Accredited Home Lenders

The problem

• AP Staff manually processing over 500 expense reports each month submitted via mail as spreadsheets
• Nationwide company experiencing explosive growth, adding new expense filers each month
• Field-based expense filers stationed throughout the U.S. on a year–round basis
• Managers have ultimate expense approval authority, but expected AP to reconcile which expenses were appropriate

The solution

• Reduced average cost to process an expense report from $13 to $8
• Reduced headcount by 1 full-time employee while company grew 100%
• Increased workload from 500 reports to over 1000 reports per month
• Reduced processing time from over 10 days down to 3 days
• Realized 5-year ROI goals in less than 2 years

The benefits

• Quick, easy and affordable Web-based expense management service
• Intuitive interface to streamline submission, approval and processing of expenses
• Fast and simple integration with existing Great Plains systems
• Robust workflow, auditing rules and capacity to scale as organization expands

The mortgage lending business is fast-paced and competitive. To compete, companies are always looking for ways to drive costs out of their businesses. San Diego based Accredited Home Lenders is a perfect example of a company that turned to automation to help them manage employee expense reports within a highly dynamic business environment.

Having essentially doubled in size after going public in 2003, this leading subprime mortgage lender needed to take control of employee-generated expenses. "We're a fast growing organization, and many of our new employees are account executives out in the field," says Mike Bartling, Accounting Systems Analyst. "Since these are the folks that submit most of the expense reports, I knew I needed a system that would empower managers at all of our 55 locations around the U.S. to approve expenses as they saw fit, while enabling my staff to quickly process each report once it was approved."

Accredited Home Lenders evaluated several solutions, but had definite ideas in mind. "We were looking for something that we could get ramped up quickly with little or no consulting expense. I had used an ERP-based expense reporting solution at a prior company I worked for, and I didn't particularly like that approach."

Accredited Home Lenders worked with Microsoft Business Solutions provider Rose Business Solutions, Inc. to deploy Concur® Expense Service, a Web-based automated expense reporting service by Concur Technologies. "Since they already have a module hooked into my Great Plains system – all I had to do was install it, fill in the boxes to match my chart of accounts and they had my site up in a day or two. It was really fast, and I got everything that I wanted."

But deployment wasn't the only thing that happened fast. "We hit all of our ROI projections right off the bat. In fact, just before we went live, we had a staff member leave the department.

At that time, we were processing about 500 expense reports per month manually, running at full capacity and even bringing in help to clear out all the work at the end of each month. After we were fully deployed, I still had not filled the vacancy on my staff, so you can imagine my surprise when my AP manager came to me at noon one day and announced ‘I have nothing to do!' A year later, we are now processing well over 1000 expense reports per month, with one less person than we used to have, and I'm still able to redeploy part of my staff's time to other priorities."

Automating their expense reporting process has enabled Accredited Home Lenders to save both time and money while maintaining their explosive growth. Before automation, it took as long as 10 days or more for an employee's expense report to be approved, processed and reimbursed. "Now, if you submit an expense report in the morning I can probably have it back to you in 72 hours." And using Concur Expense has significantly reduced processing costs as well. "I've cut my costs per payment by over 50% when the company has grown well over 100%."

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise is how easy Concur Expense is for employees to use. For instance, employees like the fact that the system prompts them to use the correct classification on a particular expense. "A gasoline charge for us should really only be used if you're filling up the tank of a rental car. If you purchase gasoline for your personal car and use the gasoline expense type, a flag will pop-up informing you to use the 'personal car mileage' expense type instead."

Further proof that Concur Expense is easy to use is made evident by the vast majority of Accredited Home Lenders' employees who are submitting paperless expense reports from start to finish. "With our old manual process, expense reports would always get lost – even with interbranch mail." That meant time wasted while the report was pieced back together, oftentimes without the original receipts, using the employee's credit card report, or obtaining manager approval to pay off the expenses without the required receipts. "There is no question that with Concur Expense , you simply cannot lose your expense report."

Now, employees use Concur® Imaging Service to electronically submit their receipts, and are encouraged to sign up for direct deposit so they get their reimbursements even faster. Even the approval of expense reports is a much quicker and easier process using Concur Expense . If a report has no receipts required and isn't flagged by the system for audit, it can be instantly authorized for payment. "But an accounts payable specialist can also flag any expense reports that may require a more careful review."