How Event Ready Cut Expense Approval Times to Under a Day

Event Ready LLC is a Broadcasting Support Services company with 10 employees, providing on-site logistics for major sports broadcasters like CBS and Fox Sports.

With employees constantly on the go, Finance Manager Tyler Jackson needed a better way to manage employee expenses.

The Challenges

Receipt Tracking

Managing a broadcasting crew entailed daily expenses, including flights, hotels, fuel, Uber's, rentals, and more. One of the biggest pain points was handling the flood of receipts during work travel, often resulting in missing or incomplete entries.

Budget Overruns

The finance team lacked a clear view of how much was being spent per project, leading to budget overruns.

Manual Reconciliation

With 10 American Express cards, a couple of fuel cards, and 45 Capital One Spark cards, manually reconciling expenses used to take 10 hours every month.

Slow Approval Process

Employees submitted receipts via Dext, but there was no way to track the approval status. The lack of visibility in the approval process made it hard to enforce company policies.

Lack of Integration with QuickBooks Online

Each month, the team had to compile data from bank statements, categorize it, and import it into QuickBooks Online, a tedious process that made it difficult to close the books on time.

The Transformation with Sage Expense Management (formerly Fyle)

The lack of oversight meant Event Ready LLC risked going over client budgets. The team was looking for a solution that could:

• Help with easy reconciliation
• Alert employees when spending limits are exceeded
• Create a structured approval process
• Offer a mobile-first approach for receipt capture
• Seamlessly push expenses to QuickBooks Online

After evaluating multiple options, Sage Expense Management stood out for its ease of use.

No More Lost Receipts

Event Ready's employees now use the mobile app to submit receipts on the go. Filing expenses is as easy as taking a photo with the app. The OCR automatically extracts details like merchant name, amount, and date and matches it with the correct transaction, making reconciliation effortless.

Approval Times Cut to < 1 Day

Approvers can view, edit, approve, or send back expense reports with a single click.

Automated Reconciliation

Each month, Tyler's team uploads bank statements in CSV format into Sage Expense Management, enabling them to instantly match receipts to transactions and catch any transactions that slip through.

Enhanced Visibility into Spending

With customizable expense reports, the team can mirror job codes and projects as categories in the system.

Employees can tag expenses to specific projects using a drop-down menu when filing expense reports.

Policy Enforcement

Tyler and his team can also set up custom expense policies – for example, a maximum daily limit on a category or the ability to mandate receipts above a certain amount.

Additionally, with Sage Expense Management's AI Powered Copilot, the team can ask a query to identify non-compliant expenses or track spending trends.

Seamless Integration with QuickBooks Online

Once approved, expenses get auto-pushed to QuickBooks Online. Month-end close now takes 1 day instead of 3 before Sage Expense Management.

The Outcome

With Sage Expense Management, Event Ready LLC has streamlined its process, reclaiming valuable time.