within and from outside the organization to enable management to act instead of react to changing conditions. To become ever leaner and more flexible, companies need to optimize, streamline and automate business processes throughout the organization including their administrative functions. Many organizations today are structured as project offices and use project portfolio management to run their business units. This approach has unleashed unknown resources and optimization capabilities never before realized. Using this project approach allows companies to implement a set of proven controls and best practices to reap the benefits of streamlined processes.
One of the control mechanisms to be implemented is automated timesheet and expense management. Automated, IT based timesheet and expense management will allow for efficient, optimized and timely reporting of project resource allocation and spending. Additionally, it increases the accuracy of the collected data. In light of the pressure coming from government and regulatory agencies, e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, this would solve an important compliance issue for a company.
A study performed by the Aberdeen
Group concludes that expense management automation will reduce the cost per expense report from $48 to $18 (http://www.aberdeen.com/2001/research/07020007.asp). This savings alone would justify an investment into automating the timesheet and expense management processes within an organization.
Additional benefits of Timesheet and Expense Management automation: * Faster reimbursement for employees leading to improved morale. * Reduction of clarification requests back to the submitter as information is instantly available for everybody in one location. * Improved data availability and higher accuracy of information about expenses allows stronger positions, price and service negotiations with vendors. * Optimized and streamlined controlling as a result of higher accuracy and timeliness of information.
Gekima Solutions, LLC specializes in the optimization and automation of administrative business processes. bizTE is gekima's solution to automating the timesheet and expense management processes of organizations large and small. With bizTE being instantly available over the internet, we reduced the need for costly deployment. It's easy to use web based interface ensures a reduced training time letting customers instantly reap the benefits of automated timesheet and expense management.
Flexible configuration of the solution itself and the adaptability of its underlying workflow system allow for streamlined processing of the timesheets and expense reports for organizations of any size. The built-in budget controls warn the project managers when project members are to overrun their time allocations or expense budgets. Here are some highlights that bizTE is delivering to you:
* Workflow based approval processes that can be configured to your needs * Easy-to-use web interface that needs no installation on the desktop PC * Attachment handling for documents, receipts, and notes for each line item * Budget control for each configured project in regards to the hours and expenses spent * Multi-Currency handling for expenses * Extensive Reporting capabilities
Visit us at www.gekima.com or www.bizte.com, or contact us info@gekima.com Copyright (c) 2003 - 2004, gekima Solutions LLC., All Rights Reserved.
About the Author
Gerd Schmidt is co-founder of gekima Solutions LLC and has over 15 years of experience in software and business consulting.