After just three years after putting up its first Parcel Machine, InPost now has nearly five thousand of these devices in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia and South America. However, as the company’s management declares, this is not the end of the expansion. The plans include further development in foreign markets, building a network of Parcel Machines® InPost in more countries on all continents, new contracts, development of a service network for the devices.
The global operational reach of the company, headquartered in Krakow, Poland, involves hundreds or even thousands of business trips that employees take each month. The range of trips covers all of Poland, Europe, as well as such distant places as Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Guatemala.
BeeOffice is an innovative employee self-service portal for a company of any size. Available anytime and anywhere via the Internet, it organizes and streamlines the work of employees, improves communication between them, and helps save time and costs. BeeOffice supports, among other things, accounting for business trips and cars, handling vacations, employee scheduling, registering office equipment, booking shared resources, managing IT licenses. BeeOffice is a proprietary solution developed at All for One Software Factory. It is delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS) in a private cloud environment, based on the organization and infrastructure of All for One Data Centers. For the solutions offered in the cloud, BCC (currently All for One Poland) is ISO 27018 certified, which provides an independent guarantee of the security and confidentiality of customer data stored in the application.
Development costs
From the side of administration and management of backoffice processes, accounting for business trips is a considerable organizational challenge and a significant cost – the implementation of this process alone is handled by a team of several people in the company.
At Integer, the labor-intensive nature of handling business travel is also due to the fact that it is a capital group operating in many global markets. Employees assigned to tasks in various markets have the ability to electronically request advances for travel expenses in BeeOffice. Each time an advance is paid, it is approved by a supervisor and then settled. All this has meant an exponential increase in the number of delegations, practically from month to month. Initially, Excel sheets and e-mail correspondence were sufficient to handle the process. But with each new country that entered the company’s orbit, the workload increased. The time-consumption resulted not only from the increase in the number of trips to be billed, but also from the need to verify start/end dates and times, per diem rates in each country, exchange rates, etc. each time. The team dedicated to handling business trips was growing. Collecting data for reporting at an earlier stage than after settlement in the financial system was very complicated.
Delegations at BeeOffice
Since mid-2014, Integer Group has revolutionized the business travel accounting process – using Delegations in BeeOffice. The functionality of Delegations is centered around a self-service form available online for the employee, supervisor and accounting. The entire process of planning travel, processing the request by the supervisor, and accounting for expenses takes place in one place.
From application to reimbursement of mission expenses
In practice, the handling of the entire process is as follows. Prior to the trip, the employee, using a web browser from a computer or mobile device, fills out a business trip order, entering basic information he already knows at this stage, such as the purpose of the trip and duration. On this basis, BeeOffice immediately presents the employee with the expected per diem. He sends the request to his supervisor, who is informed by BeeOffice (through the system and email) whether to accept or reject it.
At the end of the trip, the employee settles the costs actually incurred during the trip: he completes the expenses in the currency in which they were incurred (it makes no difference whether they are zlotys, euros, dollars or, for example, Chilean pesos), and can add attachments, which are usually electronic tickets, bills, invoices. At this point, BeeOffice converts costs from foreign currencies, according to the applicable NBP exchange rates. Exchange rates are updated automatically, once a day, by importing NBP exchange rate tables. At this stage, BeeOffice presents the employee with the value of the calculated per diem, the amount of which is specific to Integer. If the rates were not specified in the system configuration, the calculation of per diems would be based on the values specified in the relevant regulation.
The business travel settlement completed by the employee first goes to the accounts department, where the correctness of completion and completeness (e.g. mandatory attachments) are verified. If supplementation is required, it is possible to return the application to the employee. The verified billing then goes to the supervisor. Its acceptance is the signal that the billing department can make a transfer with reimbursement to the employee’s account.
Marcin Pulchny, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Inpost SA
Delegations cheaper by 30%
In 2015, the number of business trips taken by Integer Group employees exceeded four thousand. With this number and the complexity of billing delegations to multiple countries, I estimate that the decision to use Delegations in BeeOffice allowed us to save more than 300 hours per month across the organization, compared to the previous model where the process was handled manually. In addition, greater transparency of business travel costs and the ability to fully measure them has contributed to further savings. Travel costs have been reduced by about 30%.
For the CFO, saving money by optimizing and simplifying processes is a very important aspect. But these are not the only benefits of implementing an employee self-service tool in this area. The ability to track the status of expense settlements and the streamlining of communication between those leaving and the business travel planning and billing department has translated into a reduction in the time it takes to settle a business trip by an average of five working days. Employees get reimbursed to their accounts faster, which is perhaps the best motivation for using the tool.
BeeOffice also gives us considerable reporting capabilities. We can generate aggregate statements for all companies by various dimensions, such as expense type, destination, department, etc. This, in turn, allows us to analyze from the general to the specific and track the trend.
