“What I now find extremely positive is that you can also book directly via the tool, so I can do everything in one tool.”
Personio
Personio is a successful software provider in the HR sector. In recent years, the company’s 500 employees have been able to support more than 2,500 satisfied customers in the digitization process of the entire HR lifecycle.
The Personio team is internationally positioned and has offices in Madrid, London and Dublin in addition to the headquarters in Munich.
We spoke to Nadine and Christopher about the benefits that Lanes & Planes has brought to the company and how much time and what advantages the use of the tool actually brings to employees.
As Office Manager at Personio, Nadine is responsible for ensuring that employees are happy and have everything they need, from drinks to muesli and office supplies to sun protection. Together with the VP Finance, she has implemented Lanes & Planes in the company.
Christopher has been working as an Accountant at Personio since September 2019. He is primarily responsible for operational accounting. With four people in the team so far, two working students, a team lead and an accountant, he has been using Lanes & Planes right from the start for expenses as well as for booking and invoicing trips.
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Perceived time saving of 100%
By implementing Lanes & Planes in the company, office management can concentrate on its core tasks again. The employees now book all their trips themselves.
When Personio decided on Lanes & Planes, the focus was mainly on travel. It was important that everything is clearly laid out in one tool and that you don’t have to log in and out of numerous pages from different providers.
When business trips were still booked without a tool, the best flight options and prices had to be painstakingly searched for on the respective portals of the individual providers. Now they are partly based on flight times, which is also easier for employees.
The employees also have less work despite the fact that they book themselves. This is because they used to search for a cheap connection to their destination in advance and then forward the information to the office management. By the time the Office Manager was available and could book the trip, many connections were no longer available. So the search had to start all over again.
Employees can now search for a flight or another connection and book it directly without any additional effort. The inconvenient route to office management and the waiting time until the final booking is made is eliminated, which saves an enormous amount of time.
Nadine used to spend 2 to 3 hours a day in Office Management, sometimes just booking trips and checking expenses. This has been completely eliminated with Lanes & Planes. Now Nadine really does have 50 to 60 percent more time for other things.
Booking trips is extremely fast.
Employees now only need around five to ten minutes to book a trip with an open jaw flight and hotel.
“I recently booked an open jaw flight with hotel and everything in just five minutes!”
Accounting – simple, fast and clear
The accounting department appreciates the ease of use and good structure of the tool. The expenses and expenditure of individual employees can be checked and approved quickly and clearly. If something is not right, the integrated communication function is used to ask the employee directly. The employee can then see directly via the tool why a document was rejected, for example, or why there are still open questions.
Before Lanes & Planes, employees regularly came to us totally insecure with lots of questions about the billing and submission process. Personio now has a clear process.
Christopher also sees workflow optimization as another advantage of Lanes & Planes. Personio works with a three-stage approval process. In the first step, all expenses are checked by working students and comments are added if anything is unclear. This means that communication between travelers and the accounting department is limited to one tool and there is no need for confusing e-mail contact. The employee can also enter comments, such as why they took a cab and not public transportation. Everything can be mapped easily and clearly.
Personio’s accounting department also benefits from the direct interface to the company’s internal accounting tool. The direct DATEV export saves an incredible amount of time and nerves. The accounting department no longer has to scan receipts because there is a good division of labor between accounting and the employee who scans the receipts themselves via the mobile app.
“It is now really self-explanatory for the employees... a time saver for everyone. I have 50-60% more time for other tasks.”
Use as expense and expenditure management
The tool can be used across all companies. All departments, from product and engineering to marketing and management, use the functions of Lanes & Planes.
Lanes & Planes is not only used by Personio for travel, but also for expense reports. For example, when products are purchased or expenses are incurred for a team event. This means that not only employees who are actively traveling submit receipts, but all employees.
Before Corona, when employees were on the road more frequently, there was an average of 75 to 100 receipts per week. Every single ticket, flight receipt, hotel bill and cab receipt had to be processed. It took the accounting department around three hours to check and record everything. Today, accounting can do this in half the time.
Travel guidelines always in view
Personio has general travel guidelines for all employees, regardless of whether they are management or normal employees. Everyone must adhere to the same travel guidelines and budget requirements.
If the employee does not comply with the travel guidelines, the system sends an e-mail. This provides a checking mechanism in advance. Questions can be clarified directly with the employee via the implemented communication tool, thus speeding up the approval process many times over.Personio is also in the process of developing its internal manager approval processes in order to take this task away from the Office Manager and transfer it to the department heads.
“Manual processes are naturally much more prone to errors. Correcting errors afterwards is also time-consuming. We have counteracted this quite well with Lanes & Planes.”
Great support in daily operations
Personio describes Lanes & Planes as very flexible and a good business partner with whom you can not only work well together, but also develop different ideas.
Special mention is also made of the 24-hour support, which is always available to help with problems. Lanes & Planes offers great support in the daily routine.
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