Tokyo Electron Saves Tens of Thousands of Dollars with Concur Expense™

“We have grown from 500 to 1,200 employees and continue to use one back-office accounting person because of the efficiencies gained through the use of Concur Expense. By automating our T&E expense management process with Concur Expense we are able to save tens of thousands of dollars a year in travel costs. Now that’s real ROI.”

Rick Maynard
Accounting Manager
Tokyo Electron America, Inc.

[ the problem ]

• Manual entry of travel and entertainment (T&E) expense reports resulted in a time and labor-intensive process.
• Cumbersome manager approval process delayed reimbursement period and reduced time spent on core managerial duties.
• Paper-based reporting required redundant data entry into multiple back-end financial systems.

[ the solution ]

• Worldwide automation of T&E expense management processes through Concur Expense.
• Automatic pre-population of expense data from American Express corporate cards simplifies entry of expense data and improves the corporate card travel spend analysis.
• Concur Expense incorporates specific company practices, as well as industry best practices.
• Employees are automatically reimbursed through automatic integration of Concur Expense within existing ADP payroll system.

[ the benefits ]

• Ten of thousands of dollars in employee savings per year.
• Provided vital spend information, resulting in significant reductions in travel costs.
• Accounting headcount remained static even though the volume of expense reports substantially increased.
• Real-time exchange of foreign currencies supports Tokyo Electron employees traveling in other countries.

Based upon the recommendation of their in-house travel group, Tokyo Electron decided it was time to automate and streamline the most burdensome of all accounting tasks -- the T&E expense reporting process. With 17 offices in the United States and approximately 1,000 employees who regularly submit expense reports, Tokyo Electron required a solution that could easily scale to meet their future needs Ð without the hefty price tag.

In 1998, Tokyo Electron relied on an inefficient expense reporting process based upon a set of customized spreadsheets. Their previous process required employees to manually input expense data, attach receipts, obtain approval from the appropriate manager, then accounting manually processed their expense reimbursement. This labor-intensive process took time away from employees’ core job responsibilities and caused employee frustration. The entire process has been completely automated since deploying Concur Expense, exploiting Web-based technologies to streamline what was once a manually intensive expense reporting process.

Tokyo Electron exemplifies a mid-size company seeking an enterprise level expense management solution. According to Maynard, “We chose Concur Expense for four reasons. Of paramount importance was the ability to streamline the workflow process so managers could quickly review and approve their employees’ expense reports. Second, we required a flexible solution that would continue to leverage new innovations in technology as our organization evolved. Third, we wanted to achieve a fast return on investment with an ongoing low cost of ownership. And fourth, we needed a solution that could support the employees who travel internationally.”

Now, 100 percent of all expense reports are submitted and approved through Concur Expense. Additionally, expense reimbursements are automatically added to an employee’s paycheck, creating greater efficiencies and less paperwork within the accounting department. Meanwhile, Tokyo Electron employees appreciate the convenience of receiving a single check that incorporates their expenses.

Selecting an automated expense reporting system was one challenge faced by Tokyo Electron. Convincing the entire company’s workforce to use it was another. Maynard continued, “The user interface for Concur Expense is extremely intuitive. I’ve installed many systems in my career and selling this internally was the easiest I have ever encountered. In fact, when we first deployed the solution we offered training classes and now we’ve found that almost all employees can just as easily teach themselves how to use the application.”

The pre-population of expense data from an employee’s corporate American Express card also represents an added bonus for Tokyo Electron’s accounting department. Employees who use their corporate cards exclusively can complete and route their expense reports in minutes. This makes year-end T&E expense auditing a snap and empowers Tokyo Electron’s management team to quickly assess and analyze T&E expenditures.

Another key prerequisite for Tokyo Electron was the ability to customize the Concur Expense application to meet their specific requirements. For example, Tokyo Electron maintains a traveling sales force that has special expense reporting needs. Unlike other employees who itemize meal entries, these employees required the application to automatically calculate the total cost of all meals saving them the time of having to individually enter each line item.

Maynard concludes, “We have grown from 500 to 1,200 employees and continue to use one back-office accounting person because of the efficiencies gained through the use of Concur Expense. We foresee being able to add the rest of the subsidiaries [300-400 users] without having to incur additional headcount. Were we still using our old manual system we would probably need to hire two additional accounting staff to process all of the expense reports.”