How SHRM Reduced Expense Processing Time by Over 80%

About SHRM

SHRM is a globally recognized authority on the workplace, helping HR professionals and organizations navigate the changing world of work through industry-leading knowledge, tools, and resources.

Like many growing organizations, SHRM's finance team managed employee expense reimbursements through Excel spreadsheets and manual approvals. While the process worked, it consumed valuable finance time, delayed reimbursements, and left room for human error.

The Challenge

Manual reimbursements were slowing finance operations.

Before Zaggle, employees submitted expense claims through Excel sheets along with supporting bills. Every reimbursement travelled through multiple approval levels before reaching Finance for verification.

At scale, this created several operational bottlenecks.

Manual verification consumed finance bandwidth.

Every bill had to be reviewed individually. Finance teams manually matched receipts, verified expenses, and checked for duplicate submissions, making the process both time-consuming and susceptible to oversight.

Lengthy approval cycles delayed reimbursements.

With approvals spread across multiple stakeholders, reimbursements typically took 7 to 10 days to process, delaying employee payouts and increasing administrative effort.

Policy violations and duplicate claims were difficult to identify.

Without automated validations, policy exceptions and duplicate bills depended entirely on manual review, increasing the risk of revenue leakages.

Month-end closing required significant manual effort.

Finance teams consolidated expense data manually across spreadsheets before reconciliation, making month-end close slower and more resource intensive.

Employees often missed reimbursements.

Receipts were misplaced, bills were forgotten, and expense claims were frequently delayed simply because employees couldn't submit them while travelling or working remotely.

The Solution

A mobile-first expense management platform for employees and finance.

SHRM implemented Zaggle's Employee Travel & Expense platform to digitize its reimbursement process from expense submission through approvals and reconciliation.

What we deployed

• Mobile expense submission. Employees can upload bills and submit reimbursements instantly from anywhere, whether they're travelling, working remotely, or in the office.

• Automated approval workflows. Expense claims move through configured approval hierarchies digitally, eliminating manual follow-ups and paperwork.

• Policy-driven expense validation. Built-in policy checks automatically flag violations during submission, helping prevent non-compliant claims before they reach Finance.

• Centralized reporting and reconciliation. Every approved expense flows into a consolidated report, giving Finance a single source of truth for reconciliation and month-end closing.

• Digital audit trail. Expense records, approvals, and supporting documents remain securely stored and easily accessible for review.

The Impact

OPERATIONAL

Expense reimbursement processing reduced from 7 to 10 days to just 1 to 2 days. Employees now submit claims immediately through the mobile app, eliminating forgotten bills and reducing manual follow-ups.

FINANCIAL

Automated validations reduced duplicate claims, minimized revenue leakages, improved processing accuracy, and simplified reconciliation, allowing Finance to close books faster with reliable expense data.

CONTROL

Built-in policy checks automatically identify policy violations before approval, improving compliance while giving Finance greater visibility and control over every reimbursement.

SHRM Speaks

"Post implementing Zaggle, reimbursement processing time reduced from approximately one week to ten days down to just one or two days. It has significantly improved our finance operations while helping us reduce policy violations, revenue leakages, and manual effort. If I had to describe Zaggle in three words, they would be ease of use, cost-efficient, and reliable."

-Suyash Tibrewal
Finance Head, SHRM India