What is it about T&E automation that drives cost savings for my company? Is it all just about lower back office processing effort? (Webinar Attendee Question)

It is that, but depending on the back-office automation, rules can be set in place that make management aware of trends, both positive and negative.

It is also an excellent tool for mitigating fraud abuse (negative side).

For us it was time spent creating reports since we have consultants traveling around the world and there were always questions and numerous edits post-travel because of the complex reporting (multi-currency, unknown vendors, cash advances etc.)

Another area we struggled with was double (sometimes triple) entry of data in multiple systems/projects. We had our accounting folks spend hours each week entering and reconciling T&E data which was a complete waste of time.

We started using Gorilla Expense and so far these areas are under much better control. They have integrated our systems with T&E and we are definitely seeing savings.

Where YOU will see cost savings really depends on how mature & complex your T&E processes are. Like Wayne mentions, expense fraud is another area.

In addition to the points Wayne made above, we used the trend analyses to pinpoint spend weaknesses and negotiate best "last room available" hotel rates and airfare bonus ticketing.