Avantgarde moved to a fully digitised expense solution — and it paid off

Have you ever heard of a company that builds 20×20 metre car vending machines? Or one that organises disability sports fairs on National Paralympic Day, or one that displays a live medal count during the Olympics? Meet Avantgarde, one of the world's most cutting-edge agencies and a proud Rydoo customer.

Avantgarde calls itself a “brand experience agency”. It hasn't used that term forever, though. In fact, it all started with an “avant-garde” fashion show back in the '80s. Throughout the years, Avantgarde has maintained its avant-garde spirit and achieved many other remarkable things. 'Elevating brands out of the murkiness that they may be in' is how Victor Görgey, Client Service Director in the Digital team, summarises these remarkable feats.

A digital native’s dream

Victor’s Digital team is primarily responsible for – surprisingly – “digitising as much as possible” within the company. It was just a matter of time until Avantgarde’s expense management process would come under the close scrutiny of the Digital Team.

“We had already implemented an ERP system called EasyJOB a long time ago, but were still using too much paper in our day-to-day expense process”, Victor explains. “By using paper I mean keeping original paper receipts, scanning them into the computer, printing out sheets and all that other hugely time-consuming stuff. So it was about time we digitise our travel and expense management as well.”

Victor, also known as “iPad owner number four in Germany”, wears the nickname “digital native” as a badge of pride. “We absolutely wanted a solution with a mobile app. It just makes everything easier.” Next to Rydoo’s on-the-go approach, the integrations capabilities with Avantgarde’s ERP system were key in the decision process. “Rydoo’s two-step approval workflow, kind of mimicked the workflow we had already been using a long time in EasyJOB, so there is no point denying that that was a big plus.”

For Victor, it was love at first sight with Rydoo.

“Rydoo was basically the first online tool I found, and I just stuck with it. If it looks good and it's affordable, I’m okay with choosing the first one that I find. I have to be honest.”

Victor Görgey, Client Service Director

Say yes to change!

Victor’s story about Avantgarde, the bunch of digital, creative minds, and Rydoo’s online expense management tool, seems like a match made in heaven. But life is not a bed of roses. “We may look like really cool and hip people, but the truth is that most of our people are not so open to change,” Victor admits. “It really had been a valley of tears when we introduced EasyJOB. But I believe that sometimes we need to encourage our people and clearly say: please download this app."

According to Victor. “Afterwards, when they see how easy it is, their reluctance melts away like snow in the sun. Take a look at our accountants, for example. They are perhaps the least open to change, but you should see how they love to decline expenses now.”

“Together with Rydoo, we have already implemented a new approval process. It was the vision of our CFO to have more responsibility at the director level, so now every director needs to approve expenses of every employee within his or her own team. Again, people don’t like change, but approving expenses is part of a director’s job description and Rydoo has made it a lot easier to do this job.”

Any hurdles?

Transitioning from a fully paper-based process to a paperless system is rarely seamless. As Victor explains, the shift required adjustments along the way.

"It’s not so self-evident to move from a completely paper-filled office to a paperless office without having some steps in between,” Victor explains. “We would have appreciated greater flexibility in report customisation. There was also some initial confusion around exporting receipt images in PDF format. We now know it’s possible, but at the time it wasn’t entirely clear.”

What’s up next?

For Avantgarde, the cost of implementing Rydoo definitely did not outweigh the benefits. “Let me be honest with you: we’re not the kind of company that is going to examine the return on investment to the cent. Sometimes the soft facts already tell you enough: it just generally feels easier, our accounting team has less to do, and yes, we are saving money – maybe half a person per month.”

"We want to expand the use of Rydoo as much as possible throughout our organisation."

Victor Görgey, Client Service Director

Now that everything is working smoothly, Victor is already thinking about expanding Rydoo to all of its other offices. “We want to expand the use of Rydoo as much as possible throughout our organisation. I am a man of logic: it just makes sense to have the same workflow everywhere. Let’s do it!