Enterprise expense control reimbursement management without reimbursement grading standard officially released

In the field of financial digitization, change is taking place.

Recently, iResearch, together with Hesi·E-Express, released the White Paper on Scenario Insights of China’s Expense Control Management Platform (hereinafter referred to as the “White Paper”), which focuses on the refined financial management needs of enterprises, the transformational role of expense control management platforms and industry practices. , and how to move towards a diversified and innovative cost control management platform and other aspects, revealing how to build a “new world of financial intelligence” under the wave of corporate financial digitization.

It is of great significance that in the white paper, the management capability of enterprise expense control and reimbursement does not require the official release of the reimbursement grading standard.

After the launch of the “no reimbursement grading standard”, it will provide enterprises with a measure and reference for reimbursement automation, and provide an optimization path for continuous evolution. Comparing with the “no reimbursement grading standard”, more customer companies and fee control service providers will be clear – “the level we are in”, “the ability we lack”, and “the direction we need to upgrade”. At the same time, it will also help enterprises to dynamically review the effect and output of digital investment, and make decision-making reference for the next stage of digital planning, greatly improving the practical efficiency of enterprise digitalization.

From L1 to L5, how has corporate expense control capabilities evolved?

From the “No Reimbursement Grading Standard”, we can see the evolutionary history of corporate expense control and reimbursement. The iterative leap at each level is to solve a certain pain point, which in turn leads to continuous restructuring of the industry chain.

Wang Chengfeng, research director of iResearch Consulting and head of the SaaS/cloud service industry research department, introduced that there is no need for reimbursement grading standards. Starting from the level of “reimbursement automation”, the company’s expense control capabilities are divided into five stages, L1-L5, and each stage is designed for applications. , consumption, reimbursement, reconciliation, bookkeeping, filing, reporting seven dimensions to distinguish the level of automation.

Simply put, in the L1 manual reimbursement stage, all reimbursement processes are done manually;

In the L2 stage where no reimbursement is required, with the intervention of the electronic system, the good days have begun. Although the entire reimbursement process is still mainly manual, electronic systems have been introduced in some links to assist manual operations. For example, the system can be used to estimate expenses control, etc.;

In the initial stage of L3 without reimbursement, manual operations are further reduced, and the emergence of the embedded integrated consumption platform allows many scenarios to automatically complete the in-process control of consumption orders with the help of digital systems, and some scenarios do not require reimbursement;

At the L4 intermediate level without reimbursement, the core is “full-link automation + four unifications”, unified capital account, unified ticket desk, unified service desk, unified rule master data, and the consumption platform has changed from isolated use to multi-vendor around the scene Aggregate consumption platform to achieve price comparison and purchase on the same screen; labor has been greatly liberated, and most scenarios are automatically completed by digital systems; employees do not need to advance payment or reimbursement for all consumption scenarios on the aggregated consumption platform;

L5 advanced does not require reimbursement stage, and the core of this stage is “full scene + intelligence + wide coverage”. It can be said that it is the “ultimate vision” of enterprise expense control, and it can truly realize “complete” without reimbursement, and it can be widely connected to cover more financial digital ecology.

At the press conference on the no-reimbursement grading standard, Zou Lei, CEO of iResearch, introduced that at present, the leading manufacturers in the field of cost control have entered the era of no-reimbursement. At present, many manufacturers in the industry do not have a comprehensive layout of “no reimbursement”, some advantages lie in the mall, and some lie in cost control management. However, looking at the overall situation, some manufacturers have coordinated efforts to manage cost control and shopping malls to achieve “walking on two legs” and lead the way into the intermediate stage (L4 level) that does not require reimbursement. Advanced non-reimbursement at the L5 level is the ultimate vision of non-reimbursement. Who can take the lead in entering the no-man’s land depends on comprehensive factors such as policies, technology, market environment, the company’s own strategy and the digital needs of customers.

According to Ma Chunquan, founder and CEO of Hesi E-Express, the ultimate level of non-reimbursement is not management and control, but decision-making analysis. For better compliance operations, the best cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, and the ultimate user experience.

How can enterprises embrace the wave of financial digitalization?

Without the introduction of reimbursement grading standards, it will intuitively help companies understand the digital stage of their expense control and reimbursement, dynamically review the effect and output of digital inputs, and make decision-making references for the next stage of digital planning, which greatly saves the digitalization of enterprises. The sunk cost of the input.

Enterprises can cut into financial digital transformation through the grading standard without reimbursement. The advantage is that they can start from serving the business operation of enterprises, promote the integration of business and finance, break down the digital construction of enterprises into parts, and help enterprises better find financial digitalization. Priority entry.

At the same time, the phased construction feature that does not require reimbursement and classification also ensures that enterprises can prioritize construction in scenarios with the highest ROI, reducing decision-making costs and IT construction risks for enterprises.

