Heineken UK: Expenses processing with a distributed sales force

Overview
Heineken recently set up a UK office to manage the introduction of Premium International 5% Heineken. A key aspect of resuming the responsibility for the Heineken brand in the UK was the development of an efficient sales and distribution infrastructure.

The accounts department at Heineken began the search for an appropriate expenses solution to address the needs of a freshly recruited sales team. 

The problem for Heineken lay in the obvious inefficiency in manual paper-based or spreadsheet systems where the data was being captured twice. The accounts department coped well in the beginning as re-keying the data was fine while the UK operation was in the start-up phase. However, as the company began to grow rapidly it was realised that either the accounts department would have to expand, or a more efficient solution to the processing of expenses would have to be found.

Selecting a solution
After researching and looking at available options, Heineken chose the WebExpenses solution because it was user friendly for both end user and accounts staff, with a simple and logical layout, and WebExpenses offered excellent post implementation support.

Other reasons for selecting the WebExpenses solution included the fact that account codes and categories could be set by the user company, it was accessible for remote users, reports could be easily formatted for upload by other systems such as SAP and Excel, and, last but not least, it was competitively priced. The Senior Financial Accountant at Heineken UK commented:

"Our expectations have been met. The implementation was simple and trouble free. First time users have been impressed, not least when the first expense reports they submit can be approved within 15 minutes."

Cost saving benefits
For Heineken, the key benefits derive from the fact that although the sales team is based in multiple locations throughout the country, employees can log in from any location to submit claims knowing that their line managers can approve these immediately, thus facilitating a very short payment cycle. Heineken commented:

"The cost savings through time-savings are phenomenal. In addition to the time saving benefits for the salespeople and their line managers, we have saved time in the finance department by eliminating tedious data capture and the correspondence that previously resulted from data errors."

"The error factor has almost been eliminated."

Improved forecasting
The high level of functionality in the reports allows data to be viewed at each stage of the claim cycle, allowing Heineken to produce accruals, weeks before data is reflected in SAP. Heineken commented:

"This allows for very accurate budgeting of travel related costs."

The office version
As soon as users were familiar with the online version, Heineken introduced the offline version to mobile employees to allow them to submit claims when not connected to the Internet. Heineken commented on the success of the introduction of the offline version:

"The offline version was very well received. We didn’t hear any negative comments, which makes it a great success from our finance department perspective."

Interface to SAP
A separately developed interface captures all the relevant data from WebExpenses and posts it automatically within SAP. Heineken commented:

"The data transfer process from a WebExpenses download to an uploaded completed BACS file takes only 15 minutes."

Conclusion
Heineken has no hesitation in recommending WebExpenses:

"From our perspective the product is fantastic. It’s many times simpler and more effective than our previous process and to return to Excel spreadsheets would feel like a return to the Jurassic age."

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