Automating Travel Expense Accounting for an International Pharmaceutical Group with UiPath

SoftwareHut developed a UiPath software robot to support travel expense accounting for an international pharmaceutical group using several hundred corporate credit cards. The automation saved approximately one full-time equivalent annually, equal to around 30% of the accounting team’s resources.

The client was an international pharmaceutical group whose employees used several hundred corporate credit cards for business travel expenses.

Company regulations required paper receipts and invoices before expenses could be accepted and recorded. This created a process dependent on employees submitting physical documents on time.

The accounting team had to compare corporate credit card statements with expenses registered in the company’s internal travel expense settlement system.

When an employee failed to report a payment or provide the required document, accounting specialists had to identify the missing information and contact the cardholder. Repeating these checks across several hundred cards increased the team’s administrative workload and caused delays in posting expenses.

Late submission of receipts and invoices also temporarily limited the value of expenses that could be treated as tax-deductible costs.

SoftwareHut developed an attended software robot using the UiPath automation platform. An employee launched the robot after the paper documents received by the accounting team had been processed. The dependency on physical documents prevented the process from running according to a fixed schedule.

After being launched, the robot:

1. Logged into the enterprise resource planning system.
2. Retrieved corporate credit card statement data.
3. Compared card payments with expenses recorded in the internal travel expense settlement system.
4. Identified payments that had not been reported by the cardholder.
5. Checked the cardholder’s email information and sent a reminder about the missing settlement.
6. Detected expenses that had been reported but still lacked the required documents. 
7. Sent notifications based on the status and urgency of each case.

The robot used more than twelve notification types. It also checked whether the cardholder had an assistant. When an assistant was assigned, the reminder was sent to that person and the cardholder received a copy.

This approach allowed the automated communication to follow the organisation’s existing responsibilities and workflow.

The software robot saved approximately one full-time equivalent of work per year. This represented around 30% of the accounting team’s available resources.

Regular reminders encouraged employees to provide paper receipts and invoices sooner. This shortened posting delays and improved the timeliness and accuracy of expense accounting.

Faster document collection also allowed the client to recognise tax-deductible expenses earlier, supporting savings through a lower tax base.