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Welcome
Finance @ Tableau | Using Travel Data to Drive Business Decisions
Lauren Ausmus
Sr Financial Analyst
Tableau
What to expect in this session
• What do we currently do to manage travel expense at Tableau?
• What else can we be using this data for?
FP&A’s Role
FP&A is being asked by mgmt. to support the organization by delivering deep insight and greater value more efficiently and effectively
• Incorporating more advanced analytics into regular planning and decision-making activities
• Leveraging business acumen to identify opportunities where analytics can drive performance
• Harnessing big data and more advanced and accessible modeling techniques
Use Case—Tableau Sales T&E Expense
How do I Get my Data?
Tableau employs a team of Finance Analytics professionals that curate data sources in Tableau for finance’s use including:
• GL Data (Netsuite)• Travel (Egencia)• Expenses (Concur)• HR Data (Workday)
These are tested regularly for accuracy and completeness
Scenario
• Tableau Sales hosts an annual all-hands meeting in the first half of each fiscal year
• May 2016 Attendee Count ~1500
• Most expenses for the event are fixed, the biggest ‘wild card’ are air transportation and on-the-ground spend during the event
However…
• When actual expenses for the event were reconciled during close, the T&E variance was significant!
• Several million dollars over budget; a 60% unfavorable T&E variance in sales alone
Oh No! How Did This Happen?
• Fraud?
• Tone at the top?
• Expense duplication?
• Non-compliance with Travel and Expense Policy?
What Now?
• How do I get the data I need to determine how this happened?
• Once I have the data, how do I make it actionable/useful?
• What other insights can I glean from this information?
How do I Make the Data Actionable/Useful?
• Relevant—metrics are relevant and understandable
• Timely—issues can be remediated during the same month
• Accessible—budget owners need full visibility into their own teams (and not into others)
• Repeatable—monthly reporting
Phase I
• FP&A built monthly monitoring vizzes to track T&E behavior, filtered at the team level, to report back to leadership trends and outlying behavior
• These are published on an internal server and distributed monthly along with insightful commentary from FP&A, identifying areas of concern or potential non-compliance
• Internal Audit uses the same vizzes for sampling and oversight
Flight Benchmarking
• What types of seasonal
trends are we seeing?
• Do certain travel types
cost the company more
money?
• What kinds of
behaviors can we
control to save costs?
Hotel Benchmarking
• Are we seeing habitual
over-spenders for
hotels?
• Should we consider
different locations for
internal meetings?
• What kinds of
behaviors can we
control to save costs?
Meal Spend
• Are people using the
correct expense type
when they submit in
Concur?
• Are exceptions to
policy reasonable?
• Can we easily identify
duplicates or errors?
Results
• Year-over-year travel expense per HC decreased 8%
• Functional self-monitoring tool for all departments
• Expense management far more predictable
But there’s more…
Phase II
Reporting is iterative! Once immediate problems were solved, other business problems can be tackled:
• Are the Policies in place reasonable / reflect the realities of the business?
• Should we consider staffing certain job types based on travel destinations?
• How can we create other efficiencies?
Cell Phone Usage / Policy Mgmt
• How do we identify
when we’re at a
breakeven point to
consider a corporate
cell phone plan?
• What would a change
to policy cost the
Company?
Location Planning
• Why is travel to certain
cities so high? Should
we consider staffing
local talent there?
• Where should we be
planning our internal
meetings to minimize
travel cost?
• Should we consider
subcontract labor in
some markets?
Self-Service Reporting
• How do we provide reporting for individuals and for people-managers?
• Can we cut down on administrative burden?
Conclusions/Recommendations
• Answer critical questions first, take care of “low hanging fruit”
• Never shy away from “what if…”
• Communicate clearly and effectively, bring the data to life
• Solicit feedback and recommendations from customers/audience
Resources
• On-demand and live online videos: http://www.tableau.com/learn/training
• Live product demos: http://www.tableau.com/learn/demos
• Whitepapers: http://www.tableau.com/learn/whitepapers
• Webinars: http://www.tableau.com/learn/webinars
• Starter workbooks for T&E data: https://www.tableau.com/resource/travel-and-expense
• Tableau Doctor – Wednesday 12p-4p
Please complete the
session survey from the
Session Details screen
in your TC18 app
Thank you!
#TC18
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