Several weeks ago, the expense report nightmare surfaced.
The expense report debacle (in contrast to the nightmare) is when the company you work for changes how it processes expense reports. You have to learn a new system, which means a new system must be properly installed, tested and functioning, which means you’re in for a debacle.
The nightmare is when it gets worse. No longer just an inconvenience, instead, you feel your face heating up, your patience ticking down, and a reaction coming that is laced with anger and frustration.
The nightmare occurs because you can’t figure out what to do. All you want to do is submit your expense report. Do some addition and subtraction, write it down, copy some receipts, sign whatever document is necessary, and wait to get reimbursed.
This has been going on for years in businesses big and small. It’s not hard. People get paid on time.
For some reason, it’s become a regular occurrence to tinker with the nature of the expense report and how it gets submitted. Part of this plays out against the background of a world changed from paper to electronic processing. Employees get that – companies are trying to put efficiencies into the accounts payable program, and the way to do that is to purchase software that does it quickly and seamlessly.
If only “quickly and seamlessly” were the truth. For anyone going through a change in their expense reporting, you know this is not the case.
Instead, “slowly and messed up” is more regularly the case. My agitation over the recent submission was caused the inability of a receipt to be downloaded by the expense report software program. This included:
· Business Technology (BT) personnel took over my computer for over 90 minutes with no discernible fix (my time wasted, their time wasted).
· The next day, another 45 minutes was spent with a higher level of expertise Business Technology person, with no further improvement.
· After modifications were made to my computer, none of which I understood, when I got control back, 50-60 of my bookmarked business Web sites disappeared. Ten to fifteen of those were password sensitive, so you can imagine what it took memory-wise to recreate those. That saga continues.
· 50-60 other people in our building had the same problem.
Given the simple nature of the problem (downloading a scanned receipt), one would think there was a simple solution. It seemed that way to the BT people as they tapped from one location to another, each time acting surprised when their modification didn’t modify anything.
False hope abounded. Each time they tried something new, I thought, “This is it.” Two minutes later, “This time they have to have it right.” And so on.
You have probably been in this boat, so you know the fix isn’t intuitive, or people like you and I could go and make the fix. When it is moved up the chain to BT, there’s no way we could solve it.
But, as also often seems to be the case, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t me that solved it. But it was simple.
I found a coworker in the IT chain of command. He told me he would stop over at my office and knew what to do. He took me to the page. He showed me step one, step two and step three. Click here, then there, then there. Done. The receipt downloaded.
How many people around the building were going nuts, and how much time and psychic energy had been wasted? One step has been missed in the process and everything worked the way it should.
I stopped down the hallway at a coworker’s cube farm, “I heard you were having some trouble downloading your scanned receipts.”
“Yup.”
“Here, let me show you what to do.” And all was good in the office again.
The expense report debacle (in contrast to the nightmare) is when the company you work for changes how it processes expense reports. You have to learn a new system, which means a new system must be properly installed, tested and functioning, which means you’re in for a debacle.
The nightmare is when it gets worse. No longer just an inconvenience, instead, you feel your face heating up, your patience ticking down, and a reaction coming that is laced with anger and frustration.
The nightmare occurs because you can’t figure out what to do. All you want to do is submit your expense report. Do some addition and subtraction, write it down, copy some receipts, sign whatever document is necessary, and wait to get reimbursed.
This has been going on for years in businesses big and small. It’s not hard. People get paid on time.
For some reason, it’s become a regular occurrence to tinker with the nature of the expense report and how it gets submitted. Part of this plays out against the background of a world changed from paper to electronic processing. Employees get that – companies are trying to put efficiencies into the accounts payable program, and the way to do that is to purchase software that does it quickly and seamlessly.
If only “quickly and seamlessly” were the truth. For anyone going through a change in their expense reporting, you know this is not the case.
Instead, “slowly and messed up” is more regularly the case. My agitation over the recent submission was caused the inability of a receipt to be downloaded by the expense report software program. This included:
· Business Technology (BT) personnel took over my computer for over 90 minutes with no discernible fix (my time wasted, their time wasted).
· The next day, another 45 minutes was spent with a higher level of expertise Business Technology person, with no further improvement.
· After modifications were made to my computer, none of which I understood, when I got control back, 50-60 of my bookmarked business Web sites disappeared. Ten to fifteen of those were password sensitive, so you can imagine what it took memory-wise to recreate those. That saga continues.
· 50-60 other people in our building had the same problem.
Given the simple nature of the problem (downloading a scanned receipt), one would think there was a simple solution. It seemed that way to the BT people as they tapped from one location to another, each time acting surprised when their modification didn’t modify anything.
False hope abounded. Each time they tried something new, I thought, “This is it.” Two minutes later, “This time they have to have it right.” And so on.
You have probably been in this boat, so you know the fix isn’t intuitive, or people like you and I could go and make the fix. When it is moved up the chain to BT, there’s no way we could solve it.
But, as also often seems to be the case, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t me that solved it. But it was simple.
I found a coworker in the IT chain of command. He told me he would stop over at my office and knew what to do. He took me to the page. He showed me step one, step two and step three. Click here, then there, then there. Done. The receipt downloaded.
How many people around the building were going nuts, and how much time and psychic energy had been wasted? One step has been missed in the process and everything worked the way it should.
I stopped down the hallway at a coworker’s cube farm, “I heard you were having some trouble downloading your scanned receipts.”
“Yup.”
“Here, let me show you what to do.” And all was good in the office again.