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If small and midsize business have learned anything over the past two years, it is that agility is critical to staying flexible in the face of change. Whether your organization is just getting back to prepandemic levels or is experiencing major growth, the old way of doing business is no longer an option. From a finance perspective, that means maintaining tight control over cash flow while also providing your people with the tools they need to function in the new hybrid work environment.

With SAP ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ solutions, organizations like yours are connecting all types of spend ¨C from travel and expenses to vendor invoicing ¨C and gaining insight across every category, department, location, and individual. Plus, by making the entire spend management process digital, they are supporting their entire workforce with automated and intelligent processes that can be executed from anywhere.

Take The Tech Interactive, a family-friendly science and technology museum in San Jose, California. As the controller for this nonprofit organization, Brandon Lewke must ensure that every budget dollar is tracked and that donations are correctly applied to the programs they are intended to support. ¡°In some way, shape, or form,¡± he says, ¡°all the money that comes in has got to go through me.¡± But his team still had issues with invoice coding and routing, which involved manually tracking approvals. ¡°It used to take hours over a couple of days,¡± he explains, ¡°and it all had to happen onsite.¡± Working for a tech-focused museum in the heart of Silicon Valley, Lewke knew there had to be a better way.

This is led The Tech Interactive to SAP ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ solutions.

With the ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ Expense and ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ Invoice solutions, approval workflows are preset and expense reports and vendor invoices are automatically routed from one approver to the next. ¡°We¡¯ve saved a lot of that manual running around and headache,¡± Lewke explains.

Spend visibility has also improved. ¡°Now, an individual can log in and get a digital copy of all of their expenses saved in the cloud,¡± he continues. ¡°Plus, you can do it on your phone or computer.¡±

The ability to manage spend from anywhere was a huge plus when the pandemic hit. ¡°It was not a pleasant time to be in a hands-on science museum,¡± says Lewke. To meet the challenge, The Tech Interactive pivoted to a digital strategy that actually allowed it to reach more kids in more schools well beyond San Jose, which meant a whole new type of budget. But, says Lewke, ¡°having SAP ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ solutions already up and running meant we didn¡¯t need to reinvent financial processes.¡±

Looking forward, Lewke and his team anticipate a smooth transition to the new world of remote work. ¡°We¡¯ve realized that not everything has to happen onsite. I think we¡¯ll start seeing a more flexible workforce ¨C and having SAP ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ solutions is going to help us manage that.¡±

As we learn to adapt to new health and safety protocols, more companies are getting their sales teams back on the road, in the air, and to the customer site. This is especially true for Wisconsin-based WB Manufacturing LLC, which designs and builds cabinets, lockers, casework, and mobile furniture for businesses and organizations across North America.

¡°We¡¯re anticipating doubling our sales in the next three years, so we'll have more team members needing to travel and get reimbursed on their expenses,¡± says the company¡¯s controller, John Adleman. ¡°We needed to scale that without adding a lot of additional overhead and complexity.¡± To make this possible, WB Manufacturing turned to SAP ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ solutions.

Adleman and his team worked with a coach from the SAP ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ solution team, participating in an activation workshop and talking with other customers. ¡°We walked through each module, got hands-on guidance, bounced ideas off each other, and learned some best practices from other companies using the solution,¡± he explains.

From the first meeting until everything was up and running, WB Manufacturing was fully operational with the ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ Travel and ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ Expense solutions in less than three months. And after just one day of training, key members of the sales team were already submitting expense reports.?

¡°This is the third travel and expense system I¡¯ve worked with,¡± says Adelman, ¡°and it has been the most user friendly and straightforward. If you need to put together a travel and entertainment program, take a look at SAP ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ solutions. The return on investment is amazing.¡±
To find out more about how The Tech Interactive and WB Manufacturing are staying agile and supporting growth with digital spend management, check out these videos:

The Tech Interactive

WB Manufacturing

Then visit us to find out what SAP ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ solutions can do for you.