Expenses Solutions for Medium-sized Organisations

Company overview

Honister Capital is a private investment company, which owns a number of businesses that provide services to independent financial advisors and their clients as well as directly to consumers. In 2009, Honister Capital acquired the principal Advisory and Direct Businesses of The Money Portal Limited – a transaction that makes it Britain’s leading independently owned financial advisory group. Honister Capital now owns the independent financial advisory businesses Burns-Anderson, Sage Financial Services and the direct to consumer business Willis Owen.

Expenses software for a multi-faceted company

Honister Capital employs the largest group of independently managed financial advisors in the UK. Consequently it has an extensive policy on what employees can claim as expenses. On average, the company deals with approximately 130 individual expense claims a month and company directors each use a corporate credit card.

Prior to the implementation of the WebExpenses solution, all expenses were processed manually on an Excel spread sheet. This antiquated system was prone to errors such as lost information, sometimes leading to employees not being paid correctly or on time. A lot of time was wasted by checking the claims, splitting out the VAT and inputting all the data.

When I joined Honister, one of my priorities was to find a better way of dealing with expenses. I researched the market and found WebExpenses. Their website was very helpful and informative as it allowed me to find out a lot about how they worked without the need to deal with a pushy salesperson. I looked at other options and narrowed it down to WebExpenses and one other company, which we invited to present to us so that we could gain an in-depth look at how each system worked.

We needed a software solution that would work across the whole group. WebExpenses suggested its multi-company access facility but we didn’t feel the need. Instead we set up the different companies as separate departments within the system and it works brilliantly. The great thing about WebExpenses is, you can make it as complex or as simple as you want it to be.

Ultimately we chose WebExpenses because the solution they offer is so easy to use and clear.

Ken Wotherspoon, Group Cost Accountant, Honister Capital

How WebExpenses works for Honister Capital

The introduction of the WebExpenses solution has reduced the amount of time spent on processing expenses from two weeks to just two days a month. This includes payment of expenses and extra time allowed for the Group Cost Accountant to analyse the data in order to compile company reports and board information packs.

Previously, information was inputted differently each month and there was no continuity. The new system enables the analysis of data more effectively. For example, it is now possible to go into the system and bring up a whole year’s worth of claims for an individual, which can be split down by mileage etc.

It also allows the company to control and enforce policy on what can be claimed. For example, mileage claims are now a lot more accurate with the WebExpenses mileage verification tool, which uses postcode data to provide precise distance calculations for every business journey instead of relying on employees’ rough approximations of what was the most direct route.

Since January, Honister Capital has been focusing on costs and the WebExpenses software has facilitated that too. Now it’s easy to see where the company is spending money and where cost-savings may be made. The ability to design its own reports according to tax or financial year for example or by person or expenses code, gives the company a clear and accurate picture. It has also helped the company to clamp down on excessive claimants while also vindicating those that are accurate.