Journal Home Page

23 December 2008: 2008 in a nutshell

Its fast approaching the end of 2008 and we’re very happy to report a most successful year.

The company has taken on a number of new staff to accommodate the increased number of sales, ensuring implementation and on-going development of the product suites continues to run smoothly.

We also have welcomed three new additions to the future generation, with all 3 mothers and respective children doing well

And most importantly to us, we are taking our company global. We already have interested parties in the US, Canada and Australia and plan to roll-out across the rest of the world throughout 2009.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

15 December 2008: Christmas time… 

Every year there’s amad-panic-rush to find that perfect ‘must-have’ Christmas gift, which inevitably is sold out everywhere! I’m trying to get a Wii Fit for Mrs. Everatt; you may have seen these ‘boards’ that allow you to perform exercises in front of the TV.  Of course there’s a hidden agenda, the Snowboarding game that happens to work with the Wii Fit balance board looks really good…  I have found a supplier of these boards but they seem to want me to pay double the price, outrageous, but I paid.  

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a great festive season, much luck in finding your perfect gift and hope that you have a prosperous 2009.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

01 December 2008: Software as a service ensures a smooth transition

The changes to the VAT rates went live yesterday and I’m pleased to report that as far as our customers were concerned the transition was transparent.  Both expenses2009 and framework2009 use the VAT rate in their logic but as a hosted service we confirmed with our clients that they wanted the new rate applied and made the change for them. 

With our online expenses product the configurability of the solution really came into its own, the intricate design behind the solution ensured that we can now support both old and new rates as claimant’s process their expenses during the transition period. And all this occurred without the need to disrupt our clients workflow.

Just a few years ago a change like this might have required a software vendor to dispatch an update disk, the client to schedule their technical teams to apply the change and then a rigorous testing phase. Whilst the update, change and testing phase still has to be performed, in the world of Software as a Service these are performed for all of our clients at the same time by us, which means the business can continue to do what it does best.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

25 November 2008: The 15% new VAT rate won't affect our customers

At 15:57 on Monday 24th November the expected announcement about a change in the VAT rates were confirmed by a BBC News text message to my mobile.  The rumours about the change in VAT had been bubbling for a number of days, but what we didn’t know was the timeframes involved.  We also didn’t know how the change in the rates would be delivered. 

Whilst we may ponder if the government’s plans to boost the economy through greater spending will work, we plan to do everything in our power to ease our clients through this transition.

Shortly after receiving the text message I made a quick call to our helpdesk to discuss any impact to our clients.  We are going to have a period of time where claimants could be submitting expense claims with items on the old 17.5% rate and the new 15% rate.  Our helpdesk confirmed that our customers would not experience any difficulties during this transition period, the flexibility of expenses2009 was never going to be a problem, and sure enough the attention to detail in the early design stages are now ‘paying dividends’.

We have review meetings planned for today to make sure all of our clients are updated regarding the change, but we also want to go that extra mile and ensure that the claimants are updated so we will be looking at positioning key messages in the expenses2009 application.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

24 November 2008: 19 years of outstanding support

2009 sees us entering our 20th (Platinum) Anniversary year in business. We intend to mark this celebrated occasion through various activities culminating in our expenses2009 and framework2009 user group sessions, which are being held in very grand surroundings during next September.

There are very few providers of online services that can offer a history to match that of Software Europe (providers of framework2009 and expenses2009).  I know my peers provide blogs that cover VAT issues, fraud and other hot topics, and its all very useful information, I find it good reading.  But it barely scratches the surface of the real issues, an understanding of how business’ operate, what clients expect from investing in these online solutions, and who needs to be involved in the project to make it successful.  We’ve done this for 19 years and have provided outstanding service to some of the world’s most prestigious international organisations.

Delivering a unique level of service was the foundation of our business 19 years ago, and it still is today.  We provide 24x7 support for all our products, and it is available to all users, not just the administration team.  To be honest we don’t get many out of hour’s calls, testament to the quality of the software, but support is a ‘life-saver’ for an administrator that wants to know how to configure an urgent new report for their Managing Director.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

12 November 2008: Importance of Duty of Care

We recently had a very interesting meeting with a long term customer recently who described how they use the Duty Of Care features of expenses2009 to manage their corporate responsibilities.  

For those of you who are not too familiar with Duty of Care policy it essentially means that the employer have a legal requirement to ensure all employees have sufficient insurance protection to use their own vehicles for business.  It also means that regular checks should be made to ensure vehicles are roadworthy and that drivers have the correct driving license.  The worst case scenario is if an employee when conducting business related activities has an accident and causes injuries, who then turns out not to be covered for business use on their insurance.  The employer could be deemed liable for not performing sufficient checks and validating their employee’s insurance for business cover. This cover is often provided at no extra cost – check your insurance policy!

