AtTask is the SaaS leader in project management solutions serving a broad range of customers including Nike, Cisco, ESPN, Trek, and Kellogg’s. By combining social media techniques with traditional project management capabilities, their Enterprise Resource Management solution engages the work needs of many different departments and provides management teams with the information and visibility they need to optimize their resources. AtTask has been highly recognized for product excellence, having been named to the ‘Inc. 500 fastest growing private companies’ for three consecutive years, and receiving the ‘Red Herring 100 Global Award’ and the ‘Red Herring 100 North America Award’ for top private companies.
Situation
As AtTask was implementing Concur for travel and expense management, they wanted seamless data integration with their Intacct accounting software. Amy Engh, AtTask’s Assistant Controller, describes the expense module in their existing system as “clunky.” None of the expense data run through payroll went into their accounting system, requiring manual data-entry.
“When it came to billables,” Engh explains, “we were printing expense reports and manually entering the information into our accounting software to pass along to the customer. It was one persons’ full-time job to do that,” she continues. “For years we spent so much time doing what was a simple thing. If a consultant was onsite doing billable work, how would we get an invoice to customer?”
The company was growing, and eventually the time came for AtTask to upgrade to Concur and start using Intacct more efficiently. Engh had the opportunity to find a better way of handling data integration and expense billing.
Engh found Wipfli’s ExpenseConnect product the perfect solution for moving AtTask’s approved expense reports from Concur into Intacct. But, since AtTask doesn’t use Intacct’s Time & Expense Module, they needed a custom-developed workaround for adding billable expenses to Intacct as individual sales orders. Wipfli created a special destination category—General Ledger plus Order Entry—and AtTask was on their way to improving their workflow with their ExpenseConnect Concur/Intacct integration.
Strategy
“The implementation was so smooth, we were actually blown away!” recalls Engh. “We had done several implementations before ExpenseConnect, and most systems live up to 80% of their promises,” she explains. “But Wipfli delivered on everything they told us they could do, and it was really fast.” Engh and her team found ExpenseConnect easily configurable—and the process on their end was simple, since Wipfli was very responsive and ensured AtTask was exhibiting best practices as they set up their new system. In terms of customization, Engh says she can’t imagine other solutions being as flexible as ExpenseConnect has been for AtTask. “Wipfli was very willing to customize the solution for us so it would function exactly how we wanted it to,” she says. “And we’ve seen the most value added with the billable expense piece they developed to meet our specific needs. When an expense report is marked as billable in Concur, it hits as an expense payable in Intacct and an invoice is created automatically—saving my team so much time.”
And time-savings is the most tangible benefit Engh credits to ExpenseConnect. “What used to take 6-8 hours each week in manual data entry now takes us literally 20 minutes with ExpenseConnect,” she says, estimating it would take two to three people to handle the expense report volume they’ve attained since implementing the system. “Plus, with the training Wipfli gave me, it’s so easy for me to go in to the backend of the system and make small data mapping changes myself—and I’m an accountant, not a developer!”
Additionally, with the vast amount of minable data ExpenseConnect transfers from Concur to Intacct, AtTask’s accounting team now has enhanced capability to provide important metrics to senior executives at their monthly budget meetings. “Travel and expense spend is sensitive to executives,” Engh contends, “so they want visibility into that. The information that comes across the system is helpful to us. It’s easy to explain where the numbers are coming from.”
Key requirements included:
• Load Concur expense reports directly into the Intacct general ledger
• Automatically create invoices for any billable expenses in their employee’s report
• Avoid manipulating data files and manual work
Key challenges included:
• Seamlessly integrate expense data from Concur to Intacct while accommodating their need to add billable expenses to Intacct as individual sales orders.
Benefits:
Now, AtTask has cloud based integration between Concur and Intacct, and implemented an extension to fit their specific business workflow to enable Intacct to automatically generate invoices when an expense is marked as billable in Concur. Staff has seen a significant time savings due to elimination of manual processing and now have the ability to make small changes to system data mapping without development know-how. In addition, enhanced business intelligence capabilities bring new visibility to executive budget reviews.
