La Trobe case study
At a Glance
Accounting Package
Previous expense system:
- Pen and paper
The competition:
- Expensify vs. Concur
Favorite features:
- Easy-to-use mobile app
- Corporate card reconciliation
- Auto-categorisation
- Custom business logic
- Mileage tracking
Expensify users:
- 1,200+
Customer since: 2016
Fostering a culture shift
La Trobe has grown exponentially since the university was founded in 1967, and now educates over 35,000 students in Victoria, Australia.
With 5,000 employees, tracking expense claims was a nightmare for the finance team – they had to manually enter the details from paper expense reports into an ERP system, then add reimbursement to payroll. Employees used corporate cards and submitted expense claims manually, so there was no incentive to submit receipts on time, or even at all.
The university wanted a user-friendly solution to automate reconciliation and streamline the approval workflow. Beyond the list of necessary features, La Trobe needed a system that would enable a culture shift and motivate workers to take ownership of their employee expense claims.
Michelle Marcantonio, Senior Manager of Process Improvement at La Trobe, explains: “Expensify has enabled us to create a necessary culture change where staff now self-serve their own expense management tasks rather than relying on the finance team to do everything for them." As a result, employees are proactive in submitting their expense claims and admins have an easier time collecting and reconciling expenses.
Evaluating solutions: Expensify vs. Concur
With that culture shift in mind, the university considered Concur and Expensify. Owned by SAP, Concur had an advantage since La Trobe was already using the ERP software. However, the team was concerned that Concur’s clunky interface would prevent the culture change they were aiming to facilitate, so La Trobe turned to Expensify, knowing employees would embrace the easy-to-use mobile app.
Expensify has enabled us to create a necessary culture change where staff now self-serve their own expense management tasks rather than relying on the finance team to do everything for them.
Getting started with Expensify
“During implementation, the Expensify team was present every step of the way with a dedicated sales and account manager,” says Michelle. “The Expensify team was flexible and dynamic, developing solutions while proactively solving problems with a hands-on approach. The process was efficient and delivered immediate value that continues to scale with our growth.”
Michelle continues, “From the start, we genuinely felt that Expensify had skin in the game around a successful implementation – they cared that we ended up with the right result. Expensify has greatly improved our process and our employees love the look and feel of the app.”
Staff are empowered to manage their own expense claims. There’s no paperwork involved anymore and employees love using Expensify on their phones while traveling for work all around the world.
Creating a lasting positive impact
Deploying new software to thousands of employees takes work, but it’s worthwhile when it creates an impactful change across the whole organization.
Sasho Bogdanoski, Project Accountant at La Trobe says, “Expensify helps us meet the Australian tax requirements and provides compliance controls to tighten up our auditing procedures. Admins love having easy access to digital receipts and the ability to change the coding when needed. They’re also thrilled with the automatic weekly reminder emails sent to approvers, which speeds up the whole approval process.”
But the members of the finance team aren’t the only ones smiling. “Overwhelmingly the feedback has been positive,” says Michelle. “Expensify requires minimal training, which enables everyone to manage their own expense claims. Even if you only claim expenses every few months, it’s easy to remember how to do it from your phone.”
Sasho adds, “Now with Expensify’s app, employees just snap a picture of a receipt and the rest is history. Staff are empowered to manage their own expense claims. There’s no paperwork involved anymore and employees love using Expensify on their phones while traveling for work all around the world.”
