Rising process costs, increased travel activity, and labor shortages are putting finance teams under pressure. At the same time, CFOs expect robust governance, short lead times, and clean data for steering and closing. Expense management, in particular, reveals just how expensive grown manual processes have become.

An anonymized case study from 2026 shows how a medium-sized company used edi and Expense Intelligence to reduce costs per expense report from EUR 48.82 to under EUR 10, saving approximately EUR 180,000 per year.

Initial Situation in the SME Sector

The focus is on a medical technology company with 380 employees, headquartered in Southern Germany, with sales structures in Austria and Switzerland. The company operates with a compact finance team consisting of a CFO, Finance Lead, three accounting staff, and decentralized approval managers in sales and service.

The volume of expenses was typical for this size, but the processes were largely manual. Receipts arrived as paper, photos, or PDFs; audits took place in multiple loops; and inquiries were handled via email. Furthermore, there was a lack of transparency regarding policy violations, duplicate bookings, and spending patterns by country, team, and cost center.

Cost Profile Before the Transition

The internal analysis was based on standard EU benchmarks for manual expense processes. Conservative assumptions were used for the case calculation:

• 420 expense reports per month (5,040 reports per year).
• Processing involved employees, team leads, and accounting with multiple verification steps.
• High volume of inquiries due to missing receipts, wrong categories, and improperly applied travel policies.
• Total cost per manually processed report: EUR 48.82.
• Annual process costs: 5,040 x EUR 48.82 = EUR 246,053.

This did not include delays in the monthly closing or time lost within the departments. Based purely on process costs, the pressure to act was clear from the CFO's perspective.

Why edi and Expense Intelligence?

The decision was made not because of a single feature, but due to the combination of automation, policy logic, and analytics. The goal was not a simple capture tool, but a system that maps auditing, categorization, approval, and transfer to financial accounting seamlessly.

The project lasted ten weeks, involving the CFO, Finance Lead, Accounting, IT, and the HR function responsible for travel policies. The first step involved recording the current process, including exceptions by country and function. This was followed by digital policy rules, receipt recognition, automatic pre-accounting, approval workflows, and ERP integration. A reporting layer made it possible—for the first time—to see where violations, outliers, and unnecessary loops were occurring.

There were friction points: historical master data quality was inconsistent, international rules had to be harmonized, and not all managers immediately accepted the new approval discipline. Crucially, Finance led the transition as a management project rather than delegating it to IT.

Cost Profile After Implementation

Six months after go-live, the process had stabilized. Processing was largely digital, inquiries dropped significantly, and the "first-time-right" rate rose noticeably.

• Still 5,040 expense reports per year.
• Process costs per report after automation: EUR 9.20.
• Annual process costs: 5,040 x EUR 9.20 = EUR 46,368.
• Direct process savings: EUR 246,053 - EUR 46,368 = EUR 199,685 per year.
• Additionally, there were shorter lead times, fewer reconciliations in accounting, and better visibility into spending by team, country, and policy.

ROI over 12 Months

The company factored in disclosed project and license costs. Even then, the business case remained clearly positive:

• Previous costs p.a.: EUR 246,053
• New costs p.a.: EUR 46,368
• Direct savings p.a.: EUR 199,685
• One-time implementation/integration costs: EUR 24,000
• License and operating costs (Year 1): EUR 18,000
• Total solution costs (Year 1): EUR 42,000
• Net effect in the first year: EUR 157,685
• From Year 2 onwards, the savings are approximately EUR 182,000 p.a. (as only license and operating costs remain).
• Payback period: just under 3 months.

Lessons for CFOs

First, process costs in expense management are often underestimated in SMEs. Those who focus only on license costs miss the actual lever. What matters is the total cost per transaction.

Second, automation only works on the basis of clear standards. Inconsistent policies, weak master data, and local special rules make any digitalization more expensive.

Third, expense data is more than just an accounting byproduct. When analyzed correctly, it provides insights into cost behavior, compliance risks, and management potential in sales, service, and leadership.

Recommendations for 2026

In 2026, CFOs should start with three key metrics: cost per expense report, lead time to approval, and the rate of error-free initial processing. Based on these, it can be determined whether a process is standardizable and thus automatable.

It is crucial not to underestimate the implementation as a mere software project. Those who do not translate policies cleanly, fail to clarify exceptions, or do not involve the departments will simply shift existing problems into a new system. However, the case outlined here shows that with a clean implementation, annual savings of around EUR 180,000 are realistically achievable, even in a medium-sized environment.