”Skovik is a system we’ve never contemplated changing”

We sat down with Wise Group’s Head of Payroll, Michelle Du Rietz, who took part in implementing Skovik back in 2018. She provided great insight into the value this change of system has created for Wise Group, and about the benefits Skovik continues to bring.

On the hunt for a new expense management system

Michelle recalls being tasked with finding a replacement to their previous expense management system, which was not as efficient as they would have liked. When she came across Skovik, she was impressed by what she saw, she says, and the system lived up to her expectations:

Skovik was basically plug and play, for both me and the employees. We just told them: download the app, read what it says, and off you go. It’s that easy. Hardly anyone had trouble getting the hang of it. So that was very positive too, it made things a lot easier. She continues:

“Thanks to the user-friendliness of the system, the employees manage 99% of it themselves. You really don’t want employees coming with ‘What do I do now?’, ‘It’s not working’, and so on. You just want it to work, and it does”.

Having a system that’s this easy-to-use saves them time, says Michelle:

“Compared to before, the biggest difference is the time savings, particularly for the end-users. I know that everyone, especially those who are out selling a lot and who have a lot of expenses, find it super smooth. They used to spend half a day entering their receipts into our old system. Now, they just snap a photo and move on with their day”.

Smart functionality help admins stay in control

The end-users aren’t the only ones benefitting from Skovik’s ease of use. Another big benefit to Skovik is how it’s set up for those working in the back-end, says Michelle: I appreciate that, as an admin, you pretty much have full control.

She lists a few examples, including being able to edit a user’s report without having to send it back to them. She also mentions the assistant functionality, which is one of her favourites. When activated, assigned users can access the system through another user’s account. Michelle explains that this functionality is of particular value to her when things don’t go to plan:

“Sometimes external circumstances make it so that we’re in a bit of a rush to close payroll. In that case, I might not have time to wait for a manager to approve something, and so I can ask for their go-ahead to use the assistant functionality to approve the remaining thing or two for them. I think that’s really great. And since it shows in the logs that I made the changes on their behalf, everything is still documented the way it happened”.

The time-savings experienced by the admins through Skovik’s many helpful functionalities benefit the end-users as well, as demonstrated by another one of Michelle’s examples:

“I really like the feature where you can return just one receipt. If someone has ten receipts in a report, you can send back just the one that needs fixing instead of sending the whole report back. That’s perfect, because everything else gets processed and paid, and they can handle the remaining receipt later. I think that’s great, it means they get their money back faster”.

Delivering on all fronts

Michelle explains that because of the way Skovik is set up, it doesn’t matter that the admins are technically responsible for different subsidiaries, they are still able to help each other. This is just one of the benefits of housing their subsidiaries in the same system, she says:

“If we had to constantly switch between companies, we’d risk forgetting a subsidiary. Now, we immediately see how many items we have to approve and it’s really easy to work through them. You don’t have to click around everywhere or check multiple places. You really just have to view them, review them, and then you’re good to go”.

Thanks to how quick the process is, the admins are able to keep better track of the submitted expenses, which is another way in which Skovik helps with getting the employees their money back faster:

“I think it’s really smooth that we can go in maybe twice a week and approve whatever’s there. If something needs fixing, there’s plenty of time to sort it out, rather than being stuck to a fixed date, where delays would push things out another month. Now we can work through everything continuously”.

The main way in which Skovik helps the end-users is through its ease-of-use though, says Michelle. She expands on the value this holds:

“Generally, a lot of our employees, especially on the sales side, don’t want to spend time on admin. It’s not fun for them and it doesn’t generate revenue. They want to be out selling. Anything that takes time away from that is a real pain for them, so the system has to be easy, and it has to be fast. And it is”.

Skovik truly delivers on all fronts, Michelle says:

“When I’m bored, I go through our systems and compare them to what’s on the market, to see if it’s time to make a change. But when it comes to Skovik, I’ve always felt it’s working so well there’s no need to make a change. That’s a real testament to the value it brings”.

Michelle also isn’t a stranger to recommending Skovik, she says: I’m part of a few payroll networks, and sometimes discussions come up about different systems. When that happens, I usually advise them to try Skovik and see whether it works for them.