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