How Innovative Systems Reduced Month-End Close by 3 Days with Sage Expense Management

Innovative Systems develops software that helps independent service providers manage operations, deliver modern network services, and reduce operating costs. With employees traveling for sales meetings, training, and customer engagements, managing expenses efficiently is essential to maintaining financial visibility and control.

As the company prepared for future growth, Amanda Schelske, Senior Finance Manager, recognized that they needed to standardize expense management.

The Challenges

Multiple Processes Across the Organization

Innovative Systems ran two different processes depending on the team. The sales group used Concur, while developers and trainers, handed in paper receipts that finance staff processed manually.

This made it difficult to apply consistent standards for reporting and approvals company wide.

Time Spent Chasing Receipts

Receipts were often scattered across inboxes, making it difficult to locate the documentation. As a result, the team spent significant time following up with employees and manually piecing together card activity each month.

Limited Visibility into Spending

As Innovative Systems grew, the team needed stronger reporting capabilities and a clearer view of expenses across departments and projects.

The Transformation

Innovative Systems wanted to build a scalable process that could support future growth.

They needed:

• One consistent expense process for all employees
• A way to capture and reconcile corporate card transactions
• A direct integration with Sage Intacct
• Visibility into spend by project and department

After evaluating multiple options, Sage Expense Management stood out for its ease of use and seamless integration.

Streamlined Corporate Card Management

With Sage Expense Management’s direct integration with VISA and American Express, transactions are pulled directly into the platform automatically, ensuring up-to-date visibility on spend across 200+ cards. This shift enabled the team to reduce credit card reconciliation time to under 1 minute per receipt, compared to 2 days previously.

Faster Reimbursements with ACH

With Sage Expense Management, the finance team has created a faster reimbursement experience for employees.

Approximately 80% of expense reports are approved within 24 hours , helping keep reimbursements moving and reducing delays.

Policy Enforcement That Scales with Growth

Expense policies are built into the process. Required receipts, spending thresholds, and approval workflows are automatically enforced, helping managers address exceptions quickly.

Employees now follow the same expense procedures regardless of department, making it easier to maintain compliance and oversight.

A Connected Accounting Workflow

Coded expenses now sync directly into Sage Intacct, eliminating the manual re-entry that used to follow every report.

Month-end close now takes 3 less days than before Sage Expense Management.

The Outcome

Today, Innovative Systems has a more consistent way to manage expenses across the organization.

Employees can submit and code expenses more easily, managers can review and approve spending faster, and finance has greater visibility into company-wide expenses.