Marcin Pulchny, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Inpost SA
For foreign travel with high costs, a requirement for additional authorization has been introduced. In such cases, the workflow is extended by another approver (e.g., a higher-level supervisor). This process is initiated automatically when the amount defined in the system is exceeded.
Another convenience introduced by the Delegation module in the accounts payable department is an automatically generated export file for bank transfers, containing the correct employee account numbers, which are known to BeeOffice.
Automatic notifications
Each task to be performed resulting from the workflow of an application or settlement is signaled by an automatic e-mail (with a link to the form) to the relevant process participant. Email notifications can be turned off individually and then the status of the case (or cases) can be checked at any time in the application. An employee can see at what stage his or her travel settlement is, and, for example, a team leader can see the statuses of his or her employees’ business trips on a single screen, and can also see how many requests are waiting for his or her approval.
A cleared delegation disappears from the employee’s to-do list and the billing department, but not from the system. If there is any doubt, BeeOffice provides complete information about the history and workflow of the request. Historical data is also available for reporting.
Kinga Jedynak, Internal Systems Support and Development Specialist, Integer Group
Guaranteed security without additional costs
The purchase of the ready-made BeeOffice platform and the launch of the Delegation module allowed the implementation and launch of the solution throughout the Integer Group to be carried out in a dozen weeks. It was definitely less time-consuming than writing our own solution. In addition, we didn’t have to break down an open door. We got a ready-made solution and simply adapted it to our specific needs.
The application is maintained in the SaaS model, so we did not have to invest in hardware infrastructure. This also resulted in a shorter time and lower cost of implementing BeeOffice.
Access to a cloud-based solution also freed us from the need to make updates. The implementation of any changes and the uploading of new versions takes place automatically, and we are guaranteed that, first, this is secure and does not affect the continuity of access to the application, and second, that we are using the most up-to-date version of the software. In addition, any new features and solutions that the manufacturer adds to the BeeOffice standard, we get in the price of our subscription.
The SaaS model also gives us a guarantee of security, without incurring additional costs. Responsibility for infrastructure availability and performance, as well as backups, is shifted to the software manufacturer. Confirmation of the high security standards of the data center is the ISO 27018 Certificate held by BCC, which is an independent guarantee of the security and confidentiality of the data, including sensitive personal and financial data, that we store at BeeOffice.
Kinga Jedynak, Internal Systems Support and Development Specialist, Integer Group
Trip planning
In addition to billing, Delegations in BeeOffice also handles the travel planning process. A separate application in the system allows you to book, for example, airline tickets or hotels. It is activated only when there is a need for it (e.g. in the case of a one-day trip by car, the application is not needed). BeeOffice supports and organizes communication between the employee planning the trip and the travel organization specialist. Simple reservations are reported and confirmed by the employee himself (e.g. choosing from several airline or hotel options presented by a travel agency), unusual or more costly reservations are referred to a supervisor for approval.
Knowledge base
Complementing the Delegation tools for the Integer Group is the BeeOffice Forum, which serves as a knowledge base both on the tool itself (user manuals, glossary of terms, etc.) and on the rules for accounting for business travel (internal regulations, per diem rates, etc.). Also, any changes and announcements regarding delegations are posted on the forum.
List of delegations
The trip is awaiting authorization
Linking the booking to the delegation and attached receipts and summary of costs
Delegation workflow history
Employee satisfaction, savings for the company
Currently, BeeOffice Delegations are used in 13 companies of the Integer Group and Inpost Group. The introduction of an employee self-service tool in this area has made it possible to reduce the processing time of a single request several times – from submission by the employee to payment. With several thousand delegations per year (in 2015 there were more than 4 thousand in total), this translates into significant savings.
The information available in the system is also a starting point for further savings. The reports allow you to gather detailed information on the cost structure of your business trips, such as what the cost of hotels was in a given period, how much was spent on tickets, or what was the value of per diems paid in a selected period for the whole company, a team or for a specific person.
Listing the benefits of the implemented solution, the billing department emphasizes the automation of much of the work (per diems and expenses are counted automatically based on data entered by the employee) and its orderliness (automatic workflow).
Employees, in turn, can settle a delegation at a convenient time, using a computer or mobile device, and can always check the stage of the settlement they have submitted. Superiors and others involved in the process have information about the settlements awaiting their approval, and the administration can assess how much time each stage of the delegation settlement took.
For the CFO, on the other hand, in addition to the savings from automation of the process calculated in less labor intensity and the possibility of optimizing costs based on available data, the predictability of the costs of handling delegation settlements over the next years is also important. The monthly fee for the use of the Delegations solution in BeeOffice, derogatory in the Software as a Service model, depends on the number of users. This is the only cost – IT platform support, maintenance, patches and development are included in the subscription price.
