U.S. Bank Introduces Electronic Expense Reporting Tool for Mid-Sized Companies

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--U.S. Bank is introducing an electronic expense reporting tool for mid-size companies that allows employees to easily manage travel expenses online while enabling travel managers to better track spending patterns and identify savings opportunities. U.S. Bank Expense Management is simple to learn, easy to use, and is perfect for companies with revenues from $25 million to $500 million -- a market that has been historically underserved.

“Instead of knowing only the total company expenditure on airlines tickets, for example, the procurement officer can know what the company spends with each individual airline and then use that data to negotiate more favorable pricing with airlines, hotel chains, car rental companies and travel service providers”

"Most mid-sized companies still use manual or paper-based expense reporting systems," said Jeff Rankin, senior sales and marketing officer at U.S. Bank Corporate Payment Systems. “They see the savings captured by larger companies through automated expense reporting and want to the same opportunity. But managing travel expenses is often a part-time responsibility at companies this size, so they need a system that’s simple to use and easy to manage – which describes U.S. Bank Expense Management perfectly.”

U.S. Bank Expense Management offers benefits for the traveler, the travel program administrator and the procurement manager alike:

• Travelers get a time-saving tool that automatically posts all their U.S. Bank commercial or corporate card purchases into an online account, so they can submit accurate expense reimbursement requests fast, from anywhere – including web-enabled mobile devices.
• Managers and travel program administrators get the ability to quickly approve traveler expenses and ensure they comply with company policy.
• Procurement professionals get to see exactly where the travel dollars are going.

"Instead of knowing only the total company expenditure on airlines tickets, for example, the procurement officer can know what the company spends with each individual airline and then use that data to negotiate more favorable pricing with airlines, hotel chains, car rental companies and travel service providers," explained Kurt Adams, senior vice president of strategy and product at U.S. Bank Corporate Payment Systems. “Additionally, U.S. Bank Expense Management can help ensure employees use these preferred providers.”

U.S. Bank Expense Management is simple to use. Because it delivers its services directly to employees via the Internet, it does not require information technology (IT) resources or time-consuming training. It complements other U.S. Bank tools, such as the U.S. Bank One Card and Access Online, the award-winning card program management system.

Much recent evidence points to the value of converting to electronic expense reporting (EER). The Aberdeen group has found that enterprises still processing expense reports manually spend more than twice what those with fully automated reporting systems spend to process each expense report (as noted in their Expense Management Automation: Process Efficiency, Greater Visibility, executive summary, Feb. 2007). In addition, a study by the Richard Palmer & Mahendra Gupta Research Corporation found that EER reduced the time needed to process an expense report by 40 percent, the time between submission and reimbursement by 27 percent and the cost of processing by 58 percent (taken from the 2009 Corporate Travel Card Benchmark Survey Results, p. 160).

After testing the product with a select group of customers in spring 2010, U.S. Bank is now launching the program throughout the United States and Canada. Anyone interested in learning more is asked to contact a bank representative at 866-274-5898 or www.usbpayment.com.

U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), with $283 billion in assets as of June 30, 2010, is the parent company of U.S. Bank, the fifth largest commercial bank in the United States. The company operates 3,002 banking offices in 24 states and 5,309 ATMs and provides a comprehensive line of banking, brokerage, insurance, investment, mortgage, trust and payment services products to consumers, businesses and institutions. Visit U.S. Bancorp on the web at www.usbank.com.