Expense management born in the cloud, designed for NAV
Why "born in the cloud" matters
Paperless expenses
Zetadocs Expenses is the latest addition to the popular and successful Zetadocs for NAV suite of business process add-ons, designed to streamline finance teams’ paper-based processes. Most companies use some combination of spread sheets, paper and email to manage their expenses, but it’s now well understood that this is a process that benefits enormously from using newer technology that is now widely available and accepted.
Today’s business world: flexible working, mobile devices and the cloud
Smartphone apps and ubiquitous access to the cloud have set users’ IT demands skyrocketing. When the iPhone came out in 2007, it was truly difficult to get business data on your phone.
How things have changed!
Equisys’ first “born in the cloud” solution was Zetadocs Payables Approval, which enables on screen approval of documents such as purchase invoices. It makes life easier for managers on the move as approvals cease being just an office-based exercise. It means greater visibility of approval processes for finance teams and less chasing to keep suppliers paid and happy.
However, the management of staff travel and entertainment expenses, has been – and still is – a predominantly paper-based process.
Easier expenses
Zetadocs Expenses offers a mobile app that enables smartphone users to snap photos of receipts, and submit them to a cloud service for online approval. Since the processing of expenses involves workflows between mobile employees, project or line managers and the office-based finance team, Zetadocs Expenses can help identify and remove bottlenecks. It manages these workflows on screen, where all users have access anytime, anywhere to the same information – whether they are using computers, tablets or phones. Finally, approved expenses are input into the ERP software for reimbursement. This can be done “over the air” to help eliminate any rekeying of data.
Born in the cloud
The beginning of this technological maelstrom was the launch of the iPhone in 2007, but at its heart today is the cloud. More and more companies are choosing to consume IT from the cloud, opting for the convenience of having their IT managed for them and the flexibility cloud services can offer. Microsoft’s unveiling of Dynamics 365 this week acknowledges this trend. The term “born in the cloud” refers to a type of cloud service that does not involve legacy systems, but was designed only for cloud delivery. Components that mark a service as “born in the cloud” involve the benefits of the cloud, such as:
- Rapid elasticity
- On-demand availability
- Anytime and anywhere access
But why is this important for you in your choice of supplier?
Paperless expenses
Today, being productive while on the go is top of many IT managers’ agenda. This, coupled with users’ skyrocketing expectations of what technology can do means that it is widely acknowledged that users’ demands are moving more quickly than a business can satisfy on its own. Quite simply, businesses now need IT to move faster than it’s possible to achieve with in-house systems. Cloud helps solve this new challenge.
Using Zetadocs Expenses, expense management can now be on the go, from any device, at any time. There are three unique benefits of choosing a born in the cloud solution for expense management:
- Cloud delivery can help simplify purchase decisions
Cloud solutions are easier to roll out and can be delivered with ease with simple setup. A smaller footprint in the host application such as NAV reduces the implementation risk, but also facilitates trials. Subscription based pricing can make solutions more affordable and offers flexibility, with users being able to opt in or out easily.
- Being born in the cloud facilitates connectivity with other cloud services
Other cloud services, such as Power BI can be consumed easily through use of web services and OData, which also enable seamless integration with an ERP system such as NAV, often without the need to reconfigure company firewalls. Born in the cloud, Zetadocs Expenses supports NAV, however it is used:
- On Azure
- On premises
- On Dynamics 365 next
- Future proof
Since customers’ needs change fast, it’s better to choose a solution that can grow with you. A born in the cloud service is managed for you, mean software updates happen automatically, making it much simpler to keep pace with changes in customer requirements.
Painless upgrades
Since we launched it in the UK in July, there have been three further updates to the Zetadocs Expenses service, fulfilling our promise we made at launch. As a cloud service, we are able to add and improve features regularly, making most enhancements available without any need to update anything in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
Our coming soon page, lists the areas we are working on next.
Learn more
If you’re visiting Directions EMEA in Prague this week, make sure you drop into our ISV session at 2.30pm on Thursday. Learn how Zetadocs Expenses handles expense capture and approval on the go, creating purchase orders automatically in NAV to record expense detail. Company expense policies get enforced effortlessly, and time gets saved at every stage.
If you can’t make the slot, we’ll be repeating the session in our webinar on Tuesday 18th October and you can register here.