How the CFO of Total Tool Supply reinvented their expense management process

Founded in 1977, Total Tool Supply, Inc. is a family-run business that supplies mechanical tools, services and solutions to construction and industrial clients across North America. With 14 locations and over 230 employees across the United States, the company aims to provide the best products and services to those involved in building and maintaining facilities and systems.

To achieve this, Total Tool relies on a sales and operations force located across the country who are usually on the road.

Business trips and business expenses naturally come with the territory. How long would employees have to wait to be reimbursed? And how much time would accountants spend processing every paper expense report?

To find out more about these challenges, we spoke to Paul Smejkal, Total Tool Supply’s CFO.

The Challenge of Total Tool

When Paul joined the company a couple of years ago, expense reporting was a manual Excel-based process. "It was cumbersome. Receipts got lost. Things were not submitted in a timely fashion. It just wasn’t a good process.”

Employees would send in the expense reports in an envelope; the Accounts Payable team would gather all the reports, assign a category to each (or try to guess the category each expense referred to), and manually enter all the expenses into an Excel sheet. Salespeople, in particular, used to spend a huge amount of time collecting receipts and “when it was still a paper-based system, no one wanted to do expenses because it was painful. Sometimes they’d save up two or three months’ worth of expenses because it was just a pain to do.”

“When it was still a paper-based system, no one wanted to do expenses because it was painful. Sometimes they’d save up two and three months’ worth of expenses because it was just a pain to do.”

Paul Smejkal, CFO

That was the harsh reality, but also the challenge for Paul. Because he had used another solution at his previous company, he was already aware of the potential impact of expense management tools. It was time to re-evaluate which players are on the market and make a decision.

The Solution

Before choosing a new solution, Paul did some research on different options and compared their features. 

Paul uses Rydoo to submit his expenses and to gain insights into the company’s total expenditure. He also uses it for financial reporting, and now sales managers receive a monthly summary of their employees’ expenses so they can track how much they spend on various activities. “The analytics functionality is so helpful for our managers. This has increased visibility and awareness of what their employees are actually spending on various activities, so they can intervene when necessary.”

"When I saw the Rydoo application, I tested it myself. I found it to be much easier to use. We need employees to be able to submit expenses and do so quickly and efficiently.”

Paul Smejkal, CFO

Not only are CFO Paul and the managers benefiting from the new process, but the finance team has also eliminated one manual process. Before, about 80 people were submitting paper expense reports, and we estimated that each report took us 20 to 25 minutes to process. Now, we just don’t have that. It just simply doesn’t exist. That’s pure savings from our standpoint.” Also, users used to spend 4 to 5 hours per month on expense reports, and now they spend less than an hour.

Thanks to the data gathered in the platform, Paul now can re-adjust the expense policy and sales managers are able to give better directions to salespeople, which, as he told us: “Is actually very positive, because we’re all about our salespeople and supporting the sales process, but we also need to be smart about it in how we spend our dollars.”

The insights that come to Paul now, as the CFO, also help him at a higher level.

“We set our plans and budget for the future. We can finally start setting guidelines on how much we should spend in certain expense categories. There was no guidance before.”

Paul Smejkal, CFO

For the Accounts Payable team, it’s definitely faster now. They no longer receive envelopes full of receipts and don’t have to manually enter expenses in an Excel sheet. “We have the actual person who is incurring the expense categorising it correctly and waiting for the sales manager to approve it. Then, accountants go through and make sure we’re following the rules, like looking for duplicate expenses, which the system clearly shows. So it added to the accuracy of our financial information.”

Results

As Paul proudly confirms: “The Rydoo platform allows our people to do their expenses not just in real-time but also very quickly and accurately. It gets them on a timely basis that we’re paying them on time as well. Now, every week, we reimburse people for their expenses. It’s just a weekly cycle that we’re i,n and it’s perfect.”

“One of the biggest benefits for the team is not just the time saving or that they don’t have to keep the receipts anymore, but the fact that they are being reimbursed every week and not on a monthly basis anymore.”

Paul Smejkal, CFO

We asked Paul about employee feedback on Rydoo’s app, and we were really happy to hear that “they’ve all expressed their appreciation for this change.” In the end, “It’s not just about managing expenses, but managing relationships. It’s a completely different mindset,” as Paul stated.

Automation and digitalisation of processes are not just a trend, but a different approach for your company. Expectations for CFOs to start acting as digital mentors are rising, which Paul has understood very well.