With over 700 field employees, the magnitude of expenses and subsequent processing quickly outweighed International Services, Inc.’s (ISI) ability to process and report on key metrics. Its methodology was unsustainable and obscured visibility. In response, they began looking for a technology solution that could scale while being intuitive and accessible.
“I’d have a mini anxiety attack when leadership needed a new report built,” explained senior expense administrator Athena Gazikas. “We had over 16 reports, but we needed more granularity with the data to extract the insights we needed.
Knowing expense was data critical to optimizing spend and improving compliance, ISI sought a solution that could inform and address other challenges from their process:
- Time-consuming reporting lacked the depth finance needed
- High instances of noncompliance required frequent investigations
- Unable to quantify the value of T&E management
Our latest customer success story details how ISI found the data needed by adding Emburse Insight Advisor, which includes Emburse Analytics Pro. Highlights from the publication are shared below.
Evolved expense and analytics capabilities
ISI selected Emburse Certify to transform its expense management process. Digital receipt capture immediately improved the accuracy and timeliness of expense submissions. Internal communication features helped streamline requests and boost productivity.
“There’s a huge difference between regular reporting from an expense solution and Emburse Analytics—it’s like going from a bicycle to a Ferrari.”
– Rami Shubbak, Chief Transformation Officer, ISI
Finance, though, was limited by the volume and depth of custom reports required by the organization. Gazikas would spend hours every week pulling data together from various sources to report on the business’s financial health.
Her primarily manual, Excel-based process was tedious. Often, she wasn’t able to accurately report on critical metrics, like weekly spending. Still, Gazikas was hesitant to add an analytics solution. “At first, I didn’t think we needed Emburse Analytics,” Gazikas voiced. “It’s such a powerful tool, and we only needed specific reports. But using Excel was not the right solution.”
Harnessing Emburse Analytics’ full potential
ISI’s designated Emburse Insight Advisor team began by understanding their top priorities and developing analytics to provide that visibility. “The EIA team was responsive and collaborative and took the time to listen to our needs. Then, they’d make it happen,” shared Gazikas.
Before adding Emburse Analytics, the ISI team was manually recovering an average of $300k in annual spend but couldn’t put a value on their time. Now they’re capturing $500k in spend and processing more reports up to 300% faster and with a higher degree of accuracy than ever before.
“Emburse Analytics exceeded our expectations. Not only does it help us recover significant savings and work more efficiently, but it enables us to quantify the value of our expense management solution. So much value can be extracted from the data,” Gazikas said.
As ISI shifts all reporting to Emburse Analytics, they plan to leverage data to negotiate better terms with vendors. They’ll give more users access to data and use internal benchmarking to help employees compare their spending with their peers for hotels, mileage, and other expenses.
You can read more about Emburse Analytics’ impact on ISI’s process by downloading the customer success story.