1. Success Profile
Moving Beyond T&E
to Maximize Cost Savings
American® Electric Power
Columbus, Ohio USA through Expense Automation
www.aep.com
“SumTotal provides solutions that drive im- BUSINESS CHALLENGES
plementation costs down, while delivering a ■ Fragmented corporate card program made comprehensive reporting difficult
more effective process, and giving us access ■ Deficient reporting resulted in non-compliance
to important information.”
■ Unable to identify fraudulent claims
— Steve Quincel
Manager of Employee Expenses
American Electric Power
SOLUTION
■ Implemented SumTotal’s Expense Management solution to 14,000 employees
Fast Facts RESULTS
Industry: Electrical Utility
■ $1.6M spend reduction
Region: North America
■ $500K rebate through consolidation of card programs
Submitters: 14,000 +
■ $350K savings in processing costs
Solution: SumTotal Expense Management
■ Reduced fraud and personal usage to 0.06%
Integration: PeopleSoft
■ Employee reimbursement improved from 6 weeks to 48 hours
Card Provider: Bank One MasterCard
Based in Columbus, Ohio, American Electric Power, AEP (NYSE:AEP) is one of the
largest electric utilities in the United States, with almost five million customers on
its extensive roster. As a household name and the largest electricity generator in the
U.S., AEP owns and operates more than 42,000 megawatts of generating capacity
in domestic and select international markets. Upon successful consolidation of
several corporate cards and vendors into one program, AEP sought to further leverage
its savings through a complete centralization of its expense reporting platform.
THE CHALLENGE
With expense reporting as fragmented as its corporate card programs pre-merger,
AEP lacked a meaningful way by which to gain comprehensive insight into company
purchasing and T&E card spend patterns. Without this information, the company
was at a loss to capture hidden savings, negotiate and maximize preferred rates
with suppliers and identify ‘maverick’ employee spend on multiple cards. AEP
needed a way to identify fraudulent claims on expenses being processed and
www.sumtotalsystems.com

2. “While the numbers are clear, employees to strengthen compliance within the organization. As a large public utility, AEP
are also quite happy about the additional needed to comply with a number of auditing rules and government acts - making
convenience posed by using only one card, their expense tracking a priority.
eliminating confusion, and speeding up the Being able to deter any fraudulent claims through visibility was a necessary step
reimbursement cycle. Process improvements for AEP for financial reasons, as well as corporate compliance with policy and
made possible by SumTotal have freed up control over spend.
internal resources and given employees time
to focus on higher priority tasks.”
To move away from paper-based systems and relieve overextended resources
assigned to manual expense processing, AEP needed a single approach that
— Steve Quincel would remove the administrative burden and bring all the necessary pieces
Manager of Employee Expenses together. “Our high volume of corporate card users, coupled with an extremely
American Electric Power cumbersome expense reporting process, led us to seek a high performance,
robust solution that could quickly produce and improve service levels throughout
the organization,” said Steve Quincel, Manager, Employee Expenses at AEP.
“With fragmented programs, we weren’t able to conduct any sort of centralized
reporting, so we had no idea how much we had spent with any particular vendor,”
said Quincel. “An exhaustive review of our processes, as well as of several
expense management solution vendors, opened the door to our relationship with
SumTotal and its highly competent team of professionals.”
RESULTS
In selecting the SumTotal Expense Management web-based solution, AEP began
to witness process improvements almost immediately. “Automation has enabled us
to eliminate the re-keying of expense data and as a result, dramatically increase
the accuracy of the data being captured,” explained Quincel. “With SumTotal, we
now get it right the first time around.”
Through automated email notifications to managers for expense approval, AEP
has cut its reimbursement process from as much as six weeks to a mere 48 hours.
“The electronic expense system - since it has workflow built into it - is so much
faster than trying to move hard copy around. We’re able to turn things around so
quickly that it is possible to complete an expense report and be reimbursed within
two business days,” stated Quincel.
