The Mushroom Group Drives Efficiencies With Expense Automation

Founded in 1972 by Michael Gudinski, The Mushroom Group began life with the formation of Mushroom Records and Mushroom Music Publishing. The Group now incorporates international and domestic touring, booking agencies, artist and talent management, record labels, music publishing, merchandising, creative and marketing services, venues, exhibition and event production, film and podcast production and more.

Why SAP Concur?

• Improved data accuracy and transfer between SAP Concur solution and ERP (SAP ByDesign)
• Credit card transaction feed integration between SAP Concur solutions and bank
• Easier spend approvals, expense type coding and intercompany allocations
• Improved project reporting and data insights to support decision-making

"Concur Travel, Concur Expense and Concur Invoice are really a one-stop-shop for business users on the move, who need to process claims and invoices efficiently, all while enjoying the convenience of third-party apps like UBER, Yodlee & TripIt'

Candice Thomason, Head of Business Intelligence and Data at The Mushroom Group

The Mushroom Group case study

For The Mushroom Group's Candice Thomason, Head of Business Intelligence and Data, the move to Concur Expense has improved the organisation's visibility of spend and enhanced employee experience, while also offering an improved interface for seamless integration with their ERP, SAP ByDesign.

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Looking to Expense Automation for Transparency and Efficiency

The Group is a growing company, with an increasing volume of transactions and a limited amount of human resource to support the expense management process. The organisation required a solution that could support a complex workflow structure and policy compliance.

The organisation was looking for an expense solution that would allow greater transparency on expenses, as well as timeous delivery to better support decision making, and an expense management system that would integrate with their employee’s credit cards.

Candice Thomason, Head of Business Intelligence and Data at The Mushroom Group explains, “We were looking for a solution that could offer efficiencies, and enhanced reporting, along with third-party app integration that could help with Uber, both business and personal Uber accounts. Reporting has also been a huge metric for us during our transformation. We were looking for a solution with a robust and mature catalogue of reports, that require little to no customisation.”

Concur Expense and Employee Experience

The implementation of Concur Expense has been a game-changer for The Group’s employees. Concur Expense has helped control spending by keeping expenditure within company policies while simplifying the expense reimbursement process. The integration of the organisation’s corporate credit card feed into Concur Expense reduced the lead time of card holders reconciling cards, while the Expense Assistant function and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) have considerably reduced the amount of manual intervention required.

“The hassle of managing expenses used to eat up a significant chunk of our time,” said Thomason. “With Concur Expense, we find ourselves spending less time on paperwork and more time on meaningful The Group is a growing company, with an increasing volume of transactions and a limited amount of human resource to support the expense management process. The organisation required a solution that could support a complex workflow structure and policy compliance. 4 | 6 Case study: Mushroom Group tasks. The process is much smoother, and we no longer need to worry about keeping track of paper receipts. The best part is the improved employee experience. Navigating through the system is a breeze, and submitting expense reports is no longer a dreaded task. This change has brought a sense of relief and satisfaction to our daily work lives. Reimbursements are processed faster. It’s evident that the organisation is investing in tools that make our professional lives easier and more fulfilling.”

“The cost savings are quite apparent. The reduction in manual processing has not only saved time but also reduced the risk of errors. It’s impressive to see how much paper usage we’ve eliminated, aligning with our sustainability goals.”

Data Integration with ERP (SAP ByDesign) and Credit Card Feeds

The organisation was looking to improve data accuracy and transfer for both ERP and credit card feeds. In 2021, The Group implemented a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution, SAP ByDesign. The Group’s existing expense management tool did not support an API connection with SAP ByDesign, forcing the organisation to ‘bridge’ their broken process with a manual export. Thomason explains, “99% of the time the export loaded with multiple exceptions due to our complex structure. This cost us many hours of development, testing and processing. It was not a light touch.”

“Since we are multiple companies that often work in synergy on projects, our staff often would require the option to allocate costs to another company within the group, there is no formal logic on who can allocate where, which posed some challenges for our legacy EMS tool,” said Thomason.

The onus was falling on the accounts payable team to seek approval at the payment stage instead of approval being sought at the submission stage. This not only caused a delay in processing, and impacted project reporting and cash flow, it also impacted timely reimbursements. “In some cases, business managers couldn’t fully own their results as they had no control over the allocations they were receiving until they were reading them in their result,” said Thomason.

SAP Concur offered The Group an interface with their ERP, allowing for a seamless integration with enhanced data accuracy. Project tasks are loaded daily via API, allowing claimants to reconcile quicker, as they no longer have to wait for their projects to appear on the weekly manual upload. Claims are instantly exported to SAP ByDesign via API once approved by the processor. After payment, the status is exported back to concur via API, updating the claim status automatically.

“We have successfully implemented SAP concur with an API that updates our approved claims for payment every 30 minutes. We have a cost object approver workflow model which empowers the business managers and saves the finance team time,” said Thomason.

Additionally, the team didn’t have the ability to integrate their credit card feeds, resorting to manually uploading credit card transactions each month. “This led to delays in the cards being reconciled and manually loading card transactions exposed us to risk,” said Thomason. “We were always playing catch up. We now have daily card feeds, which allow for virtually instant credit card transaction reconciliation.”

Leveraging Expense Data for Improved Decision-Making

The Group were looking for a solution that would allow the organisation greater transparency on expenses as well as timeous delivery to support decision making

“Reporting has been a huge metric for us during our transformation,” said Thomason. “Having a product with a robust and mature catalogue of reports, that require little to no customisation was also something we really needed.”

The organisation was able to customise the configuration to include their project coding, providing them with better visibility of spend to budget and supporting the decision-making process more efficiently. Furthermore, data insights provided by Concur Expense have opened new doors, with access to clear and comprehensive reports empowering the organisation to allocate resources more effectively.

“We have reporting that is more accurate and better supports decision making. We have improved our FBT reporting and compliance. The capacity for finance to truly partner with the business, providing information which is up to date and accurate. We have bridged the gap between result and advisory reporting,” said Thomason.

"We have reporting that is more accurate and better supports decision making. We have improved our FBT reporting and compliance."

Candice Thomason, Head of Business Intelligence and Data at The Mushroom Group

Looking to the future: Invoice Automation and Third-Party Apps

The Group is about to launch AP automation solution, Concur Invoice, aligning with the organisation’s appetite for growth and seasonal demands.

“Concur Invoice will likely be the biggest change to business process we have ever encountered. Much like our expense process, our invoice process adopts many of the complexities, but on a much larger scale and to a wider audience. We are proposing a complete overhaul of our accounts payable processes, to shift resources from manual data entry to query resolution, vendor management, audit and business partnering roles. This will involve a change management programme, that has been softened due to the recent roll out of Concur’s travel & expense solutions,” said Thomason.

The Group is also looking to leverage the Concur App Centre, which helps companies integrate with thirdparty apps, driving smarter, more efficient spend, and make travelling easier for employees.

“Using the applications from partners, like Uber (both business and personal Uber accounts), Trip management using TripIt, and Yodlee, for adding card feeds from other corporate or personal cards, are also game changers for us. While we are yet to fully integrate those applications, we can already see the immense benefit in time savings they will bring,” says Thomason.

"Concur Invoice will likely be the biggest change to business process we have ever encountered. Much like our expense process, our invoice process adopts many of the complexities, but on a much larger scale and to a wider audience."

Candice Thomason, Head of Business Intelligence and Data at The Mushroom Group

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