This particular customer uses expenses2009 to make sure their employees are up to date with all of their driving documents, from MOT to driving license.  expenses2009 is smart enough to know when documents are due to expire and send email notifications to administrators and employees to let them know that they should be preparing new ones.  In fact, expenses2009 can be configured to stop employees claiming mileage related expenses until replacement documents have been verified by the administration team. 

At the initial implementation of the expenses2009 Duty Of Care modules all employees were asked to provide their documents, before implementation these important checks were not carried out.  Following the request for employees to show their documentation followed an interesting number of incidents: brand new MOT certificates would appear, photocopies of driving licenses would have the points section blanked out and some employees had to seek new insurance that would provide that critical business cover.

This company isn’t one of biggest users but what became clear to them is that whilst many employees may not see the importance of having the correct cover and documentation; it is essential for every business to look at enforcing Duty of Care with some urgency.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

03 November 2008: It’s that time of year again!

Our marketing team came up with a great idea for a Christmas card for this year.

Like most companies we try to do something a little different whilst still respecting the occasion, I think this year they have something really nice that ties in with the festive period very nicely. 

Some of the children of our colleagues have submitted a drawing of Christmas scenes, which the marketing team plan to put onto our Christmas cards for this year.  It seems really appropriate and the results are looking really good.  

And of course, we will be using environmentally friendly resources.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

24 October 2008: Boundaries between fraud and a fair and reasonable claim

Expenses fraud; it’s a tough topic but it does happen and most of us will recall an incident that led to a disciplinary situation.

But where are the boundaries between fraud and a fair and reasonable claim? 

Many years ago I had a colleague who would, after visiting a Little Chef, grab a handful of discarded receipts and use these to boost his subsistence claim.  His downfall was a simple mistake; an eagle eyed expenses administrator noticed he had claimed a lunchtime meal on a Bank Holiday, presumably one of his Little Chef collections…  

One wonders how many claims are passed of this nature due to the workload of the finance team.  expenses2009 has a number of features that aid the finance team to address these issues, date checking is standard, as is a duplicate claim alert.  Using our flagging and exception handling functions we can even check for an annual occurring expense claim.  For example, many companies permit their employees to claim for one eye test per year, expenses2009 automaticity watches for these events and flags them if required. 

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

17 October 2008: Push the boundaries of our support

At a recent meeting with a new framework2009 customer we were pleasantly reminded about how help and support can be a proactive experience.  

To give you some history… many years ago, when expenses2009 and framework2009 were being designed, it was agreed that client support would be at the centre of the experience. I know every company in the world describes their level of support as ‘excellent’, but we all know the truth can be significantly different.  19 years ago our company was formed to service the world of the blue chip mainframe market; these are very demanding organisations and our differentiator was a level of service that was second to none – I believe we excelled in this.  

Fast forward to today and our two software-as-a-service products (expenses2009 & framework2009) are supported with the same approach and commitment to service, but we take an additional step.  

You see, if you are using our solutions and an error is uncovered it ‘phones home’ and reports this to our helpdesk team.  I had a meeting this week with a customer who was amazed to receive an email from our helpdesk explaining that the error they had encountered only a few moments ago was logged and would be reported to the development team.   This is what we believe is true service and we strive to push the boundaries of our support experience, the truth is that sometimes things can go wrong, but its how you deal with them that counts.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

13 October 2008: Improved Mileage Claims

We introduced a new facility in expenses2009 to allow claimants and administrators to check and validate mileage claims.  Upon entering the postcodes of your mileage claims, a quick check is automatically made enabling you to see if the claim figure is accurate. 

You could easily misinterpreted as a 'big brother' attitude, but the truth is this service is as useful to claimants as it is to the expenses processing team.  Claimants who make regular journeys to the same destinations start to 'guess' (or try to recall) the mileage claim and as a contingency tend to add a few miles in case they are incorrect. 

The really clever bit is that expenses2009 remembers your most recent destinations and your top 10 locations visited- this saves claimants a huge amount of time, and for the business ensures accuracy and no accidental over-claims.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

9th October 2008: Ever Evolving Solutions

This month we have continued to evolve our expenses2009 roadmap together with expense’s sister product framework2009: an internet hosted solution for contract management. 

We are looking at where these solutions will be in 5 years time - and we think it is an exciting prospect for our customers. The release of expenses2009 was launched a few weeks ago; it’s a major release and adds some very helpful functionality for those involved in the expenses payment process.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director

6th October 2008: User Group Success!

September saw a good turn-out for our annual User Group. This year it was held near Tower Bridge, in Central London. These meetings are an essential part of our product development process. We also tested new ideas with our existing customers, I can’t give too much away on the new developments but they involve some new technologies that should deliver some great savings and ease of use features that will help our customers.

Plans are already in motion for next years User Group, which we plan to combine with our “20 years in business” anniversary celebrations.

Neil Everatt, Managing Director