When AEP first started using SumTotal’s solution it was for the framework of T&E
expenses alone, but once they realized the solution was able to process any
number of employee business expenses, they quadrupled the spend processed
through the system and extended it to all other accounts of spend - using the
solution to deliver more efficiency outside of just travel and entertainment.
As for the consolidation of its card programs to Bank One MasterCard, AEP has
benefited from higher merchant acceptance, as well as a $500,000 first year
rebate by capturing all company purchasing and T&E spend from one spot. Named
a “Best-in-Class Finance Organization” by Deloitte and Touche, the company has
ess Whitepaper: The Future
, of Strategic Mobile Workforce also experienced further savings that are attributed to its Accounting department.
& Expense Management AEP now saves $3.50 per expense report on a total of 8500 reports submitted per
month, which represents a $357,000 annual reduction in processing costs.
Whitepaper: Applying Lean “While the numbers are clear, employees are also quite happy about the additional
Manufacturing Initiatives to convenience posed by using only one card, eliminating confusion, and speeding
Workforce & Expense Management
up the reimbursement cycle,” said Quincel. “Process improvements made possible
by SumTotal have freed up internal resources and given employees time to focus
LL, on higher priority tasks.”
al, www.sumtotalsystems.com
Go

3. About SumTotal Perhaps one of the most significant benefits of automating expense reporting is the
ability for AEP to maximize spend data to negotiate preferred vendor rates. Using
SumTotal Systems, Inc. is the global leader this information to drive negotiations, the company has reduced its spend in this
strategic Human Capital Management area by $1.6 million per year. Better yet, AEP is not dependent on its corporate
(HCM) solutions that provide organizations card to provide the data, as SumTotal’s solution allows for a consolidated view
with a new level of visibility to help make of travel spend through a daily feed. “SumTotal has done the mapping work to
more informed business decisions and take the MasterCard feed and pull it into our expense system, allowing us to view
accelerate growth. Recognized by indus- spending patterns with ease and enforce corporate policies.”
try analysts as the most complete solution,
Whitepapers
With 14,000 users now on SumTotal Expense Management, AEP is exploring Executive Guide: Impr
SumTotal provides full employee lifecycle
management, including a core system of
further efficiencies in its business processes by uncovering hidden costs associated through S
Talent Management Performance
record, from a single provider for improved
with VAT, offered to clients in partnership with a third party vendor. An additional Custome
Compensation Management Partners, and
business intelligence. The company offers
enhanced feature offered Performance Management
by SumTotal is receipt imaging, which effectively scans
customers of all sizes and industries the
paper and allows for the Learning Management (LMS)
elimination of physical retention of these receipts.
most flexibility and choice with multiple Extended Enterprise
Through connecting its consolidated card program with SumTotal’s automated, best-
Whitepaper
purchase, configuration, and deployment of-breed solution, AEP has become the Planning
Succession model and benchmark for organizations
Hiring & Recruiting Management Building a Business Ca
options. We have increased the perfor- looking to adopt best practices in expense management. SumTotal has delivered
E-Learning for Externa
mance of the world’s largest organizations the powerful functionality and exceptional performance AEP requires to maintain its
including Sony Electronics (NYSE: SNE), Go
high quality of service to its internal and external customers and to simultaneously
AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN [ADR]; London: reap the financial rewards.
AZN), Amway (KUL:AMWAY), Seagate Case Studies: Orbitz, C
(NYSE: STX), Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), and International Rectifier,
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). For more Next Steps Pharmacy Systems, Inc
information, or to request a demo, please
call +1 (800) 881-2546 (US / Canada), +1-352-264-2800
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About AEP Visit the Resource Center
Resources from Sum
American Electric Power is one of the www.sumtotalsystems.com
largest electric utilities in the United
States, delivering electricity to more than
5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks
among the nation’s largest generators
of electricity, owning nearly 38,000
megawatts of generating capacity in the
U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest
electricity transmission system. AEP’s
utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP
Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and
West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power
(in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power,
Kentucky Power, Public Service Company
of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric
Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana
and east Texas). AEP’s headquarters are
in Columbus, Ohio.
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