American Express is to roll-out to corporate card customers a Web-based expense reporting and reconciliation tool initially developed for internal use by IBM.
The new application will be marketed by AmEx as part of its American Express @ Work suite of online expense management tools and hosted by IBM.
The system automates employees' expense reporting and reconciliation processes, eliminating the need to manually obtain signature approval and review corporate policy.
American Express plans to offer two distinct modules, one for reporting travel and miscellaneous business expenses, the other for reconciling corporate purchases. The software automatically inserts relevant expense data into employees' expense reports and purchasing reconciliations forms from their Corporate Cards and Corporate Purchasing Cards. Users will be able to review the data via the American Express Web site.
Ralph Senst, vice president, e-business collaboration solutions for IBM, explains: "We invented the expense reporting solution to help reduce the hassle of reporting expenses for our own employees and avoid the costs associated with processing them."
The service will be rolled out to American Express corporate card and corporate purchasing card clients in the second quarter of 2002. Pilot tests are currently underway.