World Design & Trade Case Study

Overview

Over half of the companys employees frequently need to travel for their jobs. These include the designers, as well as those in sourcing, production, sales and marketing. These teams often have to meet with new suppliers and retail outlets that stock their clothes. Until 2003, the company had been using a paper-based system for expenses, with a manual spreadsheet. But the finance team were processing about £0.5 million’s worth of expense claims every year, which meant storing them was taking up a lot of office space. What’s more, the claims didn’t always contain the right level of detail and the time taken to authorise them was keeping the finance team away from their core business. The company felt the expense claims process needed a better system of control.