International consulting involves processing a fair amount of expense claims

Eraneos is an international management and technology consultancy firm that helps companies develop their digital future. The company's name means new era (which is a combination of era and neos - new), which perfectly reflects its activities. Its advisors and engineers help change and improve organisations with the aim of achieving sustainable growth and a lasting impact.

In the Netherlands, the firm employs more than 250 people. Formerly known as Quint, it has been operating in this country for more than 30 years. Eraneos is regarded as one of the Netherlands' top consultancy firms. It specialises in many different areas: from agile and IT strategy to sourcing and data science.

Being in international consultancy, of course, involves frequent travelling and staff incurring the necessary business expenses. Those expenses need to be claimed. We spoke with Norbert van Oosterhout, Director Operations & Finance, about the expense claim process and how ICS business credit cards make things easier.

Developments within Eraneos in the field of travel

Van Oosterhout has several responsibilities at Eraneos. He is, for example, ultimately responsible for the company's finances. He also manages the Finance team and supports the Assistant Controller by providing assistance as and when necessary.

Headquartered in Switzerland, the consultants of Eraneos travel widely. A fairly strict policy is in place for contractual purchases. But what about having a cup of coffee with a customer en route? In theory, everyone at the company can do so. The ICS business credit cards are often used for this type of expenditure.

During COVID-19, Eraneos employees travelled a lot less, which in turn led to fewer business payments being made on the way.

Transfer to ICS gives real-time access to employee business expenses

Eraneos wanted to switch over from American Express to using Mastercard. Because it banked at ABN AMRO, International Card Services was a logical choice.

Since the end of COVID-19, the company's Dutch employees have started travelling more. Payments during these trips are now usually made using an ICS business credit card.

Van Oosterhout: "Many of our colleagues now have an ICS Mastercard. But we do see that people sometimes still use their own means of payment and then claim the expenses via an automated system in Odoo. That's our ERP. Everyone is free to do so, although we do insist that expenses in the Netherlands that are subject to VAT must be invoiced." A cup of coffee on the way has no deductible VAT, so it is often paid for by credit or debit card. This is to keep our VAT records watertight.

Norbert van Oosterhout will issue an ICS credit card to colleagues who need it. For example, because they are often abroad or run up a lot of business expenses.

The biggest advantage of using ICS credit cards is that all expenses can be viewed directly, because they are connected to Odoo. This provides a complete and real-time overview so that the finance department is not faced with any surprises.

Saving time for cardholders and simplifying administrative checks

Using this system, Norbert van Oosterhout not only automatically sees which expenses have been incurred by his colleagues, but also what is still missing.

"Before, I'd tell people who had made credit card payments to enter them neatly in the system. Whereas now I can instantly see which expenses have been incurred and whether any receipts are still missing. Checking this is now much easier for us."

Van Oosterhout does not want to say anything firm about the cost savings because the work is highly varied. Van Oosterhout: "What I can say is that colleagues who have got a card are very happy with the system. It saves them a lot of typing, which for some is a repetitive exercise that keeps them from their regular work. With 250 employees, I expect we're saving quite a bit of time."

Moreover, using ICS business credit cards also helps keep the company's financial records up to date. Van Oosterhout: "When paying with credit cards, we know exactly how much has been spent in real time. When people claim manually, I only know what has been spent when it is claimed. Sometimes this happens a year later, which results in costs being allocated to the wrong period."

Aside from that, Van Oosterhout also praises the ease of use for cardholders. They no longer have to use their own funds when using an ICS credit card to make a business payment. So there are plenty of reasons to continue working with this system in the future.