Simplify expense management without expensive consultants

1. Procurement: Take control yourself

Many organisations hire an external consultant to manage the procurement process, write the RFP, and evaluate vendors. That can work, but we often find that the customer actually knows more than the consultant. You know your pain points, your systems, and your processes. Many external consultants only have expertise in procurement itself, and that’s not the same thing.

Our advice is to lead the process yourself and involve the right people internally. Include the people who work with expense reports every day and know where the friction lies, those who understand your systems and integrations, and ideally someone who keeps up with developments in AI. Expectations of what a modern system should be able to do have changed rapidly, making it valuable to involve someone who understands what’s possible and can help define what you should expect from a modern solution.

That said, there are of course excellent external consultants who can support you throughout the process. They tend to be people with deep domain expertise rather than just procurement experience.

2. Implementation: Keep it fast and focused

Consulting costs during implementation can come from several sources: an external project manager, integration consultants, consultants configuring surrounding systems, and the vendor’s own implementation services.

Hiring an external project manager without domain expertise is rarely a good idea. Whoever leads the implementation should understand expense management, tax logic, and your business processes. A general project manager without that knowledge often becomes another person who needs everything explained to them.

Whether or not you use an external project manager, focus on implementing quickly to keep costs down. Why do implementations take so long? Decisions often need to be discussed and aligned across the organisation, and sometimes that’s unavoidable. But configuration itself shouldn’t be time-consuming. A flexible system creates new possibilities, which naturally means new decisions about how you want to work. When that happens, remember that a good vendor has guided hundreds of similar implementations and can usually provide clear recommendations based on experience. In many cases, it’s wise to follow that guidance. Most things can be adjusted later.

One of the biggest changes brought by AI is that tasks which previously required a developer can now often be configured by someone who understands tax rules and business logic, without needing to write code. More people can do the work, fewer people need to be involved, and implementations can move much faster.

Also take a close look at the vendor’s implementation pricing model. Do you pay by the hour, pay a fixed fee, or is implementation included? If the vendor charges by the hour, there’s no clear incentive to work efficiently. Fixed-fee or included implementation creates stronger incentives for a fast and focused project. Vendors generally don’t want to keep resources tied up in long-running implementations. They want to move on to the next project or spend their time supporting existing customers.

Then there are integrations. Many vendors offer pre-built integrations with popular ERP and payroll systems, although these often come at an additional cost. It’s also relatively straightforward today to build integrations yourself or with the help of a skilled consultant. The key word is skilled. A capable integration consultant can complete the work quickly and cost-effectively, while someone without the right expertise can easily end up costing more than they’re worth.

3. Ongoing changes: Look closely at the pricing model

Once the system is in place, new requirements inevitably arise: tax regulations change, organisations evolve, new countries are added, workflows are improved, and so on. How these requests are handled depends largely on the vendor’s pricing model.

If ongoing changes are included in the license fee, the vendor has every incentive to help you quickly and effectively. If every change comes at an additional cost, the incentives for fast delivery are weaker. It also creates a threshold where you hesitate to ask for improvements because each request results in another consulting fee. Changes that should have been made are postponed or never happen at all.

Ask the vendor exactly what’s included in the license and what incurs additional charges. For example, how is an update to per diem rates in a new country handled? Or what happens if you want to introduce another policy that you don’t know how to configure yourself? Will they help you as part of the service, or does it become a billable consulting request?

AI is changing the playing field here as well. Changes that previously required developer time can now be made faster and by a wider range of people. That should be reflected in how vendors price their ongoing services. If it isn’t, it’s worth asking why. That said, despite all the talk about AI, vendors still appreciate a little notice before you ask them to make changes. Things can get a bit tricky when you let them know on Friday afternoon that you want to go live in Mexico on Monday (yes, it happens.) 🙂