It can be seen that under the guidance of clear goals and paths without the need for reimbursement grading standards, enterprises will obtain a better “upgrade path”, and digital construction will also avoid many detours.

There is no need for the classification process of reimbursement grading standards, and to a certain extent, the unmanned driving grading method is referred to. In Ma Chunquan’s view, no reimbursement and unmanned driving are the results of the development of digital intelligence, and the logic between the two is very similar.

From the point of view of the digital-intelligence upgrade of traffic driving, there are first road traffic, road network construction and traffic rules, and then traffic lights and police road enforcement based on this system. The method of supervision and punishment has changed from road law enforcement to camera law enforcement, realizing automation; next, the popularization of personal navigators will automatically combine drivers with rules, remind and avoid speeding and violations, and intelligently select driving paths; It will fully integrate and open up the entire road network management system to form a digital and intelligent unmanned driving from the starting point to the end point.

Instead of requiring reimbursement, it integrates pre-budget application, in-process order management, post-reimbursement, bookkeeping, and filing, which were separated in the past, integrates suppliers for enterprise consumption, and uses digital technology to change the reimbursement that was dominated by post-event management and control in the past. Model, which upgrades the management and control to “before” and “in the event”, so that employees’ consumption is subject to digital monitoring of budgets and standards throughout the process, and the repetitive labor of manual participation is completely liberated, and “consumption is compliance, procurement is reimbursement” without the need for reimbursement model. Under this model, employees no longer need to manually memorize budget standards and personal advance reimbursement; finance does not need to manually review and control reimbursement compliance; the system automatically helps companies find the most cost-effective consumer products, which is both efficient and transparent.

The traditional reimbursement model is the pain point of cost control for enterprises. In Ma Chunquan’s view, “traditional reimbursement is firstly time-consuming, and secondly, it does not generate value. No one has a sense of accomplishment because of good reimbursement.” Eliminate redundant nodes in the traditional reimbursement process, greatly compress the cost control management operation, and use digital means to make the company’s cost control truly transform from “after the event” control to “before the event” and “in the event” control. To a certain extent, it can help enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency.

“The need for no reimbursement is the inevitable result of electronic vouchers, online market transactions, and the comprehensive construction of enterprise digitalization. It is believed that in the next 10 years, humans will not need to drive manually, and all companies will also bid farewell to manual reimbursement completely.” Ma Chunquan said.

From process-driven to data-driven, enterprises cannot reduce costs and increase efficiency without “financial digitization”

Under the guidance of no reimbursement grading standard, the key for enterprises to embrace financial digitization is: from process-driven to data-driven. Compared with the past process-driven, data-driven will play a more important value in the financial management of enterprises. Integrating business and financial data to establish a more comprehensive evaluation system for the operating conditions of an enterprise will be the core for modern enterprises to maintain market competition.

How companies transition from “process-driven” to “data-driven” is exactly the pain point of cost control for most companies. The white paper shows that at present, more than 46% of enterprises have an average level of integration of business and finance, and only “part of business data can be connected with the financial system”, and the data connection needs to be improved; More than 10% of corporate financial data still requires a lot of manual input, and business and finance are almost disconnected.

Of course, the needs and solutions for financial digitization across industries should not be “one size fits all”. Faced with the differentiated needs of financial digitization in various industries, cost-controlling companies need to take root in subdivided industries to explore diversified versions and solutions, and quickly iterate according to the real-time needs of the industry. For example, the pharmaceutical industry, software industry, and chain industry listed in the white paper have different cost control pain points and more suitable solutions.

That’s why we should be optimistic about the future. Numerous cases have proved that enterprises that have undergone financial digital transformation have achieved a series of positive changes such as financial system reconstruction, total utility improvement, total cost reduction, and employee happiness index improvement. As stated in the white paper, the essence of financial digital transformation is the automatic flow of data to resolve the uncertainty of complex systems, thereby optimizing resource allocation, improving efficiency, and building a matrix of corporate competitiveness. , Toke logic and other aspects of joint reform.

From the macro level, digital transformation will bring about the improvement of the overall efficiency of society; from the enterprise level, digital transformation conforms to the changes in customer demand for more agile and richer product forms and delivery methods, and the increasingly severe economic situation also makes enterprises Begin to pay attention to “revenue generation” in disguise by reducing costs and improving efficiency.

The white paper points out that the key to enterprise financial digitization lies in the ability to apply new technologies, the ability to transform organizational structures, and the improvement of data analysis and decision-making capabilities. For this reason, by laying a solid digital foundation, enriching digital scenarios, and deepening digital applications, enterprises that have experienced the pain of financial digitalization will enter a new stage of development.