Tom James

Since coming to market in 1966, Tom James has continued to deliver an outstanding tailoring and retail service of bespoke, custom-made suits. However, their internal expenses system was not so tailored, and threads were quickly falling apart at the seam. We had a chance to speak to Simon Herring, Finance Controller for Tom James about how they were managing their expenses before, and how Webexpenses has since helped.

What process was being used for the management of expenses before Webexpenses?

The expenses process was paper and excel based - the expenses that were coming through were a mess, there was no structure. Some expense claims were even handwritten, it was a nightmare for the finance team to manage.

For some of the sales team travelling to different countries, they would include all their expenses into one claim despite them being in different currencies with different tax codes.

What ultimately made you start to look for an expense solution?

The mass of paper that had to be managed and stored, this included the actual receipts too. When I joined Tom James and saw how the process was managed, I saw we needed a solid and automated process - automation is a key area for our business, especially with having offices across the globe.

How was the implementation of Webexpenses?

Tom James required a bespoke system which was exactly what our Webexpenses Implementations Consultant delivered. When the system went live, we had little resistance from areas of the business - the resistance we did receive was just on the changing expenses process.

How much time has been saved for your finance team when managing expenses through Webexpenses?

The time saved has been massive for the team. We no longer have to work through masses of paper and excel sheets with paper receipts having to be stored.

How have you found the customer service support from Webexpenses?

It’s not often we need to contact the support team, but when we do they work on our query quickly.

Which key benefits have Webexpenses brought so far?

We have a broad age range working at Tom James so it’s great users can manage their expenses via the mobile app with the ACR functionality but if they want to, they can also use the desktop version.

If you're interested in finding out more about how we can ensure your expense management system is threaded to the highest of standards, please feel free to get in contact or request a demo.