Saving 200+ Man-Hours With An Automated Reimbursement System

If you’ve been in the technology industry for the past year, you must have heard buzzwords like low code or no code in the community, then you and I are on the same page. Forbes has called No code/Low code the most disruptive trend in 2021 because it has changed the way organizations function. By 2024, 75% of large enterprises will be using at least four low-code development tools for both IT application development and citizen development initiatives.

To efficiently process employee reimbursements and quickly put an efficient system in place, a risk mitigation technology company took the low-code approach to build the data collection and approval workflow set up necessary. The app is helping the organization manage expenditures coming from all employees and allowing them to keep up with changing procedures that are in line with IRS rules and regulations no matter where their accounting/finance team is located.

Key features of the app:

~Seamless self-service portal for employees to request reimbursements

• One-stop data collection with all supporting documentation
• Provision to upload multimedia like bills and receipts
• Data validation to ensure incorrect/invalid information is not submitted

~ An approval system for administration to review and approve reimbursement claims

• Notification — In-app, over email, over a platform like Slack
• Provision to define multi-stage approval levels
• Database to track total spend across expense heads and departments

How can you build a Reimbursement Application for your team?

The reimbursement app suite can be briefly divided into four stages:

1. Submission by employee
2. Approval by manager
3. Processing of reimbursed amount
4. Getting reimbursed. (necessary stakeholders are updated, the database is updated)

Let’s look at what the application really looks like and how it works around the organization.

Application

Using DronaHQ’s drag and drop builder I’ve added the required components from the controls menu. The process is very straightforward, an employee has to enter their details, provide a receipt for financial proof and submit a request for reimbursement.

To regulate the amount entered by the employee to a certain amount which in this case is 5000, I have added a rule and validation defining the same.

Workflow

The approval workflow will be a three-step approval cycle. First the employee’s respective manager, then the HR team and Finance department.

The workflow is the backend process that takes place for the functioning of an application, in this case, I have put multiple stages of approval tasks for the system which when approved by all would process the reimbursement applied. The first step of workflow focuses on details being entered by the employee are updated into the database by the function AddDetails.

The second step of the workflow is an approval and rejection system where the manager will decide to approve the reimbursement or reject it. The same system has been added to each approved node in order to build 3 step approvals.

The details entered by the employee will get stored in a database sheet. The sheet has been created on the same platform and linked to the application for the management and future use.

Automating the Approval Cycle

This is what your approving team will do on their login interface once you apply for reimbursement. The approval period has been set for 24 hours, after which the task would be reassigned. This view would be available for all three stages of approval. If rejected from any one of the stages, the application will get rejected and reimbursement will not be processed.

The details of the application would also be visible for the approver to ensure that all details provided are in place and to make the correct decision.

Once approved by all three: manager, HR, and finance department. your organizational interface will give you updates for the same.

As it is approved by every level, hence the three notifications. And it’s done. That’s it. Pretty cool right? I’m currently working on inculcating another communication connector with the application to provide notifications to employees.

My final thoughts

Inculcating such a small automated process into business can be of great help without even realizing it. Innovation plays a significant role in understanding how your expense management software can scale with your business. And innovating applications by yourself through low code gives immense satisfaction.

You can include all kinds of third-party connectors for the smooth functioning of your customized workflow. One can design and add as many separate functions, screens, validation, and rules as you feel like it. One can also define levels of who can apply for how much amount and basically inculcate corporate policies into the application interface.

I used the platform DronaHQ, it’s quick to understand and easy to work with. As a first-timer of working with low-code, I really enjoyed it. It’s super-efficient and fast. There’s no need to sit and scribble rough code structure in your notebook and then sit to code and finally get frustrated with errors.

Why don’t you give it a try and let me know how it goes? You can get started with a very basic and simple use case and build on it as you go ahead.